Another one - Introduction

I decided to start this blog from a half-assed thought that came to me one day about the things that make up the food, or rather food-like substances (to quote Michael Pollan), that we eat. Well, that's not completely true. I've been thinking about food, and our (American) industrial food system for a while now. I once experienced a burst of curiosity at work to try and decipher some of the most common ingredients in our foods, such as high fructose corn syrup, beta carotene, and other hard-to-pronounce compounds. I decided (4 months later) to nurture this curiosity through blogging, and since I already have an account on blogger, I figured I'd start here.

So what is this stuff that food processors decide to put into our colorfully packaged, sugary snacks? What do they do? Will they really cure cancer, or just give us more dental problems? I don't really want to get into why these things are injected into our food, as many authors have already trespassed on that topic. I'm interested in the what - what it is, and what it does that is so crucial to the overall final product. Since I have a very limited knowledge and background of the sciences, I can only hope to make an ounce of sense with this project.