Prepared by Assistant Professor Dr. Hussain Jassim Al-Hadithi

Department of Food Sciences / College of Agriculture / University of Anbar

      Preservatives are a subject of constant debate between the academic and research community, the legislative, supervisory and executive bodies, and the food industry. The importance of this topic lies in the large and diverse numbers of these substances and the growing doubts about their relationship to diseases, especially cancer and allergies, and the inability of the regulatory authorities to follow up on their uses and rates of presence in the huge amount of food products.

Preservatives are substances that are added to food in order to keep it from spoiling for long periods of time. These substances prevent or delay chemical changes, such as in the interaction of oxygen with oils or fats, as well as fat-soluble vitamins that lead to rancidity. Rancidity spoils food and makes it harmful to human health. Preservatives, like other food additives, are symbolized by the symbol (E), followed by the numbers 200 to 299.

These materials cause a large number of health and general harms, which can be summarized as follows:

- Some types of preservatives are characterized by their ability to accumulate in certain tissues, causing the emergence of multiple disease states.

 Some of them are responsible for some types of allergies-

- Underestimating the quality of the quality (the quality of eating, drinking, or otherwise)

- Reducing the desired health benefits from eating some foods, sometimes up to 40%, especially in fruits and vegetables.

- It is possible that when a person eats a lot of them, he is more likely to be obese than the one who consumes fresh materials.

 Prevents the body's immunity from the bacteria that cause rashes-

- It prevents the body from resisting the damage caused by infection with some pathogenic factors such as viruses and most microorganisms.

- The flavor of preservatives is less than fresh food by 20% as a minimum, and it may increase as the percentage of preservatives in manufactured cans increases.

- Reducing calories by 40-80% and these calories may fade as the expiration date of preservatives approaches.

The damage caused by preservatives to public health has received a h