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Sydney Thomas February 17, 2014 Beeswax

A glazing agent is a protective coating on the surface of foods to help the appearance while also helping the food last longer. Glazing agents can help food such as chocolate, snacks, nuts, coffee beans, and some fresh fruits (Aguilar, Fernando) last longer and maintain an improved appearance. It is widely used for the coating of foods. One type of glazing agent is beeswax. The chemical formula for beeswax is C15H31COOC30H61, which happens to be a natural product as well. Beeswax is made up of esters of fatty acids. (Seattle University)i fucked your mothe The European Food Safety Authority was reevaluating beeswax from when it was first looked at in 1990 where the authority concluded, “that because of the paucity of experimental toxicogical data it was unable to establish the full safety of this compound but considered that it use as glazing agent was temporarily acceptable.” (Aguilar, Fernando) When relooking at beeswax the European Food Safety Authority concluded that beeswax for what it is used for now is still not a safety concern. (Aguilar, Fernando) The effects of beeswax on edible foods is sometimes questioned whether or not it is healthy or right for your body to eat, but also does it change the food, which it is protecting. A study was done with Angeleno plums where the coating of the plum contained beeswax at four lipid content levels. These levels were zero, twenty, forty, sixty, and a hundred grams. The plums were stored for four weeks at one degree Celsius, after the four weeks the plums were moved to twenty degrees Celsius fro one to three weeks. The study found that as the beeswax coating increased the weight of the plum decreased, but this only happened until the forty grams, once the coating got above forty grams no weight was lost, but the water vapor did decrease at this level of coating. Overall, the beeswax coating decreased the softening and bleeding which would allow it to stay ripe for longer. The flavor of the food was not affected with the adding of the beeswax coating; beeswax just increased the shelf life. (Navarro-Tarazaga, M) An interesting investigation was done with scientist at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. With this the scientist created an “environmentally-sound edible bio-packing,” (Eat the product -- and then the packaging) they included hydrophobic beeswax emulsions into hydrophilic pea starch films which changed their physically, mechanical and thermal properties. With the properties being changed this packaging can also be eaten without harming your health. This investigation is just the start for packaging and with the help of beeswax; this could be the start of something incredible. (Eat the product -- and then the packaging) Overall, because beeswax is a natural for a glazing agent it doesn’t add much harm to our health or the foods. Beeswax does not affect our health in anyway, for as many studies that have been tested, there are many that prove that beeswax does not in anyway harm us. Beeswax has many positives, including expanding shelf life, which helps food stores, it can also be used for many things that we have not yet discovered but are working on such as packaging that can help the environment as well as the packaging industry.

Aguilar, Fernando, Herman Autrup, Sue Barlow, Laurence Castle, Riccardo Crebelli, Wolfgang Dekant, Karl-Heinz Engel, Natalie Gontard, David Gott, Sandro Grilli, Rainer Gürtler, John Christian Larsen, Catherine Leclercq, Jean-Charles Leblanc, F. Xavier Malcata, Wim Mennes, Maria Rosaria Milana, Iona Pratt, Ivonne Rietjens, Paul Tobback, and Fidel Toldrá. "Beeswax (E 901) as a Glazing Agent and as Carrier for Flavours." European Food Saftey Authority. N.p., 27 Nov. 2007. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.

Eat the product -- and then the packaging. (2007). TCE: The Chemical Engineer, (797), 17.

Navarro-Tarazaga, M., Massa, A., & Pérez-Gago, M. (2011). Effect of beeswax content on hydroxypropyl methylcellulose-based edible film properties and postharvest quality of coated plums (Cv. Angeleno). LWT - Food Science & Technology, 44(10), 2328-2334. doi:10.1016/j.lwt.2011.03.011

"Seattle University." Proxy Authentication. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.