I. IntroductionThroughout history, humans have been obsessed with food, and to make those foods taste better or last longer, humans have added substances to their food. These substances are called food additives. Food additives were used 5,000 years ago to pickle vegetables and preserve fish and meats. Today, food additives have come into their own and have had a wide range of uses, including stabilizing the pH of foods, increasing salinity, preventing oxidation, increasing shelf life. preservation, texture improvement and much more. Food additives have a general connotation that they are man-made, but they can be both synthetic or naturally occurring. Examples of naturally occurring food additives include vitamin C (corbic acid), sodium, or lecithin found in soy. Generally, these food additives are used in very small quantities and are very closely monitored by various scientific organizations. In the early 1900s, food additives came into widespread use after their potential was revealed. The problem is that at that time, food additives were not controlled or monitored. Naturally, companies were adding more and more food additives to make their foods more appealing, which posed dangerous safety concerns. For example, borax loaded into foods. Borax is toxic and constitutes a reproductive toxin. However, today borax is used illegally to extend the shelf life of many foods in other countries, although regulations work to control these toxic food additives. The term food additives has many definitions that can be applied by different organizations. These definitions are complex and long to cover as many regulations as possible. An extract from the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration), in the middle of the article......asmine Motarjemi. Np: Elsevier, 2014. 466-70. Flight. 2 of the Encyclopedia of Food Safety. 4 vol. Science Direct. Internet. May 6, 2014. “Monosodium glutamate.” Healthy Years, February 2014: 8. Academic OneFile. Internet. May 6, 2014. O'Mullane, Matthew, Glenn Stanley and Barry Fields. “Food additives: sweeteners. » Dangers and diseases. Ed. Yasmine Motarjemi. Np: Elsevier, 2014. Vol. 2 of the Encyclopedia of Food Safety. 4 vol. Science Direct. Internet. May 6, 2014. Schyvens, Chris. “Food additives: antioxidants”. Dangers and diseases. Ed. Yasmine Motarjemi. Np: Elsevier, 2014. 455-58. Flight. 2 of the Encyclopedia of Food Safety. 4 vol. ScienceDirect. Internet. May 6, 2014. Tomaska, Luba and Simon Brooke-Taylor. “Food additives: Food additives – General”. Dangers and diseases. Ed. Yasmine Motarjemi. Np: Elsevier, 2014. Vol. 2 of the Encyclopedia of Food Safety. 4 vol. ScienceDirect. Internet. May 6 2014.