Which Foods Contain Emulsifiers
In the food industry, it is very common that fatty and watery phases need to be mixed together. The following foods belong on everyone's daily menu, which would not be producible in the way we know from the supermarket without emulsifiers: such as baked goods, buns, desserts, margarine or dressings and mayonnaise.
But there are many foods that naturally contain emulsifiers. So milk or cream is naturally a water/fat mixture which contains lecithin as a natural emulsifier.
How an Emulsifier Works
An emulsifier has the property of binding the fatty part and the watery part in a mixture together. An emulsifier possesses fat-loving - the so-called lipophilic - and water-loving - these are the hydrophilic - molecules. These bind the respective fatty or watery parts and can thus break down the rigid boundaries between fat and water and create a homogeneous mixture.
Use of Emulsifiers
Emulsifiers are legally not required to be declared with the exact name of the substance used in food law. It must only be marked that an emulsifier is contained. Emulsifiers, like other food additives, are also referred to by so-called E numbers. Behind these E numbers are on the one hand emulsifiers of natural origin such as lecithin with the designation E 322, but also artificially produced emulsifiers such as E 432. This is a synthetically produced substance that contains sorbitol and fatty acids.
Risks from Emulsifiers
To date, emulsifiers are largely considered harmless. However, there are no large-scale studies on the subject. It is known, however, that emulsifiers can change the intestinal mucosa and make it more absorbent and permeable for food components which may be unhealthy or allergenic and which are thus absorbed by the body in a way that would not occur without emulsifiers. However, health risks related to this have been scarcely researched so far.