Processed foods

Processed food is the recent one and it occupies about 30% of the diet of a US resident. The meaning of the term pmcessedfood is very broad and conveys a negative implication. The International Food Information Council Foundation (IFICF) defines food processing as "a remarkable change in the food product that occurs before the availability of eating," for example, canned tuna, beans, tomatoes, frozen fruits, and vegetables. Manufacturers do not require any processing information on product labels. Food is considered to be processed even if it is chopped, frozen, or dried. Foods are processed to preserve, or to enhance nutrients, or to maintain freshness at its peak. In the United States, products for eating or drinking contain large amounts of chemicals in the form of artificial flavor and colors. In the United States, the consumption of colored food has increased drastically compared to the 1950s. People consume aspartame, fluoride, bisphenol A (BPA), genetically modified diets, insecticides, highly concentrated fructose corn syrup, pharmaceutical drugs, and toxic vaccines without knowing their hazardous effects. This makes consumers unhealthy and susceptible to life-threatening diseases, such as cancer and heart disease (Amchova et al., 2015). Toxicity due to the binding ability of colorants to human serum albumin is also emerging.

Colors. Artificial flavoring and coloring agents are (1) cheap, (2) sensory appealing, (3) stable for a long time, and (4) independent of the agricultural cycle of plant harvesting seasons. However, the awareness of potential health risks of those artificial additives continues to raise questions.

Food industries aim to satisfy the consumer expectations by providing constant and attractive foodstuffs (Martinsa et al., 2016). To achieve their goal, flavors are added into food products to make them fresh and nutritive. But there is a high level of marketing pressure on food industries to provide attractive food preparations instead of preparing quality foods.

Artificial flavors are added to denatured food products. After the addition of flavors, the products look like fresh as the customer expected. Sometimes, flavor additives may increase or modify the taste of food. Fake lemon flavor, fake butter flavor, and fake berry flavor are the most commonly used artificial flavors.
 Butyl alcohol and phenylacetaldehyde, dimethyl acetals are the chemicals allowed to maintain flavors. Artificial flavors are used to imitate the natural flavor of specific fruits, butter, spices, cereals, beverages, cookies, juices, candies, and so forth. Most artificial flavors are banned in the European Union .