Foods

READY MADE FOODS

• They are processed and packaged foodstuffs.
• They contain various additives added to foodstuffs at different stages, which are not consumed alone, nutritive value or not.

Usage Purposes of Additives:

• To increase nutritional value of food (Vitamin, minerals and amino acids)
• To ensure that food is in a certain consistency (starch and its derivatives)
• Ensuring that the food remains intact (emulsifiers and stabilizers)
• To make food surface look smooth
• Coloring food
• Sweeten and adding flavour the food
• To increase shelf life of food: In addition to add of additives, the shelf life of foods is extended by the following methods:

1. Pasteurization: Food is heated to 60-100°C and immediately packaged. After pasteurization, some heat-resistant bacteria may remain in the foodstuff.
2. Sterilization: With the so-called Ultra High Temperature (UHT) process, the food is heated to 120-140°C. After sterilization, no bacteria will remain in the food.

• The shelf life of products processed with UHT technology is longer than the shelf life of pasteurized products.
• Food additives in Turkey are controlled by “Turkish Food Codex, Regulation on Food Additives”. Firms engaged in ready-made food production are obliged to comply with this regulation. Untrusted companies’ products should be handled with care and should not use ready-to-eat foods that do not contain labels that show product qualities.
• On the other hand, the usage times of ready-to-eat foods are different from each other. For this reason, when the ready-made food is taken into consideration, the consumption dates should be strictly observed.

INTERNATIONAL NUMBERING SYSTEM AND E CODE

The European Union (EU) has developed a coding system to show food additives in a short way.

In this system, the code for each contribution starts with the first letter “E” of the “European” word and is completed with a number consisting of three or four digits. (such as E220)

The first digit of the number in the code indicates the chemical additive class and the last two digits indicate which compound it is.

On many packing labels of ready-made food, the codes are written instead of the names of the substances involved in that food.