What’s Ascorbyl palmitate?

Ascorbyl palmitate is a natural ingredient esterified with palmitic acid and L-ascorbic acid. It is an efficient oxygen scavenger and enhancer, and has been evaluated by the Food Additives Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) as a nutritious, non-toxic, efficient, and safe food additive. This product can have antioxidant, color protection, and nutritional enhancement effects when used in food.

Ascorbyl palmitate is an efficient, safe, and non-toxic fat soluble nutritional antioxidant that is insoluble in water and vegetable oil. The appearance is white or yellow white powder with a slight citrus aroma.

L-ascorbate palmitate has efficient oxygen scavenging and nutritional enhancement functions, and has all the physiological activities of vitamin C. At the same time, it overcomes the three major drawbacks of vitamin C: fear of heat, fear of light, and fear of moisture, and its stability is higher than that of vitamin C.

L-ascorbate palmitate (L-AP) is a novel multifunctional food additive that has been widely used as a fat soluble antioxidant and nutritional enhancer in fats or food due to its unique function. Compared with L-ascorbic acid, L-ascorbic acid palmitate has significantly improved antioxidant properties. In addition, KageyamaK et al. also found that it can strongly inhibit the DNA synthesis of Ehrlich tumors and decompose the cell membrane phospholipids of cancer cells, making it an excellent anti-cancer substance. It can be predicted that L-ascorbate palmitate will be active as an emerging and important multifunctional additive in various fields such as food, cosmetics, and healthcare products.

In recent years, the application of L-AP has expanded from the field of food, grains and oils to other fields. It can be used as a stabilizer in medicinal ointments and capsule formulations, added to thermosensitive paper to increase its stability, added to cosmetics to enhance its efficacy, and has antibacterial activity against Bacillus subtilis and other bacteria.