Vitamins and minerals added to many common foods such as milk, flour, cereal, and margarine to make up for elements likely to be lacking in a personal diet, replace those lost in processing or improve shelf life.
Most salt contains iodine to prevent goiter a condition resulting for iodine deficiency. It was one of the earliest used of nutritional additives to correct dietary deficiencies. In 1833, the French chemist Boussingault recommended the addition of iodine to table salt to prevent goiter.
Nutritional additives can be used to restore nutrients to levels found in the food before storage, packaging, handling and processing.
Other example of nutritional additives is fluoride may be added to drinking water to supply the mineral fluorine, required for normal tooth development in children.
Margarine, for example, is used as substitute for butter for economic reasons, Vitamin A and D thus need to be added to margarine to raise it nutritional value equal to that of the butter.
Nutritional food additives
