Researches have tried to find natural alternative materials to chemical food additives. The new material is chitosan.
Chitosan is the structural element in the exoskeleton of crustaceans (crabs, shrimp, etc.) and cell walls of fungi. Commercial chitosans are produced by deacetylation of chitin.

According to new findings published in Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies using chitosan may act as an anti-microbial ingredient for orange juice, and remove the need for pasteurization.
It is also claimed that adding one gram of chitosan to one litre of fresh orange juice reduce both enzymatic and non-enzymatic browning of the juice.

The study was carried out by Postharvest Technology Unit (PTU) and Functional Ingredient Food Unit (FiFu) at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) with with chitosan in concentrations ranging from 0 to 2 grams per litre of juice. But it was found that over 1gram chitosan makes the taste of juice bitter and decrease the vitamin C content.

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