Natural antioxidants as food and beverage ingredients - Natural Food Additives, Ingredients and Flavourings - page 113

Fig. 5.8 Teatheafl avins.
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both edible and sometimes non-edible. The general focus in most of these studies
is toward disease prevention and health benefi ts, detoxifi cation and sometimes
weight loss (acai berries). Fruits, vegetables, juices and sometimes whole foods
are usually promoted for their content in such antioxidants. However, none of
these antioxidants have made it yet on a commercial, large-scale as food
preservatives. Perhaps the nutraceutical and functional food market is still more
fi nancially attractive for producers.
Tocopherols
Tocopherols derived from various vegetable oils and grain sources became known
and allowed as additives in foods in the early 1940s (Higgins and Black 1944),
although the discovery of vitamin E ( α -tocopherol) was documented as early as
1922 in a Science paper entitled 'On the existence of a hitherto unrecognized