Antioxidants

Antioxidants occur naturally in many foods and are essential for our health. They include Vitamin C found in fruit and vegetables and vitamin E found in seeds and nuts.

Antioxidants, both natural and synthetic, are used by the food industry as food additives to help prolong the shelf life and appearance of many foodstuffs. This book is concerned with this type of antioxidant.

There are currently six ‘groups’ of antioxidants used as food additives. These are:

BHA, BHT, TBHQ (E319-E321)
Gallates (E310-E312)
Erythorbic Acid (E315-316)
4-Hexylresorcinol (E586)
Tocopherols (E306-E309)
Ascorbic Acid (E300-E302)

The antioxidants that have caused health problems, for some people, are primarily synthetic. The most problematic antioxidants appear to be BHA, BHT and TBHQ, with gallates (E310 Propyl gallate, E311 Octyl gallate, E312 Dodecyl gallate) in second place.

The eBook 'Antioxidants' provides details of each of the antioxidants, the foods they are found in and the health problems, if any, which have been linked with them. You can download Antioxidants in PDF format for free.