Recent Trends in Food Applications of Antioxidants

TLDR: In this paper, the authors discuss the important trends of the past seven years in applications of antioxidants in foods and discuss the use of commonly added synthetic antioxidants and four naturally occurring ones, namely α-tocopherol and ascorbic.

Abstract: In this paper, I shall discuss the important trends of the past seven years in applications of antioxidants in foods. The nature and course of lipid autoxidation and antioxidant action have been treated in a previous paper of this Symposium (Symposium, 1979), as has the effect of water activity. Other papers will deal with the biological effects of antioxidant use, including antimicrobial action. Natural antioxidants will also be treated elsewhere. Therefore, I shall discuss primarily the use of the commonly added synthetic antioxidants (Fig. 1) and four naturally occurring ones — α-tocopherol and ascorbic (Fig. 2), citric and phosphoric acids, which common usage seems to segregate from the “natural” antioxidants. In addition, I shall handle many secondary antioxygenic compounds and treatments, such as oxygen exclusion or scavenging, browning antioxidants, and products produced by fermentation, smoking, nitrite curing, and hydrolysis of vegetable protein.