Food Chemistry
Ascorbic acid and its sodium, potassium, and calcium salts are commonly used as antioxidant food additives. These compounds are water-soluble and thus cannot protect fats from oxidation: For this purpose, the fat-soluble esters of ascorbic acid with long-chain fatty acids (ascorbyl palmitate or ascorbyl stearate) can be used as food antioxidants. Eighty percent of the world's supply of ascorbic acid is produced in China.
The relevant European food additive E numbers are
- E300 ascorbic acid (approved for use as a food additive in the EU, USA and Australia and New Zealand)
- E301 sodium ascorbate(approved for use as a food additive in the EU, USA and Australia and New Zealand)
- E302 calcium ascorbate(approved for use as a food additive in the EU, USA and Australia and New Zealand)
- E303 potassium ascorbate
- E304 fatty acid esters of ascorbic acid (i) ascorbyl palmitate (ii) ascorbyl stearate.
It creates volatile compounds when mixed with glucose and amino acids in 90 Celsius.
It is a cofactor in tyrosine oxidation.
Read more about this topic: Ascorbic Acid
Famous quotes containing the words food and/or chemistry:
“To give money to a sufferer is only a come-off. It is only a postponement of the real payment, a bribe paid for silence, a credit system in which a paper promise to pay answers for the time instead of liquidation. We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)