Consumption of flavoring materials as food ingredients and food additives

It is widely acknowledged that flavoring materials constitute a special class among food additive groups. Safety evaluation and regulation of food additives are generally carried out on an individual basis, considering the available test data, and setting maximum use levels for their use in separate classes of food, or in food in general. From a safety viewpoint establishing an acceptable daily intake (ADI) based on the test result data is an even more accurate approach, although it is a less suitable basis for setting regulatory limits.

No such systematic evaluation has been carried out yet for flavoring materials, even though ADIs have been established for a few. The most basic reason that this classical food additive aproach has not been completed for flavoring materials is their great number and variety. Flavoring materials as a group already ounumber all other food ingredients together. With the strict approach now taken toward potential new food additives, it can be anticipated that the number of nonflavor food additives will grow only very slowy in the future. But we can equally anticipate that with every new breakthrough in techniques for the analysis and identification of flavoring materials occurring in traditional foodstuffs, there will be a whole new generation of flavoing materials. Developments in gas liquid chromatography (GLC) and spectrometry over the last thirty years have made possible the discovery of thousands of new flavoring sutstances, characterized by their volatility. The current development of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) will provide us with large numbers of flavoring materials which are not volatile enough, or break down too easily, for detection by gas chromatographical analysis.

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