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Home > Senior Science > Options > Preservatives & Additives > Preservatives and Additives: 1. Many consumer products have other substances added
Option 9.6 - Preservatives
and Additives: 1. Many consumer products have other substances added
Syllabus reference (October 2002 version) |
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| 1. Many consumer products have other substances added to improve the appearance, the shelf-life, consistency or taste | Students learn to: |
Students: |
Extract from Senior Science Stage 6 Syllabus (Amended October 2002) © Board of Studies, NSW.
[Edit: 16 September 08]
Prior learning: Science Stage 4-5 syllabus: Outcome 4.8.5b.
Background: People used to produce their own food and ate what was available when it was in season. We then began to specialise, so some people produced enough food for themselves and some to sell so they could buy other products with the money they earned. Food is now transported long distances and comes from one place where it is in season to another place where it is not. With the longer time from production to purchasing, food needs to be preserved and have chemicals added to improve shelf life. Also as companies compete they want to make their product look more attractive so they can appeal to the consumers so sometimes colouring or thickeners are added.
choose equipment or resources for, and perform a first-hand investigation to identify and record a range of ingredients in food and cosmetic products
- Consider what foods and cosmetics you are going to investigate. You will want a range of ingredients and as the module is about preservatives and additives you should choose processed food, rather than unprocessed. A range of savoury and sweet food should give you a variety of ingredients. Basic cosmetics such as moisturisers, facial cremes and liquid foundation makeup could be used.
- Talk to your teacher to find out what equipment the school has to do testing of ingredients. Now choose the equipment you will need for those tests. You might look on the Internet to see if there are other tests you could do with the equipment available.
- Before you start testing you need to look up a book for the standard results of different ingredients or you need to do the standard testing yourself, eg a test for fats and oils is to rub the product on brown paper and if the paper turns translucent fat is present. You could use testape to test for the presence of glucose.
- Decide how you are going to record your results. A table would do it well with a possible format below.
| Product | Test done | Change | Ingredient |
| meat pie | brown paper | turned translucent | fat present |
| testape | no change | no sugar present |
identify that many consumable products contain other substances apart from the consumable goods
- Look at the label on the side of the packet of a range of products to see what is added to the good. You could compare the additives in different products or in different brands of the same product.
- This is not the same as the label for nutrients. One way to tell if it is an additive is that many have a number code. You would need to check the code to see the name of the additive, however some companies give both the number and the name.
discuss the range of substances added to improve appearance, shelf-life, consistency or taste of consumer products
- Go to the supermarket and a large variety store like KMart or Target. Look on the shelves and read the labels of a variety of products. Then choose about 10 products to use in your investigation.
- Make a table to record the type of product, eg fruit juice, potato chips, processed dessert and after shave lotion and then next to each product record the additives and their functions. You may need to check the function by looking on the Internet if it is not listed.
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