Food Preservatives and Their Uses: A Short Report

Packaged food and beverages are consumed all over the world for their nutritional value, durability, thirst quenching properties, stimulating effect and for their medicinal values. With changing lifestyle and requirements, people now often prefers the packaged food products over homemade products. Although, various food products including the beverages pass through several, quality, safety and regulatory mandates, but the consumers are concerned about the food preservatives since in some cases, allergic reaction to generally recognized as safe (GRAS) food has been reported. The study represents the usages of different forms of preservatives in packaged food industry along with their beneficial and adverse effects and also highlights their antioxidant and antimicrobial potential to serve the consumer’s needs.