Food Additives

Thanks to Mark Bittman at the New York Times, I got to read the USDA's official list of all the things processors can legally put into food. (PDF) The most interesting parts to me were the parts you don't even have to declare on the list of ingredients. For example,

"secondary direct food additives are substances whose functionality is required during the manufacture or processing of a food and are ordinarily removed from the final food. Although residuals might carry over to the final food, residuals must not exhibit any technical effects"

Gotta say, compared to an aqueous solution of peroxyacetic acid, hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid, and 1- hydroxyethylidene-1, 1- diphosphonic acid, those bird droppings in the garden don't sound bad at all.