Synthetic and Natural Food Additives: Toxicological Hazards and Health Benefits

Food additives may be natural or synthetic substances; it is added intentionally to food during its processing and packaging for multipurpose targets such as preservation, adding flavor or sweetening.Nowadays, the safety of food additives is considered a major challenge because of the numerous number of food additives in the worldwide market; it is approximately more than 2500 food additives.Furthermore, there is continuous excessive use of food additives by consumers besides its adulteration by the manufactures in the market.Therefore, the risk assessment of any food additive becomes a necessity before its approval to ensure its safety.This review is an attempt to focus on some common food additives in the market that have toxicological hazards such as artificial sweeteners and colors, monosodium glutamate, and some preservatives.Moreover, it focuses also on some natural food additives that have health benefits and may be used as substitutes for unhealthy food additives in the future.