Preservatives Food Additives Directive

Miscellaneous Food Additives Directive 95/2/EC (e.g. preservatives, antioxidants, emulsifiers, stabilisers, thickeners, flavour enhancers, acidity regulators, etc.)... 

As required by Directive 89/107/EEC, criteria of purity have been drawn up for all the listed food additives (with a couple of exceptions). Purity criteria for all the permitted sweeteners have been prescribed in Directive 95/31/EC,6 as amended, and criteria for all the permitted colours are contained in Directive 95/ 45/EC,7 as amended. Directives that prescribe purity criteria for all the additives authorised under Directive 95/2/EC have been drawn up in stages. Directive 96/ 77/EC8 containing purity criteria for antioxidants and preservatives is amended by Directives 98/86/EC which lays down purity criteria for emulsifiers, stabilisers and thickeners and 2000/63/EC which contains purity criteria for most additives numbered E 500 and above, and for certain other additives not covered in the earlier directives. Purity criteria for most of the few remaining permitted miscellaneous additives are contained in Directive 2001/30/EC however, purity criteria for E 1201 polyvinylpyrrolidone and E 1202 polyvinylpolypyrrolidone are still being considered by the Scientific Committee on Food. Some methods of analysis for verifying prescribed purity criteria have been developed at EU level these are contained in Directive 81/712/EEC.9... 

It is important to note that not only are directly added (intentional) substances, such as preservatives, considered food additives, but indirectly added (unintentional) substances, such as sanitizers used on processing equipment, may also be categorized as food additives. There are four groups of substances that are exempted from the Food Additives Amendment. They are ... 

In the latter Directive, except for antioxidants and preservatives, individual uses are not listed in either the basic Directive or in the Directives on purity criteria (specifications). In the EU, the functional use of the main additives permitted for use in processed foods are described in Directive 89/107/EC. There are 23 listed which are shown in Table 11.1. In this chapter we are concerned with 17 categories listed in the Directive 95/2/EC on food additives other than colours and sweeteners (these are indicated by an asterisk in Table 11.1). 

Toxicological studies on direct food additives have revealed toxic and harmful actions. Food dyes and preservatives have been used since ancient Roman times to improve the color of wine or to disinfect wine containers. The development of chemistry led to many unwise experiments, such as the dying of food with copper, chrome, lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium salts. In the U.S. in 1906, over 300 food dyes were officially tested, of which only seven passed and were allowed to be used in food. Only two of them - erythrosine and idigotine - are permitted now. The lists of preservatives are also constantly modified in different countries. Quite recently, formic acid, which is used to preserve semi-products, was banned in Poland due to its deleterious effects. 

Biocides and antioxidants used as direct food additives are classified as preservatives (B-81MI11507, B-72MI11500). Their function is to enhance the keeping ability, or stability, of food products. The use of such additives is carefully controlled in most countries, and the majority of substances employed have a long history of safe use (b-81MH1509). 

Diphenyl Food additive for the preservation against molds in, e.g., lemon and orange peels or in direct packages. It can trigger contact allergy. 

Preservatives released to the food should already be permitted as food additives and the overall safe intake of these by consumers should not be exceeded when the preservatives are added to both food and packaging. Many proposed systems comply with this requirement but some do not. The release of an antimicrobial component can be achieved by transfer of the substance through the gas phase, when the preservative has sufficient volatility. A typical example is ethanol-releasing packaging, used for preservation of, e.g., buns. Also the release of SO2 or CO2 does not require direct contact with the food. 

The European Parliament and Council Directive No 95/2/EC of 20 February 1995 on food additives other than colours and sweeteners states Preservatives are substances which prolong the shelf-life of foodstuffs by protecting them against deterioration caused by micro-organisms. 

The antibiotic Nisin is inhibitory against several grampositive Streptococci, Lactobacilli, Clostridia, Staphylococci and Bacilli (61-62). Goel et al. (63) noted that the addition of Nisin increased the shelf life of low fat dairy spread (Table X). In 20 countries outside the United States, Nisin is permitted as a direct food additive (64), and one major application has been to prevent the growth and subsequent gas production by Clostridia in hard cheese and processed cheese products. In France, for example, Nisin-producing Streptococci have been employed in the manufacture of processed cheese. Nisin has also been studied as a possible alternative to nitrite in the preservation of meats (65). 

The use of preservatives in fresh and processed vegetables and legumes is tightly controlled worldwide, e.g., in the UK under the Preservatives in Food Regulations (1989), while in the EC a directive is currently being prepared on Food Additives (excluding colors and sweeteners). 

But many countries favor the use of antibiotics, as food preservatives. The FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives favors the use of nisin eis a direct additive to foods. 

A naturally-occurring antibiotic, sometimes found in milk. Many countries use nisin as a food preservative. However, the direct addition of antibiotic to food is not permitted in the United States. 

Terramycin is a brand name for the broad-spectrum antibiotic oxytetracycline. Although low levels of antibiotics such as Terramycin effectively extend the shelf life of food, the direct addition of antibiotics to foods is not permitted in the United States. After some initial studies and limited usage of antibiotics as food preservatives, the FDA withdrew their approval because of concern that repeated exposure of the consumer to low concentrations of antibiotics could lead to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Furthermore, there was wariness lest antibiotics provide a substitute for good sanitary practices. 

Safety assessment of preservatives, as for other food additives, is based on reviews of all available toxicological data, including observations in humans and in animal models. From the available data, a maximum level of an additive that has no demonstrable toxic effect is determined. This is called the no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) and is used to determine the acceptable daily intake (ADI). The ADI refers to the amount of a food additive that can be taken daily in the diet, over a lifetime span, without any negative effect on health. Food additive legislation adopted by the European Union is included in several European Parliament and Council Directives (Directives 95/2/EC and 2006/52/ EC, which have been replaced by the Regulation (EC) 1333/2008 in 2011). 

As for other food additives, the ADI for preservatives has been calculated because, as already mentioned, if they are consumed in inappropriate quantities they may have adverse effects on human health. Legislation on food additives is necessary to establish specific conditions for their use thus, food additive legislation has been developed by the European Union and included in several European Parliament and Council Directives [7,8]. The ADI is 25 mg/kg for sorbic acid [9] and 5 mg/kg body weight for benzoic acid [10]. 

The analytical methods proposed for acesulfame-K, cyciamate, and saccharin determination in foods, drinks, dietary products, and pharmaceuticals can be grouped into methods for the determination of an individual artificial sweetener [21-27] and multianalyte approaches [28-38], sometimes also including other sweeteners and/or other food additives, such as colorants or preservatives [39-43]. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is the most frequently used technique for the determination of these sweeteners, and this is selected by international standard methods because of its multianalyte capability, compatibility with the physicochemical properties of sweeteners, high sensitivity, and robustness [44-47]. However, cyciamate requires chemical derivatization to make it detectable by the most commonly employed UV-absorption detector due to a lack of a chromophore, by conversion to dichlorohexylamine for UV detection or to a fluorescence derivative for fluorimetric detection. Another alternative for cyciamate detection is the postcolumn ion-pair extraction where the eluted sweetener is mixed with an appropriate dye (methyl violet or crystal violet), being detected by visible absorption. Furthermore, cyciamate can be detected directly by refractive index [4]. For this, few HPLC methods for the concurrent determination of these sweeteners exist and... 

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