INGREDIENTS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS

In compliance with FDA regulations, "processing aid" ingredients or additives less than 2% are not required to be listed in nutrition labels. Are you curious about what you eat everyday? What direct/indirect additives are in your food? In compliance with Food and DrugAdministration (FDA) regulations, "process­ing aid" ingredients or additives less than 2% of the product volume are not required to be listed in nutrition labels. Also, ingredients of a product are subject to formula changes on a regular basis and lists can become outdated very quickly. To the Halal-conscious con­sumer, this means food manufacturing com­panies should be contacted regularly to verify their product ingredients. Here are some com­mon ingredients used in most of the food products and their possible sources.

Alcohol: Ethyl alcohol is used as an ingredient in a food product or as part of an ingredient such as wine in Dijon Mustard or in some Italian salad dress­ings and soy sauce and is usually labeled as nat­ural flavor. It is extensively used as a flavor car­rier in many food products and juices and not necessarily labeled as ethyl alcohol.
Whey: A watery part of the milk, milk serum, and it is the liquid that remains after the curd and the cream are removed from the coagulation of the casein of milk. Curdling of milk for cheese preparation takes place with the use of the enzyme rennet. As for the cheese, the enzyme "rennet" used to produce the cheese may be from animal origin and from pig source.
MSG:Monosodium Glutamate: Also called Chinese seasoning. It is used to impart meat flavor to enhance other natural food flavos and to improve the taste of tobacco. It is produced from vegetable sources. Studies show that gluta­mate in the body plays an important role in nor­mal functioning of the nervous system. It is believed to cause brain damage in some lab ani­mals. It is reported that many people suffer from headache and chest pain after eating in Chinese restaurants that MSG is commonly used in most of the Chinese food. Another study showed that females had fewer pregnancies and males had reduced fertility when treated with MSG. FDA recognizes MSG as GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) for most of the food products except for baby foods.
Lecithin: Lecithin is the commercial name given to a mix­ture of phospholipids which occur naturally in a wide variety of animal and vegetable products, including egg yolks, butter, and in vegetable seed oils such as wheat, rape, sunflower and soy. Although the first egg lecithin was designed in 1896 as an emulsifier found in margarine soy bean is now the primary source of lecithin, which remains one of the most versatile ingredients available in the market today. Soy lecithin was developed as an application in a wider range of products, including chocolate, confectionery, bakery, dairy and most low-fat products. The sol­vent of choice for oil extraction is hexane for most of the manufacturers. In some cases, such as frac­tioned lecithin in pharmaceutical applications, alcohol may be used in the processing.
Glycerin:Glycerol: It is a clear, colorless, sweetish and viscous liquid obtained from the hydrolysis of fats and oils. It is used in cosmetics, liquid soaps, detergents and confectioneries. It can be obtained from animal source (beef or pork, hides or bones) or prepared synthetically.