When you look at the food ingredients tag on a certain food products, you would find all the food included in the products such as food additives, food ingredients and raw materials. However, the materials are different from the food ingredients.
1, definition of materials
Materials are the main ingredients used in the products, they should be natural edible raw or preliminary processing materials. The materials conclude sugar, starch, wheat, oil, fruits, vegetables, eggs, milk, etc.
2, definition of food ingredients
Food ingredients are made from natural materials, through deep producing process, they are made into natural food ingredients. The raw materials and the producing process are both natural, and the food ingredients products are also nature. Food ingredients are not food additives, they are not harmful to human body, they can be used without dosage limits. Products like soy sauce powder, HVP powder and rice vinegar powder can be called food ingredients.
3, differences
The main materials of food products are raw or shallow produced, while food ingredients are deep produced.
The price of food ingredients is much higher than that of main materials.
Food ingredients can have some special functional such as chicken powder can give the food a chicken flavor.
The usage of food ingredients can be very little. For example, malt dextrin is widely used in iced drinks, but the average usage is not more than 5%.
