INGREDIENT

This article is about ingredients in general. There is also an American soul and R&B group called The Main Ingredient.

An ingredient is something that forms part of a mixture (in a general sense). For example, in cooking, a recipe will specify which ingredients are used to prepare a specific dish. Many commercial products contain a secret ingredient that is purported to make them better than competing products. In the pharmaceutical industry, an active ingredient is that part of a formulation that yields the effect required by the customer.

National laws usually require prepared food products to display a list of ingredients, and specifically require that certain additives be listed.

Commercial product ingredients

Often the ingredients in store bought products, the ingredients are listed in descending order. For example, the label ingredients on the soft drink Solo reads carbonated water, sugar, reconstituted lemon juice (5%), food acids (330,331), flavour, preservatives (211, 223), and colour (102). From this you can see that Solo consists of small amounts of chemicals, 5% lemon juice, at least 5% sugar and even more carbonated water. The method of listing ingredients in descending order is a standard on most commercial products. If an ingredient consists of more than one ingredient (such as cookie pieces in cookies and cream ice cream) then that ingredient will be listed by what percentage of the total product it occupies, with it’s own ingredients displayed next to it in brackets.