Flavors: Candies and chocolates generally use several types of flavorings, including essential oils, flavorings, and powdered flavoring extracts. Each type has numerous varieties; for example, candies and chocolates can be categorized by aroma type, such as fruity, nutty, milky, floral, and liqueur-based.
Preservatives: Commonly used in carbonated beverages, fruit purees, jams, candied fruits, preserves, pickles, soy sauce, vinegar, fruit juices, meat, fish, eggs, and poultry products include benzoic acid, sodium benzoate, sorbic acid, and potassium sorbate.
Colorings: Primarily used in carbonated beverages, fruit juices, formulated wines, pastry decorations, candies, hawthorn products, pickled vegetables, ice cream, jelly, chocolate, cream, instant coffee, and other foods. Commonly used artificial colorings include amaranth, carmine, tartrazine, sunset yellow, and caramel coloring. Natural food colorings, such as sodium copper chlorophyllin, are mainly extracted from plant tissues. However, their pigment content and stability are generally lower than those of synthetic colorings. There are also naturally occurring equivalent colorings.
Sweeteners are additives that impart sweetness to food. Commonly used ones include sodium saccharin (commonly known as saccharin), sodium cyclohexylsulfamate (cyclamate), maltitol, sorbitol, and xylitol. Many foods use sweeteners, such as beverages, pickles, pastries, biscuits, bread, ice cream, candied fruit, candy, seasonings, and canned meat-almost every common food in daily life contains different types of sweeteners.
Leaving agents are found in some candies and chocolate products, as well as some fried foods, puffed foods, and fermented dough products. Commonly used leaving agents include sodium bicarbonate, ammonium bicarbonate, and compound leaving agents.
Thickeners are hydrophilic polymers that stabilize, emulsify, or suspend substances. They can form gels or increase the viscosity of food, hence they are also called gelling agents, gelling agents, or emulsion stabilizers.
Emulsifiers are surfactants whose molecules typically have hydrophilic (hydroxyl) and lipophilic (alkyl) groups. They readily form an adsorption layer at the water-oil interface, thereby altering the surface activity between the phases in the emulsion, resulting in a homogeneous emulsion or dispersion. This improves the texture, mouthfeel, and appearance of food.
Leaving agents are food additives that, during processing (heating), generate gas to create a uniform, dense, porous structure in foods made primarily from grain flour, resulting in a loose and crisp texture.
Defoamers are agents that eliminate and suppress air bubbles on the liquid surface during food processing, ensuring smooth operation.
Anti-caking agents prevent the aggregation and clumping of powdered or crystalline foods.
Colorants: Food additives that color food to stimulate appetite and enhance its commercial value.
Antioxidants: Food additives that prevent or delay oxidative spoilage by adding hydrogen atoms to deoxygenated groups in easily oxidized components of food, thus inhibiting oxidation chain reactions or forming complexes with them to suppress the activity of oxidases.
Texture improvers: Food additives that improve the appearance or texture of food through water retention, binding, plasticizing, thickening, and improving rheological properties.
Flour improvers: Additives that improve flour quality, increasing yield, whiteness, and gluten strength.
Acidity regulators: Functions that enhance food quality and are widely used in various food products. A significant portion of confectionery and chocolate products use acidulants to adjust and improve flavor, especially fruit-based products. Commonly used acidulants include citric acid, tartaric acid, lactic acid, and malic acid.
