Skim the ingredient record of many drinks, jams, canned greens, or frozen meals and also you’re more likely to come throughout one which you can truly pronounce — citric acid.
Regardless of its prevalence, few shoppers know what it’s or the place it comes from. (Although that first phrase ought to provide you with a clue…)
Right here’s what you need to find out about citric acid, together with its origins, makes use of, and advantages.
What Is Citric Acid?
Citric acid is an edible acid naturally present in citrus fruits, and it’s what offers them their bitter style.
It’s additionally commercially manufactured for all kinds of makes use of in processed meals and drinks, cleansing merchandise, prescribed drugs, dietary dietary supplements, and cosmetics.
Whereas lemons and limes could also be extra generally recognized for his or her ascorbic acid (AKA vitamin C) content material, citrus fruits truly comprise extra citric acid. In actual fact, citric acid can account for as a lot as 8 p.c of the full dry mass of a lime or lemon!
The preliminary discovery of citric acid is credited to eighth-century Persian alchemist Jabir Ibn Hayyan. However it wasn’t till the late 1700s when Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele first remoted citric acid from lemon juice.
Over the following century, citric acid turned extensively utilized in quite a lot of meals, cleansing, and beauty merchandise as a preservative, flavor-enhancer, and stabilizer.
Within the 1900s, American meals chemist James Currie discovered {that a} widespread fungus that causes black mildew on vegatables and fruits, Aspergillus niger, produces giant quantities of citric acid when fed a sugar resolution.
This artificial technique of deriving citric acid revolutionized the market and have become the brand new normal for its industrial manufacturing.
Citric Acid Makes use of in Meals
“It’s utilized in meals and drinks to spice up acidity, improve taste, and protect components,” explains Amy Goodson, MS, RD, CSSD, LD, a board-certified specialist in sports activities dietetics. “It may also be added to canned vegatables and fruits to guard in opposition to botulism, a uncommon however severe sickness brought on by micro organism.”
Citric acid is likely one of the commonest meals components on this planet due to the number of makes use of and advantages it gives, Goodson provides.
Listed here are just some citric acid’s purposes:
Citric Acid Advantages
Whereas citric acid gives a variety of advantages for meals and beverage producers, Goodson explains that dietary citric acid may present various well being advantages for shoppers as effectively.
1. Antioxidant properties
Some analysis has proven that citric acid might profit antioxidant exercise.
Antioxidants are substances present in meals like vegatables and fruits which will forestall or delay sure sorts oxidative stress that may trigger cell harm. Citric acid is related to antioxidant advantages for serving to to assist the immune system in addition to liver and mind operate.
2. Mineral absorption
Citric acid may also help your physique retain some key minerals. “Citric acid enhances the bioavailability of sure minerals, serving to your physique to higher take in them,” explains Goodson.
Research have supported a hyperlink between citric acid and mineral absorption, calcium and phosphorus, specifically.
3. Cut back bodily fatigue
Whereas extra analysis is required to grasp its connection to bodily fatigue, citric acid might also profit vitality ranges.
A small human examine reported within the Journal of Medical Biochemistry and Vitamin discovered that oral consumption of citric acid helped cut back physiological stress and fatigue within the physique after laborious exercises.
Whereas the explanations for this phenomenon aren’t absolutely understood, it’s theorized that it might have one thing to do with the cycle of vitality manufacturing by which citric acid is a main participant.
Is Citric Acid Unhealthy for You?
Involved that citric acid is perhaps dangerous for you?
Whereas 99 p.c of the world’s manufacturing of citric acid is now manufactured as an alternative of derived from lemons, there may be little proof that citric acid — even the artificial stuff — has well being dangers for shoppers, says Goodson.
“Manufactured citric acid is usually acknowledged as secure (GRAS) by the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA). So shoppers can really feel secure consuming it as part of meals and drinks,” Goodson explains.
