Commercial food products, vitamin

To determine the amount of vitamin C that is present in certain commercial food products by the titration method. 

Foods are supplemented with vitamin A in the form of standardized preparations of synthetic fatty acyl esters, nowadays chiefly retinyl palmitate. The preparations are available commercially as either dilutions in high-quality vegetable oils containing added vitamin E as an antioxidant or as dry, stabilized beadlets in which the vitamin A is dispersed in a solid matrix of gelatin and sucrose or gum acacia and sucrose. The oily preparations are used to supplement fat-based foods such as margarines the dry preparations are used in dried food products such as milk powder, infant formulas, and dietetic foods (24). 

Xhe brilliant success of ascorbic acid research in the 1930s led to the commercial production of inexpensive ascorbic acid in large quantities. The wide distribution of ascorbic acid, and its incorporation into many food products, so completely solved the problem of scurvy in both general and special populations that pressure for a more complete scientific understanding of this vitamin was sharply reduced. As a result many questions concerning ascorbic acid s chemistry, biochemistry, physiological roles and kinetics, and its nutritional requirements were deferred for more pressing scientific problems. 

Though not foods, the inactive ingredients in pharmaceutical products, vitamins, and mineral supplements contain many of the same chemicals added to commercially produced foods. These are considered in this chapter as well. 

Today, multistage vacuum evaporation is the predominant method used for liquid food concentrahon. Its major drawback is that it causes heat-induced deterioration of sensory (color, taste, and aroma) and nutritional (vitamins, etc.) value of the hnished product. The food industry has developed alternate methods, such as freeze concentration and thermally accelerated short time evaporation (TASTE) [20] for recovery and blending of such labile constiments for producing concentrates. Though they are currently practiced commercially, the final products in some cases do not satisfy the consumer requirement of their fresh or natural qualities. Some of these processes are energy intensive and therefore unattractive. 

A consequence of these studies is that the Food and Drug Administration (fTDA) has recomtnended that commercially available flour and cereal products be fortified w ith folic acid 1-4 tug folic acid/kg flour) for preventing NTDs (Tucker cf ai, 1996). The consumer interested in the folate level in any particular food can view the label on the package. Folic acid supplements have the effect of reducing the level of homocysteine in the blood. This homocysteine effect appears directly relevant to the prevention of atherosclerosis, but may also be relevant to neural tube defects. The reader interested in continuing developments regarding neural tube defects and folate should take note of the relationship between folate and homocysteine, presented in the Vitamin 8 section. 

Microencapsulation technology has been used from 1930s in packaging flavors and vitamins. Since the first commercial product was introduced for the carbonless copying paper, the technology has advanced to a new level. Various microencapsulation techniques are available nowadays, and the microencapsulated products are widely used in pharmaceutical, biomedical, agricultural, food, consumer products, and cosmetic industries. Representative applications of microparticles in the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries include ... 

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