Abstract
Food additives are in widespread use in the food industry to extend the shelf life of food, improve its organoleptic characteristics or facilitate industrial processing. Their use is not without controversy, which makes regulation and control crucial for food safety and public health. Among food additives, silicone-based antifoaming agents (polysiloxanes or E900) are difficult to analyze and quantify due to their polymeric nature. Currently, there is no official method of quantifying this additive in foods. In this context, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a quantitative method for speciation analysis of silicon compounds almost without known interferents. In this work, we describe the evolution of the regulation of the E900 additive, discuss different analytic methods quantifying polydimethylsiloxanes (PDMS), and propose a new method based on NMR suitable for analyzing the content of E900 in the form of PDMS in various types of food from dietary oils to marmalades and jellies, among others. The proposed method consists of a previous quantitative concentration of PDMS by liquid–liquid extraction and the monitoring of the quantification using a bis(trimethylsilyl)benzene (BTMSB) standard to control the variability, ranging within 2–7%, depending on the food. This simple, direct, and reproducible procedure for aqueous and lipidic foods may help to monitor and fill a gap in regulatory legislation regarding the E900 additive.
Highlights
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The acceptable daily intake (ADI) value system was developed by the Joint FAO of the United Nations and WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives [8], and it is widely used in several studies [9,10]
Major challenges in the analysis of siloxanes are due to the presence of a variety of silicon compounds that could give off analytical artifacts or a cross-response and due to possible contaminations, since they are widely applied in many consumer and personal care, technological, and industrial products [23]
Summary
Additives are external chemical substances used during the preparation of food products in order to extend their shelf life, improve their organoleptic characteristics, or facilitate industrial processing [1]. Food additives can be classified into different types according to their function, for example, to improve the sensory quality of the food (such as colorants, flavorings, texturizers, bleaching, or maturing agents), to extend its useful life as preservatives (antioxidants, antimicrobial, and even antibiotics), or to add nutritional properties (vitamins, amino acids, and essential fatty acids, among others) [5] As these chemicals are intentionally added to food, it is essential to understand their properties, so as to ensure their adequate and safe use [6]. The ADI value system was developed by the Joint FAO of the United Nations and WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives [8], and it is widely used in several studies [9,10] For all these reasons and regulatory issues, which are discussed below, the safety of all food additives is continuously monitored and quantified by regulatory agencies, and their use must always be closely controlled [11]. As expected for any added chemical substance, food and medicinal agencies, such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), require that adding silicones in a production process should be controlled
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