FOOD ADDITIVES AND INGREDIENTS ASSOCIATION 

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In the Mix
How does the human body keep itself going? By taking in what it needs
from the environment. That means food. But what we and the body
think of as food is rather different. The body cannot digest whole food.
It breaks it down into molecules of sugars and peptides which it then
builds into body tissues: protein, fats, DNA and the rest. Body tissues
are amazingly complicated chemical structures and they have to be
made correctly or else they will not function at all.

Chemistry is the medium of life and whether the body works well or
not depends on very precise chemistry. The only reason that the body
prefers traditional solid food to a liquid diet of essential nutrients is that
the gut has evolved as a churning machine and it needs bulk – fibre – to
remain healthy.

The body is not interested in wholeness –

quite the reverse

Keeping this in mind, the debate about our diet takes on a new
dimension. If, for example, instead of going through the usual digestive
processes, food were broken down chemically outside the body and
then swallowed, it would be taken up by the body in exactly the same
way. A great deal is known about the chemistry of food and this
knowledge is brought to bear in preparing food in order to improve its
properties in many ways. This is where additives and ingredients come
in.

The right chemicals in the right place at the

right time

In the early days of food science some visionaries went so far as to

suggest that chemistry would one day provide all our essential nutrients
in a palatable form, thus doing away with the need to grow food and
rear animals. The distaste for messy, disease-ridden nature that some
scientific nutritionists used to feel have been replaced by a veneration
for all things natural and organic. But the body’s wisdom is closer to
nutritionists’ vision than to that of the organic lobby. It needs the right
chemicals in the right place at the right time and it really doesn’t mind
how it gets them.

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FOOD ADDITIVES AND INGREDIENTS ASSOCIATION 

“In the early days of food One problem in understanding the chemical
science some visionaries basis of food (and of life itself) is that what we
know of it scientifically contradicts our
went so far as to suggest
subjective notions
that chemistry by itself
would one day provide all Everyday language leads us astray when we are dealing with the
our essential nutrients in a complexities of living systems. Words associated with nature are
palatable form.” used to suggest simplicity, wholeness and purity, whereas the word
chemistry suggests complexity and pollution. In fact, chemistry
began with great simplicity, trying to understand what were the
irreducibly pure elements in existence, such as hydrogen, oxygen
and carbon. But when chemicals from living things were analysed
they were found to be of bewildering complexity. Many chemists
have devoted their life’s work to understanding the structure of a
single molecule of life.

Scientists have discovered that out of the

thousands of chemicals in living cells some have
very specific functions

Purity is not nature’s strong point: many of its apparently simple sub-
stances, like milk for example, contain hundreds of chemicals bal-
anced in a delicate physical condition. Milk itself is a very complex
emulsion of tiny fat particles suspended in a watery solution.
Dissolved in the fatty particles are some vitamins, phospholipids,
carotenoids and cholesterol; the watery portion contains proteins,
mineral salts, milk sugar (lactose) and water-soluble vitamins.

These active chemicals are often synthesized and used instead of or

alongside natural components. Citric acid, for example, the acid
The chemical protein which gives lemons their tang, used to be extricated from lemons but
is now usually made by microbiological fermentation. Citric acid is a
factory inside every cell. very simple chemical – always the same whatever its source. Vanilla
To function and keep the used to be a rare, expensive and exotic flavour extracted from the
body going this intricate vanilla orchid, found in South America. The flavour is due in the
mechanism has to be fed main to a single chemical, vanillin, which was synthesized as early as
1874. So successful was the introduction of synthetic vanilla that
with the right chemicals “vanilla” is now a byword for the commonplace.  

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 FOOD ADDITIVES AND INGREDIENTS ASSOCIATION 

Sometimes, once a class of active compounds is recognised, similar but

chemically distinct molecules are then developed which fulfil the same
function but which may have enhanced properties. Particular chemical
structures have particular properties, whether as antioxidants,
emulsifiers, flavourings, and nature and chemist alike explore these
properties in a variety of chemicals which have subtly different effects.
There is no essential difference between additives of natural origin and
those of purely synthetic derivation.

