What are the natural preservatives?

We know that if artificial preservatives are used within a certain range, they will not cause much harm to the human body. However, if they are used excessively, they will cause certain damage to human health. Sometimes this damage can be very serious. Therefore, many people want to choose foods that use natural preservatives so that their health will not be harmed. So, what are the natural preservatives? Now, the experts will introduce them to us.

The preservatives used in various foods nowadays are generally artificial preservatives. If used in excess, they will definitely be harmful to the human body. However, if you choose to extract natural preservatives from natural plants in nature, you can protect the human body from harm. Let us learn about this below.

In recent years, people have begun to extract active ingredients from spices such as garlic, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and yam. These spices have natural antibacterial effects. For example, spice extracts using alcohol as a solvent have strong antibacterial effects on a variety of bacteria. In addition, extracts from bamboo leaves, lotus leaves, bitter gourd, and grape skins also have certain antibacterial activity.

1. Garlic Extract

Garlic contains alliin, allicin and allinovin, among which allicin and allinovin are the main antibacterial components in garlic. The latter's antibacterial effectiveness is 50% of the former. The antibacterial mechanism of allicin may be that the oxygen atom in its molecule combines with cysteine ​​in bacteria to prevent it from converting into cysteine, thereby affecting the important redox reactions in bacteria. Garlic has obvious inhibitory and bactericidal effects on many cocci and molds.

2. Perilla Leaf Extract

Perilla leaf distillate has a broad-spectrum antibacterial effect. The main active ingredients are perilla aldehyde and citral. It has obvious inhibitory effects on Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus B, Corynebacterium diphtheriae, Anthracis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus subtilis, etc. Perilla leaf oil also has obvious inhibitory effects on inoculated and naturally contaminated molds and yeasts.

3. Forsythia suspensa extract

Forsythia extract has inhibitory effects on a variety of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and can effectively extend the shelf life of food. Its antibacterial component is mainly forsythia phenol. In Japan, Forsythia extract has long been widely used as a natural preservative in food preservation.

4. Pectin

Pectin decomposition products also have antibacterial effects in acidic environments, mainly polygalacturonic acid and galacturonic acid with an average degree of polymerization of 3 to 5. Its antibacterial activity is affected by pH. It has strong antibacterial properties below pH 6.0 and low antibacterial properties at pH>6.0. It is generally added to food at a rate of 0.1% to 0.3%. It is mainly used in hamburgers, noodle soups, cream cakes and kimchi.

The above is the experts’ introduction to natural preservatives. The application of these natural preservatives can be said to have brought good news to people. I hope that everyone can eat less food containing artificial preservatives in daily life. If possible, try to use the above natural preservatives as much as possible to ensure that human health is not harmed.