Foreword

Hence, depending to whom the question is addressed, the assessment about the necessity of additives in food will turn out extremely different. Industry, on one hand, aims to produce qualitatively high ranking food with minimal costs. Beside palatability (aroma, taste, texture and color) the food should offer extended shelf life and high nutritional impact. The consumers, on the other hand, want to have all thesebenefits without the addition of any food additive. In terms of food the “all without mania” (flavors, taste enhancers, colorants, preservatives, antioxidants, thickeners, gelling and stabilizing agents etc.) is prevalent in developed countries. However, consumer’s empathy of preparing their daily meal on the basis of fresh ingredients is more and more decreasing nowadays.

Therefore processed food, especially convenient food, purchased in the supermarket and not on the farmers market represents the dominating basis of modern nutrition. Hence, quality, nutritional value and shelf life must be guaranteed for longer and longer storage times. Moreover, nowadays food should offer additional benefits regarding lifestyle and health. To comply with all of these requests, food additives are indispensable in industrial food processing. For a long time no economical alternative to chemical synthesis of food additives existed. Not at the least because of the depletion of the fossil fuels reserves together with several concerns about climate changeand the all over chemophobia, the production of natural food additives seems to cut this Gordianknot of different interests. Natural additives serve consumers wish on natural nutrition and approve food industry the application of indispensable additives. Whether recovered from natural resources or produced biotechnologicallyroutes natural additives are more accepted in public mind. However, natural resources are often limited which calls for biotechnological alternatives.

The aim of the book is to provide coverage of natural food additives and their production. Within this textbook, comprising 13 chapters, international well accepted experts in the field give a prevailing and comprehensive overview on food additives such as flavors colors, sweeteners, amino and organic acids, vitamins, prebiotics, edible oils, antimicrobial compounds, biosurfactantsand enzymes. This book secures the experts in the field as well as interested consumers to inform themselves about the current state of the art of biotechnological processes for the production of natural food additives. Furthermore legal, economic and ecological aspects are also addressed. It is demonstrated that biotechnology alongside the attribute “natural” can compete against chemical production processes because of improved production strains, the use of stable and often immobilized used enzymes, disposition of cheap waste streams of food producing processes as precursors and/or as the nutrient medium for producing microorganisms. Last but not least, it is more and more evident that a liable application of genetic engineering is an indispensable part of white and green biotechnology as it is already the case for red biotechnology. The conclusion of all chapters is that biotechnology, particularly genetic engineering, is a powerful tool which will help to cope at least with some of humankinds future challenges in the light of limited resources and a fast growing world population.