ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING

THE IMPORTANCES AND THE SIDE EFFECTS OF FOOD ADDITIVES IN INDUSTRIES BY SELVA MALAR A/P ARIPITRI

INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH
Food additives are one of those topics which people are either against for. The problem that always being argued is are food of natural origin is good and those synthetic foods harmful? Foods-mixture of chemicals put together by nature.

Not all foods produced by nature are harmless. Some of them contain toxic substances. Examples: Oxalic acid in spinach & toxic substances in certain species of mushrooms. The burden is on the food processing firm or on the additive manufacturer.

Food Additives
A substance or a mixture of substances, other than a basic foodstuff, which is present in a food as a result of any aspect of production, processing, storage or packaging.

Can divide these substances into two categories

Intentional additives

Incidental additives

Preservatives
Nutritional supplements Flavoring agents

3000 food additives that are classified into six major categories
Stabilizers and thickeners

Coloring agents

Acid and alkalis

Emulsifiers

THESIS STATEMENT: The industrial use of additives in food processing is important but at the same time it has negative effects to human such as hyperactivity among children and cancer.

BACKGROUND PARAGRAPH
TOPIC SENTENCE: Food additives have been introduced since thousands of years, starting with the discovery that salted meat lasted forever. Food preservation began when man first learned to safeguard food from one harvest to the next and by the salting and smoking of meat and fish.

Why food additives?

to the shelf life of food and made many convenience foods possible maintain the firmness, smoothness, or appearance of many foods can be safely eaten after a period of time

Ancient Egyptians-ate foods that were not only cooked and baked, but also dried, salted, and fermented. Ancient Chinese-discovered that fruit could be ripened by placing it near kerosene lamp. Salt, sugar, and vinegar were among the first food additives discovered and were used both to enhance taste and to preserve food.

Humans have been using food additives for ages. Salt had been used by our ancestors to preserve meats and fish added herbs and spices to improve the flavor of foods preserved fruit with sugar and pickled or canned vegetables

Development of food additives

Spectrograph: Used by the chemist and food scientist to determine the chemical structures of certain components under investigation. Even ordinary kitchen appliances and simple laboratory instrument are used in determining whether a certain additive will help produce the desired consistency in cake batter, so that the product will be better.

Technological advancement in the latter half of the 20th centuryintroduction of various kinds of food additives, both artificial as well as natural. Today, we are in the state of great comfort and extravagant living when canning and freezing processes are commonplace.

BODY PARAGRAPH 1
TOPIC SENTENCE: Food additives improve nutritional quality as well as maintains product quality and freshness. Vitamins, minerals, and amino acids-to enhance the nutritional quality of the food and also to balance a persons diet.

Enrichment-restoration of nutrients lost during food processing. The natural content in the food before processing has almost the same amount with the amount of nutrient added. In fortification, the amount of nutrients added might be higher than that present before processing.

Fortification standardizes the nutrients contents. Example: Addition of Vitamin C to orange juice to standardize Vitamin C concentration and compensate for changes due to seasonal and processing variations. Enrichment and fortification has helped reduce malnutrition in United States and worldwide.

Preservatives slow product spoilage cause by yeast, mold, bacteria, and fungi of exposure to air. Help to control contamination of that can cause food borne illness to maintain the quality of the food. Antioxidants is a group of preservatives that prevents fats and oils, and the food containing them, become extremely distasteful.

Others: Sulfites-keep cut fruits and vegetables looking fresh. They also prevent discoloration in apricots, raisins, and other dried fruits. Potassium bromate-to increase the volume of bread and to produce bread with fine crumb. Nitrate and nitrite-to preserve meat

BODY PARAGRAPH 2
TOPIC SENTENCE: Food additives enhance the taste of the food and makes food more appealing. In food processing, some ingredients are often added to food to maintain the sensory properties of the food.

Natural and artificial flavors are added in order to improve the taste of foods-cakes & snack food. eg: Monosodium glutamate (MSG)-is added to enhance the taste of our cooking Colors are added to make the food taste better or to compensate for the color that is lost while preparing it-caramel color in soups, and soft drinks. Colors-make the appearance of the food more attractive to commercialize a food to attract public.

