1.1. Food additives are substances added to food to preserve it or improve its flavour and appearance.
1.2. Some of the commonly used food additives include preservative, colourants, stabilizers and flavouring.
1.3. The chart below summarise the 4 groups of food additive
1.4. Effects of Food Addictive on Health
1.5. Food additive have the following effect on health.
1.6. Allergy
1.7. – MSG causes chinese restaurant syndrome
1.8. – Sodium nitrate/ sodium nitrite causes blue baby syndrome
1.9. Cancer
1.10. Brain Damage
1.11. Food additive can disrupt the supply of oxygen to brain and hence cause damage to the brain.
1.12. Hyperactivity
1.13. colouant such as tartazine can cause hyperactivity
2. Modern Medicine
2.1. Based on the effect of modern medicine to human body, it can be classified into four different
2.2. categories namely;
2.3. Analgesics
2.4. Antibiotics
2.5. Psychotherapeutic medicines
2.6. Hormone and steroid
2.7. Analgesics are drugs used to relieve pain.
2.8. Antibiotics are a drug that kill or slow the growth of bacteria.
2.9. Psychotherapeutic medicines are the medicine that treats mental illness.
3. Soap
3.1. Fatty acids are carboxylic acids that contain 4-28 carbon in the molecule.
3.2. Soap is the sodium or potassium salt of fatty acid.
3.3. The general formula of soap is RCOO–Na+ or RCOO–K+, where R is an alkyl group that has long carbon chain.
3.4. Image below shows the general structure of a soup molecule.
4. Detergent
4.1. A detergent is a compound, or a mixture of compounds, intended to assist cleaning.
4.2. Detergent are usually made from synthetic subtances.
4.3. Example of detergents are sodium alkyl sulphate and sodium alkylbenzene sulphonate.
4.4. The basic structure of the detergent molecule is similar in nature to a soaps. It will dissolve in water to produce sodium ion (Na+) and detergent ions.
4.5. A detergent ion consists of two parts which are known as the hydrophilic part and the hydrophilics part.
4.6. The hydrophilic part consist of the sulphate group (-OSO3) or the sulphonate group (-SO3) which is readily dissolves in water but does not dissolve in oil.
4.7. The tail is a long hydrocarbon chain which is hydrophobic in nature and does not dissolve in water but dissolves readily in oil.
4.8. Cleaning Action of Detergent
4.9. Like the ion of soap, detergent ions consist of two parts, the hydrophobic part and the hydrophilic part.
4.10. Therefore, detergent can also act as emulsifying agent and wetting agent as soap, in a cleaning action.