How the cook uses a battery of

chemical reagents (better known by their more
homely names) to create familiar foods
“So successful was the
Here is a complex chemical process described introduction of synthetic
step by step: vanilla that “vanilla” is
now a byword for the
In the first stage, glyceryl esters of fatty acids are warmed to increase commonplace.”
their plasticity, then creamed with sucrose, during which stage air
particles become trapped in the mix. Phosphatidyl-ethanolamine is
beaten into the matrix which is now a foam emulsion with, dispersed
inside it, droplets of glyceryl esters of fatty acids and air. Amylopectin
and amylose, sodium bicarbonate and the protein gluten are added.
Crosslinking occurs between disulphide bonds in the gluten, creating a
rubbery texture, with air trapped in the mix. When the mix is heated,
the air and water particles expand, making the foam rise. Ovalbumin
coagulates and stiffens the lining of the cells. Amylopectin and amylose
undergo gelatinisation which further stiffens the mix. The foam expands
and becomes a solid gel with a light porous texture.

This might sound like the production process for something like
expanded polystyrene but it is of course baking a cake, and it is
indeed as precise a physical and chemical process as the description
implies. The process is rarely regarded in such a technical light sim
ply because of its homeliness. What are these ingredients doing? Each
has a distinct physicochemical function: egg yolk contains an excel
lent EMULSIFIER (lecithin), flour contains gluten which is (as in
flour paste) a BINDING AGENT, sugar is a PRESERVATIVE and
SWEETENER. These categories of course sound like additives – and
that is really what they are. All these natural homely ingredients con

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FOOD ADDITIVES AND INGREDIENTS ASSOCIATION 

tain specific chemicals and they are used to achieve a definite effect.
“Everyone knows that Chemical additives grew from our knowledge of the properties of
cake-making is a very these familiar kitchen ingredients. Everyone knows that cake-making
precise art – a false step is a very precise art – a false step can result in a soggy mass rather
than a light, fluffy cake. And this is how additives are used – to
can result in a soggy mass achieve precise effects. The notion that they are superfluous and that
rather than a light, fluffy good food could be produced simply by omitting them is as wrong-
cake” headed as hoping to produce a good cake by throwing the ingredients
together and hoping for the best.

Chemicals have always been welcome in the

kitchen – sodium bicarbonate, pectin,
acetic acid . . .

Every cook is a chemist. The first chemical laboratories, back in the

Middle Ages, were glorified kitchens, and many chemical processes
derived from techniques of cooking. The vital technique of distilla-
tion was perfected in the course of the search for intoxicating drinks.
Such chemical processes have an ancient magic and glamour.

Every kitchen contains a battery of chemical reagents, each with their

specific chemical purpose – eg sodium bicarbonate, pectin, vinegar,
salt – and substances that are not usually thought of as chemicals,
such as milk and eggs, are actually miracle reagents which chemists
would still be incapable of creating if they didn’t already exist. In
many cases, ingredients that sound like chemicals are derived from
natural products: lecithin is found in soya and egg, acetic acid comes
from vinegar, Vitamin C is the active ingredient of lemon juice, and
so on. The principle of using additives is something that every cook,
expert or beginner, is familiar with every time he or she cooks.

Additives have specific purposes and the main

categories are: PRESERVATIVES,
ANTIOXIDANTS, EMULSIFIERS, STABILISERS,
COLOURS AND FLAVOURING AGENTS

Contrary to popular myth, the number of additives used today is

actually not much greater than it was 30 or 40 years ago. A high pro-
portion of additives are natural chemicals found in foodstuffs in lim-

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ited quantities, and very few new additives have been introduced in
recent decades. All additives currently in use, new ones and old ones
alike, must be shown to be safe. In the EU, this is the responsibility of
the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), a body of people appointed
for their independence and expertise. It also has to be shown that
additives are necessary as well as safe, and a list of permitted additives,
together with the foods in which they are allowed and their levels of use,
is laid down in EU-wide legislation. Each permitted additive has a
unique E Number – the “E” simply means that the additive is approved
for use across the EU.

