Chemical Additives: Additives in Action

The ingredient list from a commonly available cherry-flavored, sugar-free, gelatin dessert mix includes the following ingredients, in descending order of quantity:

• Gelatin, which is a naturally derived gelling agent.

• Adipic acid, which promotes rapid setting, provides tartness, and protects against quality loss. It is also used in beverages, condiments, relishes, dairy product analogs, fats and oils, frozen dairy desserts, puddings, gravies, meat products, and snack foods.

• Disodium phosphate, which controls acidity and adds body.

• Maltodextrin, which is made from cornstarch and is slightly sweet. It is a diluent to keep gelatin granules separated during home processing to help prevent lumping and unpleasant textures, and it also adds body. It replaces sugar in traditional gelatin dessert mixes but at a much lower volume.

• Fumaric acid, which improves flavor stability and lengthens shelf life because it is not hygroscopic (does not absorb moisture from the atmosphere). It maintains noncaking and free flowing qualities and increases gel strength, so food processors may reduce normal gelatin content by about 2 percent. It is slightly bacteriostatic.

• Aspartame, which is a synthetic sweetener that reduces caloric content with equivalent sweetness and acceptability to sugar. It may enhance certain flavors.

• Artificial flavor, which can be any of the many approved flavors.

• Acesulfame potassium, which is a synthetic sweetener. Since sweeteners have different characteristics, a blend can help overcome limitations of each as well as minimizing aftertaste.

• Salt, which is primarily a flavoring agent since gelatin has very little flavor of its own. It also contributes nutrients.

• FD&C Blue No. 1, which is one of eighteen permitted colors.

• FD&C Red No. 40, which is one of eighteen permitted colors. In combination with the blue, it creates a color in the finished product that users will accept as looking like cherry should.