Sweeteners or sweetening agents are used in order to heighten the sweet flavor of food. Artificial sweeteners-to keep the calories low, or to enable people with diabetes mellitus to have sweet foods. eg:Acesulfame-K, a sugar substitute found in chewing gums

BODY PARAGRAPH 3
TOPIC SENTENCE: Artificial coloring in food taken by children contributes to hyperactivity also learning and visual disorder. Hyperactivity-type of behavior disorders which is actually known as attention deficithyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD-condition of a child characterized by restless, hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and inattention.

Estimated to affect about 5% of school-aged children in the United States. Children-exposed to food chemicals from infancy. Chemicals intake increases when children take junk food containing artificial coloring or artificial sweeteners. eg:Baked goods, chewing gums, gelatin desserts and diet soda .

Jim Stevenson, a professor of psychology at the University of Southampton, and his colleagues come up with a study to determine whether artificial food colorings and preservatives in the diet of 297 children affect their behavior. They are given drinks contained artificial food coloring and additives such as sodium benzoate, a preservative-similar to the drinks that are commercially available.

Children who drank the drinks with additives were more hyperactive behavior and had shorter attention spans. Professor Andrew Kemp (University of Sydney) wrote that although a substantial body of evidence shows a link between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and artificial food colorings and preservatives, removing them is still considered an alternative rather than a standard treatment for ADHD.

BODY PARAGRAPH 4
TOPIC SENTENCE: Overdose uptake of food additives contributes to cancer and might cause death. Examples: Hydrogenated vegetable oil-breast and colon cancer. Nitrates-form powerful cancer-causing agents in stomach, can cause death. Olestra-lung and prostate cancers.

Nitrate and Nitrite

Sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate-two closely related chemicals use to preserve meat. Nitrate (harmless)-readily converted to nitrite. When nitrite combines with secondary amines, it forms nitrosamine (an extremely powerful cancer-causing chemical).

Olestra
Olestra (the fake fat) is both dangerous and unnecessary. Has a fatal side-effect as it attaches to valuable nutrients and flushes them out of the body. Research by The Harvard School of Public Health-long-term consumption of olestra snack food might result in several thousand unnecessary deaths each year from lung and prostate cancer.

Barbara Deskins, professor of clinical dietetics and nutrition at the University of Pittsburgs recommends public to eat variety of food to prevent prolonged exposure to potentially harmful additives.

CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH
Issues regarding additives in food industries never come to a conclusion as there are still arguments regarding this issues, FOOD ADDITIVES: A Shoppers Guide to whats Safe & Whats Not learn about the safety of each different type of food additives.

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Hull, J.S. (2002). Food additives to avoid. Sweetpoison. Retrieved July 15, 2009, from http://www.sweetpoison.com/food-additives-toavoid.html International Food Information Council. (November, 2006). Food Ingredients. Retrieved September 29, 2009, from http://www.ific.org/nutrition/ingredients/index.cfm Murphy, K. (1997, June 14). Do food additives subtract from health? BusinessWeek. Retrieved September 29, 2009, from http://www.businessweek.com/1996/19/b3474101.htm Putatunda, R. (2008, March 3). Food additives. Buzzle.com. Retrieved September 29, 2009, from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/food-additives.html

Reinberg, S. (2007, June 9). Food additives could fuel hyperactivity in kids. HealthDay. Retrieved September 29, 2009, from http://www.dentalplans.com/articles/24386/foodadditives-could-fuel-hyperactivity-in-kids.html Saks, B. (2008, May 8). Food additives-the consequences. Articlesbase. Retrieved October 9, 2009, from http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/foodadditives-the-consequences-407721.html Williams, M. (2004, July 22). Can food additives cause problem behavior in children? Healthnotes Newswire. Retrieved September 29, 2009, from http://www.nowfoods.com/M040448.htm Wood, R., Foster, L., Damant, A., Key, P. (2004). Analytical Methods for Food Additives. Cambridge:Woodhead Publication