Have you ever ordered coffee in a café where it comes with small packets of cream? I like coffee with plenty of cream, so I usually pick up two or three packs. I just found out, though, that the cream in these packets is not made of milk, or any kind of dairy product. It actually consists of a mixture of vegetable oil and water with food additives added to make the cream look like milk and artificial flavouring included to mimic the taste of cream.

I discovered this fact while reading Behind the Normal Food（食品の裏側）. Its author, Tsukasa Abe, once worked in a Japanese food additive company. Abe knows food additives like the back of his hand. His job was to help food manufacturers solve the taste problems. Additives are called "magic medicine" in his industry, he said, and he was the doctor who prescribed them.

In Behind the Normal Food, Abe recounts his many stories and experiences with food. He tells us, for example, that those tasty meatballs we consume are actually made of throwaway scraps of meat. To give the meatballs a more meaty flavour, food companies use meat from spent chickens (chickens that cannot lay eggs) and lots of food additives. And that's how cheap and nice-looking meatballs are made. A packet of these kinds of meatballs costs about 100 yen at Japanese supermarkets, and is popular among housewives and children.

When Abe found out that his young daughter loved these meatballs, he suddenly realised that his beloved family members were also consumers and may have eaten his handiwork without his even knowing. So knowing the facts, Abe decided to make use of his knowledge and disclose to the public how these cheap instant foods that many people enjoy are actually made.

By Jan Mak