In today’s economic and social conditions, factors such as increasing the number of people working outside the home, changing dietary habits, and less time to prepare meals lead people to ready-to-use or more practical food consumption.
In this sense, increasing the durability of the food, which can be defined as shelf life, preserving its freshness, nutritional value, appearance, color, smell and aroma becomes an expected feature of that food. Therefore, the use of additives, which are one of the methods of food preservation and enrichment, has become technologically obligatory. The use of food additives is very high. The main ones are as follows.
• To maintain the nutritional value of food,
• For the production of special food for people with specific dietary needs,
• To increase food durability and have a longer shelf life,
• To improve the textural properties of food.
• To make the taste and color of food attractive or preserved.
• To prevent unwanted reactions such as oil rancidity (oxidation), to prevent loss of flavor and to protect nutrients.
• Mostly as technological requirement during food processing,
• To prevent the growth of disease-causing microorganisms in food.
• They are used to provide food variety.
Besides the above reasons, there are many more reasons. In particular, food additives become compulsory to be used in today’s technological and social conditions. The dosage of additives is important. Proper food additives show an effective result when used in the right proportions.