Preservation began with traditional processes,

no less chemical for that: salt, wood smoke,
resin in wines

Many foods go off quickly without preservatives and wastage of food

between the field and the table is still a problem (in Russia, with its
huge size and poor infrastructure it is one of the country’s main prob-
lems).Traditional preservatives have been used for centuries to combat
this. Wood smoke was the first, followed by vinegar, and honey.
Smoking is actually the most dubious of methods because smoke con-
tains a large number of polycyclic hydrocarbons, some of which are
known carcinogens.

All organisms require a narrow range of conditions in which to live: too

acid or too sweet and nothing, not even bacteria can live (it might seem
surprising that sugar is a preservative, but jam, so long as water doesn’t
separate out, is far too sweet for bacteria to grow – patches of mould on
jam occur where water has formed on the surface, significantly diluting
the concentration of sugar). Sulphur dioxide, the most widely used
preservative, has actually been in use since Classical times: in Homer we
read that: “one can drive away foul odours with sulphur and fire”.

Preservatives work by preventing the growth of, or eliminating, “One can drive away foul
microorganisms, some of which are exceedingly dangerous. Most of the odours with sulphur and
preservatives are simple chemicals, very closely related to natural
substances: benzoic acid (E210) for example, occurs in several fruits fire.”
(including the Scandinavian Cloudberry which has 50 times the legal Homer, c.800BC
limit of benzoic acid) and it is widely used in fruit preservation. Sorbic
acid (E200) is an unsaturated acid found in some plants.

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FOOD ADDITIVES AND INGREDIENTS ASSOCIATION 

“There is an increasing Besides being life-giving, oxygen is a potent and

awareness that protection dangerous gas; the body uses antioxidants to
against the ravages of protect itself
oxygen can have a very
One of the most potent and dangerous gases on earth is oxygen.
beneficial effect on health.” Surprised? Surely oxygen is the stuff of life – it is other gases like
nitrogen, carbon dioxide, chlorine that are life threatening. But
because oxygen is indeed the gas that powers all animals we are blind
to its destructive power. The atmospheric chemist James Lovelock
has said that if the oxygen content of the atmosphere were a little
higher, say 25% (instead of its actual level of 21%), the earth would
be consumed in an enormous uncontrollable forest fire. On a more
mundane level, rusting is a graphic demonstration of what oxygen
does to iron. Living systems are protected against oxidation so long
as they are alive. But all foodstuffs are vulnerable to oxidation. The
most familiar examples are the browning of apples or potatoes
exposed to the air. The well-known remedy for this – a drop of
lemon juice – demonstrates the principle of antioxidation. Lemon
juice contains vitamin C (E300), a powerful antioxidant.

In fats and oils, oxidation is the prime cause of rancidity. All fats and
oils will become rancid given enough exposure to air, sunlight and
heat. Rancid fats are certainly unpleasant to eat and are potentially
dangerous: antioxidants are used to keep fats free from rancidity for a
reasonable period of time.

Oxygen is dangerous to living systems in

many ways

Oxygen can cause breaks in DNA (and hence the risk of cancers), it
can oxidise polyunsaturated fatty acids, and this can contribute
towards heart disease and strokes; and it can damage the proteins that
make up much of our tissue. The proteins in the eye are particularly
vulnerable because light itself assists the oxidation process.

Lemon juice contains the There is increasing awareness that protection against the ravages of
antioxidant vitamin C oxygen can have a very beneficial effect on health, and a great deal of
research is currently underway. There is no doubt that increasing the
which prevents the brown- intake of antioxidants has a preventative effect against both cancer
ing (oxidation) of apples and heart disease but it is not clear which antioxidants are the most
effective.

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Fruits and vegetables contain several antioxidants

besides vitamins C and E

Typical of these antioxidants in fruits and vegetables are the flavonoids

(many of which also provide colour in food), of which quercetin in
onions and apples and epigallocatechin in tea are typical examples. In
one study, increasing vegetable intake by at least 400 g per day resulted
in a 42% reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease. A fruit
currently the subject of much interest is the tomato. Its principal red
pigment, lycopene, has very strong antioxidant properties and lycopene
extracts from tomatoes are being developed as dietary supplements and
food colours.

