So what exactly are food additives and why use them?

Additives are functional ingredients: they are added into foods on purpose to improve safety, nutritional value and/or taste and appearance. Basically, food additives are used to:

Preserve foods safely e.g. preventing bacteria from growing and causing food to rot or cause food poisoning.

Maintain food nutrition e.g. preventing the loss or breakdown of vitamins and amino acids.

Give food special qualities e.g. artificial sweeteners for making diabetic snacks or using bulking agents to make food less fattening.

Make food more appealing (taste or appearance) e.g. thickeners and stabilisers to prevent the ingredients of ice cream and salad dressings from separating.

Next: How long have food additives been around?