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Humectants as a Food Additive

Some common Humectants used in food are things like Honey and Glucose Syrup both for their water absorption and sweet flavor. Glucose Syrup also helps to retain the shape the product better than other alternatives, for a longer period of time. In addition, some Humectants are recognized in different countries as good food additives because of an the increase in nutritional value that they provide, such as Sodium Hexametapho.

In order to gauge a compound's humectancy, scientists will put it through a series of tests, often involving water absorption tests. In tests involving toothpaste, the process is also coupled with a sweetness test and crystallization test. When humectancy is being assessed in different products, scientists will compare the results to other humectants that are already used in those products, in order to evaluate efficiency.

Some of these humectants are seen in non-ionic polyols like sucrose, glycerin/glycerol and its triester (triacetin). These humectant food additives are used for the purpose of controlling viscosity and texture. Humectants add bulk, retain moisture, reduce water activity, and perform the important function of improving softness. A main advantage of humectant food additives is that, since they are non-ionic, they are not expected to influence any variation of the pH Aqueous systems.

Glycerol or glycerin Humectants undergo a pretreatment process using saponification, bleaching, ion exchange exclusion, both cationic and ionic ion exchanges, vacuum flash evaporation, thin film distillation, and heating to produce a 100% pure Glycerol.

Humectants are used in stabilization of food products and lengthening shelf life through food and moisture control. A number of food items always need to be moist for safety issues, quality, and to have a longer shelf-life for particular food products. The moisture determines microbial stability, physical properties, sensory properties and the rate of chemical changes, that if not controlled, are the cause of reduced shelf life. Example of some foods are, dry cereal with semi-moist raisins, ice cream in a cone, chocolate, hard candy with liquid centers and cheese. Humectants are used to stabilize the moisture content of foodstuffs and are incorporated as food additives. Humectants are also used in military technology today for the use of MRE's and other rations for our soldiers.

An example of where humectants are used to keep food moist is in products like toothpaste as well as certain kinds of cookies. Regional kinds of cookies often use Humectants as a binding agent in order to keep moisture locked into the center of the cookie rather than have it evaporate out. Humectants are favored in food products because of their ability to keep consumable goods moist and increase shelf-life.