Oxidation reactions are also implicated in the development of diabetes,

and Vitamin E has been found to have a preventative role here too.
Antioxidants thus have wide-ranging life-protecting properties. Vitamins
C and E are the two substances present in living creatures, including
ourselves, which fulfil the antioxidant role, and which are also widely
used as additives in food processing. A recent survey concluded: “vitamin
C inhibits the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines, stimulates the
immune system, protects against chromosome breakage, and regenerates
vitamin E as part of the antioxidant defence system”. The most common
synthetic antioxidants are butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA; E320) and
butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT; E321).

We all love smooth foods, and they get that way

through the use of emulsifiers and stabilisers

The smoothness and homogeneity of many foodstuffs are central to

their appeal. Take mayonnaise or ice cream – if we find globs of oil
separating out of mayonnaise sauce or chunks of ice in ice cream, we
feel something has gone wrong. But such smoothness doesn’t happen
“naturally” – it is a result of the process of emulsification, in which the
two great legendary incompatibles – oil and water – are persuaded to Oil and water – the two
resolve their differences. legendary incompatibles –
An emulsifier is a molecule in which one end is oil-friendly and the
can be made to sink their
other water-friendly. In this way droplets of oil are surrounded by the differences with emulsifiers.
emulsifier molecule, with the oil core hidden by the water-friendly
tails of the emulsifier. Many living systems use emulsifiers, because

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life itself is a mixture of oil and water. The classic emulsion is milk, a
“The classic emulsion is complex mixture of fat droplets suspended in a watery solution.
milk, a complex mixture Nature’s emulsifiers are proteins and phospholipids. The word lipid
of fat droplets suspended means fat. In a phospholipid the phosphate end of the molecule is
water-soluble and the lipid end fat-soluble.
in a watery solution.”
As with many food additives, the emulsifiers used
in food production are sometimes purified
natural products and sometimes synthetic
chemicals

In cooking, one of the most versatile emulsifiers is egg phospholipid

(lecithin). In many sauces, such as mayonnaise or béarnaise sauce, it
is egg yolk that does the binding and homogenisation. The humble ice
cream is actually one of the most complex foods we encounter –
both a foam and an emulsion – and it could not exist without emul-
sifiers.

The naturals and synthetics have very similar structures. Typical

emulsifiers are lecithins (E322) (mixtures of phospholipids, eg phos-
phatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine, usually from soya),
alginates (E400-4) (derived from seaweed), mono- and di-glycerides
of fatty acids (E471), and esters of monoglycerides of fatty acids
(E472a-f).

It isn’t only creamy sauces that use emulsifiers. Bread and other
baked products, in which solid particles are dispersed in an airy foam,
are enhanced by emulsifiers. Bread, for example, would stale very
quickly without emulsifiers.

At many stages before it reaches the lips food

needs to keep flowing

The physical properties of food – how it handles – are increasingly

important in the world of fast food. Coffee in vending machines,
non-dairy creamers, toppings, all need to flow freely and not to
agglomerate. Naturally many foods tend to stick together when left
and specific agents are needed to prevent this. Many anti-caking
agents are natural products such as talc (E533b) and bentonite
(E558), and some are manufactured, such as silicon dioxide (E551)
(chemically the same as sand but much purer), calcium silicate
(E552) and sodium aluminosilicate (E554).

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Texture – important both for the feel of food and

its digestion – is maintained by thickening and
stabilising agents

Thickening and stabilising agents are gums that help to maintain the
texture of many water-based foods. Technically, gums are not quite
what the term usually implies in everyday use: they are thick and vis-
cous but they are not usually tacky.

Gums come from a range of sources. Many are substances exuded from
plants (gum arabic, locust bean gum), whilst others are derived from
seaweeds (carrageenan and alginates), and many more are derived from
cellulose by chemical modification. Yet another category is produced by
microbiological fermentation – these include gellan gum and xanthan
gum.

All gums are polysaccharides – that is they are related to sugars but with
many sugar units making up a large molecule. This large, cage-like
structure is responsible for the thickness of gums when mixed with
water. The molecule has groups with affinity for water but the large
lattice structure prevents the total solution that occurs with simple
sugars – the result is a gel.

The gums are bland – generally odourless, tasteless and of no energy

value. They do though have a nutritional function besides their
mechanical and cosmetic ones: in digestion they function as fibre, easing
bowel function, and some are used as laxatives.

