Understanding Your Food - Understanding Your Food

Understanding Your Food is a food ingredients-related educational resource designed to be used by both teachers and pupils (14-18).

good-idea When it comes to the facts about food additives and ingredients, and the role they play, there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding. Understanding Your Food will help you debunk the myths and learn the facts about your food.

Teachers can use this site to plan and set food-related lessons and experiments, and pupils can log on to answer questions and further their understanding of what goes into food and drink, and why.

This site has been created by the Food Ingredients and Additives Association working in partnership with the Department of Food Science and Agri-Food Supply Chain Management in Harper Adams University in order to provide an educational reference source covering food, food materials, food ingredients and food additives.

The website should be of particular interest to students studying food and food industry related topics at school, college or university, as well teachers and lecturers seeking information about food ingredients and additives.

Food Additives

Additive Numbers

Food additives are non-nutritional substances added to food products. They are used for technical purposes, such as the emulsification of fats, the binding of water, or to protect and preserve products from microbial deterioration. Some food additives are necessary to ensure that products are safe to eat.

There are a number of different categories of food additives, each according to the function of the additives, and a food additive numbering scheme has been established to order the additives in the different categories.

The numbering scheme was first established within the European Union where food additives are given an ‘E number’ or ‘Europe number’ and all food additives used in the European Union have to be approved for food safety by the European Food Safety Authority.

The Food Additive Numbering Scheme adopted by the European Union is now used by countries in many parts of the world, but without the letter E. The system has also been adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a body established by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

In some instances an additive which possesses an E-number for use within the European Union may be used in another part of the world, e.g. Australia, without the E and just the number. However, there are additives approved for use in countries that are not part of the European Union which have allocated classification numbers to additives that are not approved for use in the EU.

Different countries may take different positions about which additives are or are not approved for use.