Boric Acid Research Paper

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Boric acid, or orthoboric acid, is made up of the elements boron, oxygen, and hydrogen (H3BO3). This boron compound is water-soluble, hence, it able to circulate in plasma (Di Renzo et al., 2007). It is a colorless, odourless and nearly tasteless in natural. In fact, boric acid and its sodium borate salts can be found in nature and many products to function as antiseptic, pesticides and weak fungicide. It is started and registered for use in United States since 1948. Normally, it is used extensively to control a wide variety of pests which include insects, mites, fungus, flea, mold and weeds (Cox, 2004). With the ability of its killing effect, this kind of acid is also used widely in industrial especially in manufacturing of wood furniture…show more content…
This is due to it can inhibits the growth of food microorganisms just like how it behave in the other field as mentioned earlier. As a result, it is able retain the product’s freshness and also longer the shelf life of the product. This is the main reason of the food manufacturers to add in boric acid into the process as they can save and earn more profits by reduce the chances of spoilage of the product (Normah et al., 1984). The similar news also being reported by The Star (2000), which mentioned that boric acid also used to hide the staleness and preserve the freshness of fish and meat among all the fishermongers and food manufacturers. Boric acid added to food such as nyonya kueh, fish cake, koay teow and others, it can acts as food additives to enhance the flavour, colour, texture and crumbiness of the food and the most significant is, it can preserve the food longer than normal. Not only than that, bak chang (Chinese dumpling) is also added boric acid to avoid the sticking of glutinous rice to the bamboo leaf wrapper. The most famous and high traces of boric acid is widely found in noodles. This is due to boric acid is added to into noodles as it is able to control the starch gelatinization, and this process help to enhance the texture and colour of the noodles, at the same, it is also able to preserve the noodles longer (Yiu et al., 2008). However, using of boric acid in food is contravention with Section 13B(2)(d) of the Food Act 1983 and Regulation 20(3) of the

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