We need colour in food because all the senses

contribute to the experience of eating

The impression food makes on us is a blend of sensations, and colour

and surface appearance are amongst the most important. Many of the
great experiences in life involve a mix of sensations. In some cuisines,
colour has played a more important part than others – Indian food,
for example, with its saffron-coloured rice and the lurid red of tan-
doori chicken, is very colourful. Often we associate such colours

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with strong flavours when in fact what produces the colour and the
flavour are entirely distinct.

Colouring agents are sometimes added to foods that are unlikely to

reach supermarket shelves with their colour at its peak. Examples
include canned foods, such as peas and strawberries, which would be
khaki and dull brown, respectively, without added colour.

Natural colours are, in the main, extracted from plants but are
nonetheless chemical entities. They are present at low levels in plants
but still impart intense colour, for example in the red skin of a ripe
apple. Extracting such colours from plants is often not practical or
economic and so synthetic colours are often used instead. These are
generally more intense in colouring action than natural colours and
hence are used in very small concentrations: generally in the
0.0001% to 0.005% range.

The main trend in food colours is

towards the use of flavonoid
colours. Flavonoids are the princi The challenge for food chemists is to find
ple type of pigment employed by colours that are safe to use in food. It isn’t
nature in flowers and fruits.At
present they are mainly consumed enough to say: use natural colours
in foods which naturally contain
them, such as red wine, but they
will increasingly be consumed as The principal natural colours, most of which, in refined form, are
additives which have been extract used as additives, are the green pigment chlorophyll, the carotenoids,
ed from one plant source and
which give yellow to red colours, and the flavonoids, which give
used to colour totally different
foods. There is also some flowers and fruits their red to blue colours. Increasingly, food
evidence that flavonoids have additive colours are based on flavonoids derived from sources such as
beneficial health properties. They red grapes or beet but the first additive colours were synthetic dyes.
have antioxidant properties and
contribute to the positive health
effects of red wine. Other sources
of flavonoids, besides red grapes, When synthetic dyes were discovered (mauve was the first, dis-
are elderberries, red cabbage, covered in 1856 by the English chemist William Perkin) they were
blood orange, the less familiar initially used in textiles, but by 1900 eighty chemical dyes were used
black chokeberry, and the sweet in food in the USA. Many of these dyes were originally derived from
potato.
coal-tar, and were commonly called "coal-tar dyes".The term is still
sometimes used but they are no longer made from this source.They
are strictly called azo dyes after the azo chemical grouping they all
contain. A few well-tested azo dyes are used in foods.

All permitted colours, be they natural or synthetic, are checked for

safety before they can be used in food. In the EU, this is the
responsibility of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA).

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In truth there are only really five flavours: sweet, THE 16 PRINCIPAL

sour, bitter, salt and savoury. What we call flavour FLAVOUR NOTES
1. Green grassy
is mostly odour 2. Fruity ester-like
3. Citrus terpenic
4. Minty camphoraceous
Flavour is the essence of food, and flavour chemistry one of the most 5. Floral sweet
fascinating studies. Many flavours are the result of combinations of 6. Spicy herbaceous
dozens of chemicals: for example, more than 350 volatile flavour 7. Woody smoky
compounds have been identified in grape juice. Each chemical adds a 8. Roasty burnt
distinctive “note” to the flavour, such as “rosy, “candy”, “caramel nutty”. 9. Caramel nutty
Flavour chemists have identified 16 principal flavour “notes”. Some 10. Bouillon
flavours are essentially one chemical, such as vanilla, already mentioned. 11. Meaty animalic
Some flavourings contain highly pungent materials. Others contain 12. Fatty rancid
naturally occurring components whose use as additives, in the pure 13. Dairy buttery
form, is restricted. An example of this is safrole, which is found in a 14. Mushroom earthy
range of products, including nutmeg. 15, Celery soupy
16. Sulphurous alliaceous
Many of our favourite flavours are the result of specific chemical
processes: fermentation (cheese, yogurt, alcoholic drinks) or roasting and
frying (meat, chocolate, toast, coffee, deep-fat-fried food). Fermentation,
roasting and toasting create specific chemical reactions in the foods, and
the chemicals concerned have been identified. The sweet caramelly taste
of fried onions for example, or gravy, or the crackling on pork can be
traced to a single process – the browning reaction – discovered by a
French chemist, L. C. Maillard, in 1912.This process involves a chemical
reaction between proteins and carbohydrates. Variations on the browning
reaction produce many of the most delicious flavours: chemicals
associated with particular flavours have been identified: methyl pyrazines
“Many of our favourite
gives a roasted nutlike flavour; methoxypyrazines earthy vegetables; 2- flavours are the result of
isobutyl-3 methoxypyrazine gives green pepper, and acetyl-l-pyrazines specific chemical processes.”
popcorn; 2-acetoxy pyrazine produces toasted flavours.

