ABSTRACT
Food additives range from harmless adulterants such as water that are merely added in order to defraud consumers of their money, to dyes, which can make the lives of a minority of children and their families an absolute misery. Adulterants have been added to food ever since the first innkeeper had the bright idea of increasing profits by watering his beer. In 1912, food technologists discovered how to hydrogenate polyunsaturated oils, turning them into fats. Preservatives are added to food to stop it 'going off', as the name suggests. The debate on the effects of food additives on health is voluminous, with major contradictions between evidence provided by sceptics and that provided by believers. A drug in the present context is any substance that alters the state of consciousness of a well human. Availability of hard drugs is the main factor in the creation of drug addiction.
