Food ingredients

A checked version of this page, approved on 22 August 2022, was based on this revision.

Food ingredients are all substances that are added to a food to achieve a desired effect. It also includes all food additives added to foods for specific technical and/or functional purposes during processing, storage or packaging.

Food ingredients are devided in direct and indirect ingredients. Direct food additives are used to impart specific technological or functional qualities like stabilizers to help prevent separation of nutrients in fortified milk products or phosphates as a leavening agent in baked goods. Indirect additives are not intentionally added to food, but may be present in trace amounts from processing, packaging, shipping or storage.

All food additives are controlled by national regulatory authorities and must be proven safe to be used in foods.