Ours is a sweet-tooth society but sugar isn’t

the only way of satisfying it

There are several natural sugars. The common granulated sugar is

sucrose, a combination of the two simpler sugars: glucose and fructose.
Lactose, milk sugar, consists of glucose and galactose, whilst maltose,
produced by the malting of barley, is a combination of two molecules of
glucose.

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Sugar has the dual attraction of providing quick energy and of being
sweet. It is not surprising that sugar consumption has increased
dramatically in all societies that have reached a certain stage of devel-
opment. Sugars provide about 20% of the energy intake in the USA.
But there are problems with sugar: over consumption is implicated
in obesity and diabetes, so sweeteners with no energy content are
obviously desirable in many foods.

Intense sweeteners are many times sweeter

than natural sugars and have no energy content
whatsoever

Intense sweeteners currently used are acesulfame K (130 times as

sweet as sucrose: E950), aspartame (200 times as sweet as sucrose:
E951), saccharin (300 times as sweet as sucrose: E954), sucralose
(600 times as sweet as sucrose: E955), neohesperidine
dihydrochalcone (400-600 times as sweet as sucrose: E959), and
thaumatin (2-3000 times as sweet as sucrose: E957). They are used
in drinks, yogurt and other desserts.

All sweeteners have been extensively tested. Aspartame and

sucralose were both tested for well over a decade before being
approved. Aspartame contains the amino acid phenylalanine and a
very few people who have the hereditary disease phenylketonuria
cannot metabolise phenylalanine. Therefore products containing
aspartame have to have a label warning against such use.

Some new sweeteners are still being developed. Alitame is derived

from the nutrient amino acids aspartic acid, alanine and an amide
component. It is 2000 times sweeter than sucrose.

Bulk sweeteners are less concentrated and are similar in sweetening

power to natural sugars: in fact they are derived from them by
hydrogenation. Such sweeteners – maltitol (80% sucrose sweetness:
E965), xylitol (equivalent to sucrose sweetness: E967), and lactitol
(35% sucrose sweetness: E966) – do not require insulin to metabo-
lize them and can thus be used by diabetics. Studies have been made
on the diet of young people and their intake of non-sugar sweeteners.
Young people are the group most likely to consume more of the
foods that contain these additives. The studies show that the accept-
able daily intake is not exceeded even in this group.

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We like zest in food, especially in drinks; acids

do the trick

Sharpness of taste is always due to acids. The classic examples are cola
drinks where, besides the carbon dioxide which produces the actual
fizz, phosphoric acid (E338) gives the sharpness. All fruits contain
varying degrees of sugar but without their characteristic acids – citric in
lemons, malic in apples, tartaric in grapes etc – they would be sickly
and dull. The word acid does not have particularly friendly con-
notations, but acids of one kind or another are a major component of
natural foods. The acids that are added to food are made by microbial
fermentation and are chemically identical to the natural acids found in
fruits (phosphoric acid is the exception, being a mineral acid, not found
in nature in the free state).

Besides imparting sharpness, acids are used because the overall acidity of
foods can be crucial. In jam-making for example the acidity of the fruit “The word ‘acid’ does
determines its setting properties. Acids also have preservative and
antioxidant properties. not have particularly
friendly connotations,
but acids of one kind or
Some food ingredients are “modified” to produce another are a major
certain desirable properties – this does not imply
component of natural
genetic modification
foods.”
The word “modified” has acquired notoriety thanks to genetically
modified food but food ingredients have been "modified" in various
non-genetic ways for a very long time. The most common term used is
the term "modified starch" which is starch that has been modified to
withstand heat and acids. Another form of modification allows the
starch to form a paste with cold water (standard starch needs hot water)
and this is used in instant foods such as desserts, mousses, toppings and
whips.

