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Article: A primer on food additives. (includes related article)
- Article from:
- FDA Consumer
- Article date:
- October 1, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1988 U.S. Government Printing Office. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A Primer on Food Additives
Since the time when the kitchen stove was a campfire outside a cave, people have tinkered with ways to preserve and enhance food. Food was fragile, delicate, prone to rot, and easily injured. Bugs infested it, bacteria invaded it, mold infected it, and the air made it rancied.
Something had to be added to protect food and perhaps make it tastier, too. So the ancient Romans used sulfites to disinfect wine containers and help preserve the wine. Europeans in the 13th and 14th centuries embraced Marco Polo because he brought back spices from the Orient to season their bland diet. Travelers to the New World stored meat in salt to ...