There is sometimes a suspicion of anything modified, as if most foods

weren’t modified by definition. Cream, butter and cheese are modified
milk, but when the term “milk solids” appears on labels it is sometimes
viewed with suspicion. Butter is milk solids, separated out from the
milk and, even in the most traditional way of making, subjected to an
industrial process. Bread is a wholly unnatural substance conjured into
being by an entirely human-devised industrial process.

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If genetically modified crops were to enter the food chain, might

additives derived from such crops be in any way different from non-
GM additives? There is no reason to suppose that they would. All
additives and ingredients have a particular chemical composition, as
we have stressed in this booklet: unless a genetic modification was
specifically designed to alter a particular chemical structure there
would be no change in the additive or ingredient extracted from the
GM crop.

As our knowledge of biology grows we are

beginning to learn more about specific
interactions between foods and our body’s
biochemical systems

“Functional foods” have emerged in the last ten years. But what are
SOME NATURAL TOXINS IN
functional foods? They have been defined by the US Institute of
FOODS Medicine as “Any modified food or food ingredient that may provide
a health benefit beyond the traditional nutrients it contains”. So it
Food Toxin and Effect
might be a bacterial culture that helps to maintain a healthy gut, or a
Almonds, tapioca, Cyanide: interferes cholesterol-lowering margarine, or high fibre cereals which protect
Lima beans with tissue respiration
against degenerative disease such as diabetes, or drinks fortified with
Bananas 5-hydroxytryptamine: cranberry juice, which has antioxidant properties.
causes hallucinations
Cabbages and Goitrogens: cause
other brassicas thyroid damage Functional foods are the product of our growing understanding of
body chemistry. As the precise chemical nature of food and our bod-
Celery, parsley, Psoralens: with UV
parsnips, peas light cause mutations
ies’ requirements become known foods can be tailored to fit –
designer foods, if you like – that make a better match than was ever
Cheeses, yeast Tyramine: causes high possible in the old hit and miss days when all we had to go on was
extract, wines blood pressure;
migraine folk wisdom such as “a little of what you fancy does you good”.

Green potatoes Solanines: cause

gastro-enteritis Very many natural foodstuffs contain dangerous
Mustard Sanguanarine: causes toxins; traditional food preparation techniques and
dropsy
additives minimize the dangers
Nutmeg Myristicin: causes
hallucinations
Everyone knows about poisonous plants – deadly nightshade, fox-
Rhubarb Oxalic acid: removes gloves, hemlock – but the sheer scale of chemical warfare waged by
calcium from blood
natural creatures, both plant and animal comes as a surprise. Even in
Shell-fish Arsenic: causes Britain, a high proportion of the common plants is poisonous to a
vomiting and
diarrhoea
greater or lesser degree. The reason is that poison is a countermea-
sure in the struggle for life. Plants are poisonous to prevent them
being eaten and the reason more people aren’t poisoned is that most
 

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poisonous plants taste very bad. The range of potential toxins in nature
is wide: from rhododendron-flower honey to the highly toxic fugu, the
liver of the blow fish which contains a poison so deadly it has been said
that “the element of risk in eating fugu may be one of the reasons why
the dish is so popular with Japanese gourmets”.

Besides these natural toxins, there are of course the hazards of microbial
contamination – in fact the worst danger lurking in food. Toxins
produced by fungal and bacterial growth on foodstuffs caused
devastation in years gone by: ergot, which used to grow on rye, is a
powerful hallucinogen; aflatoxin, a potent carcinogen produced by an
Aspergillus fungus, is still sometimes found in food such as peanuts.

Sensitivity to a wide variety of substances – most

of them natural – does sometimes occur but bad
reactions to additives are rare “All things are poisons;
nothing is without poison;
The fact that some susceptible people react badly to certain foods is a
only the dose determines
centuries-old phenomenon, acknowledged in the saying “One man’s
meat is another man’s poison”. Very many substances produce adverse whether there is a
reactions in susceptible individuals: grass pollen is probably the most harmful effect.”
widespread, causing hay fever. Shellfish are notorious, and in recent
years intolerance to nuts has become widely noticed, with even the low-
Paracelsus, 16th C
level contamination of other products by nut fragments causing
problems in some individuals. In this context, intolerance to some
additives by a few individuals is inevitable.

It is difficult to obtain reliable figures on the incidence of intolerance to

additives and a link with hyperactivity but some things are clear. People
who are severely allergic, eg asthmatics, hay fever and urticaria
sufferers, sometimes suffer intolerance to some additives. But this is a
part of a general problem. The additives have not created their
condition. In a study conducted by questionnaire in the UK, 7% of those
responding claimed that they reacted badly to food additives, but in
follow-up tests only 1-23 in 10,000 ( 0.01-0.23%) proved to be
intolerant to additives. The same UK study showed that about 1 in 70
people reacted badly to a number of common foods, including cow’s
milk, hen’s eggs, wheat, soya, oranges, prawns and nuts. In other
words, intolerance to everyday foods is much more widespread than
intolerance to additives.

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FURTHER READING
It is worth distinguishing between allergic and
other reactions
John Elkington and Julie Hailes, The
New Foods Guide: what's here,
what's coming, what it means for Allergy involves the body’s immune system and to trigger a response
us, Gollancz, 1999. requires a large biological molecule such as a protein. Hay fever
Dorothy Flowerdew, Food involves grass pollen and is a true allergy. Reactions to food such as
Additives: what every manager cows’ milk, eggs, shellfish and nuts are allergic reactions. Additives,
needs to know about the law,
Chandos, 1999.
however, are small chemical molecules and as such are incapable of
John R. Smythies, Every Person's causing immune reactions. But chemicals naturally present in foods
Guide to Antioxidants, Rutgers can still cause toxic reactions. Some chemicals found in natural food-
University Press, 1999. stuffs are commonly implicated in intolerant reactions: one of the
Felicia Busch,The New Nutrition: most common is tyramine, present in cheese, chocolate, some wines
From Antioxidants to Zucchini,
Wiley, 2000.
etc. The problem is caused by the lack of an enzyme needed to
Brian A. Fox and Allan G. Cameron, process the chemical normally. Tyramine can cause migraine in sus-
Food Science, a chemical approach, ceptible persons and is responsible for the phenomenon of copious
6th Edition, Edward Arnold, 1995. dreaming following such foods eaten just before going to bed.
Gerard L Hasenhuettl and Richard
W. Hartel, Food Emulsions and their
Applications, Chapman & Hall, 1997.
Henry B. Heath and Gary Living systems are the most complex systems in
Reineccius, Flavor Chemistry and the universe, dwarfing human hi-tech
Technology, Macmillan, 1986.
Mike Saltmarsh (Ed), Essential Guide
achievements
to Food Additives, Leatherhead
Food Research Association, 2000.
Jim Mann and A. Stewart Truswell It is not surprising that the question of what makes for a healthy diet
(eds), Essentials of Human Nutrition, should not be as simple as we’d like it to be. But some things are
OUP, 1998. clear: the basis of life and nutrition is chemical and there is no one
Maurice Lessof, Food Allergy and obviously natural diet. A better understanding of specific interactions
other adverse reactions to food.
Brussels, International Life
between food and our bodies will enable all our foods to be more
Sciences Institute, 1993. functionally efficient, and that means better additives and
Food information on the internet : ingredients.
an essential guide, Leatherhead
Food Research Association, 2000.

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THE FOOD ADDITIVES AND INGREDIENTS

ASSOCIATION is affiliated to the Chemical
Industries Association and represents key UK
companies whose principal business is the
manufacture and marketing of food additives and
ingredients. The organization promotes better
awareness of the role additives play in modern
food. Initiatives have included the educational
project Understanding Food Additives (2005),
produced in collaboration with the University of
York's Chemical Industry Education Centre.

Information published within this booklet is presented in good faith for consideration, investigation
and verification. Whilst care has been taken to ensure accuracy, legal liability is excluded to the
extent permitted in current legislation. No freedom from patent is implied.

Text & Illustrations © Food Additives and Ingredients Association 2007 

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