TwoTired I get your point...but seriously, are you really trying to claim that food additives, and genetically modified stuff, etc. is good for humans, animals, or even tastier?....I know, I know, if Honda engineers went to all that trouble to create partially hydrogenated corn syrup, then we should just know that it's good. 
There is certainly chemistry or chemical substances that are harmful for human consumption. But, not all chemicals are man made, and even of those that are, not all are bad. They run the range from bad to good. For example, vitamin C's chemical structure is that same whether it be from a plant, or manufactured in a laboratory. Both sources can provide other than pure end product. However, your body is unable to differentiate between the sources, and uses the chemicals in the same manner.
Does anyone here know the exact chemical requirements of the human body? None of us have an owner's manual. We just operate on an incomplete information about what the body uses and how it uses it. Each of us is a chemical conversion unit.
Doctor's don't know either, there is still constant research on what and how the body does what it does and how it does it. We as a scientific community simply have a snapshot of the knowledge accumulated so far.
We didn't design homo sapiens. Nor do we understand completely how the individual functions, or the extent of the variations among the species. Sure, there are statistical as well as case studies, to make an approximate guess with the partial information we have so far. We actually experiment on our own bodies on a daily basis, with no factual knowledge about the ultimate outcome. But, we know what we as individuals like. Isn't this a dichotomy?
As for food additives, some are beneficial, some are neutral, and I expect some are either harmful either near term or long term. Such is the state of knowledge base at this point in time.
Just because it is a chemical or has a chemical name does not necessarily make it bad for you. The mechanism and process of how the body assimilates all chemicals is an incomplete database. The database for how chemicals interact within the human body is even more sparse.
The field of chemistry is vast, and well beyond the average user of twitter and facebook, as well as this very forum. I personally have only scratched the surface. Know only that there is far more to know about before a working knowledge can be attained. Yet sadly, I probably still know more than 90% of the consumer population.
I posted the Link,
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html so that you might understand how articles (and studies) can be written in a way to lead the reader down the primrose path toward utter ignorance yet form an opinion which the writer wished the reader to conclude. Unless, you have some rudimentary understanding or bona fide education to sort fantasy from fact, human opinions have no reality reference beyond popularity or widely varying and irrational human emotions. Sadly, the news shows and general media outlets all present in a way to evoke human base reaction response (adverts, too), to help you form opinions favorable to the presenter. It may still be based on facts (selected). But, are they lying by omission, or associating the presented facts with negative (or positive) connotations to evoke a desired conclusion?
If you were to ingest Lycopene, or methylxanthine, would this be good for you or bad for you?
Is it ok for you to consume any acid?
Try to answer, at least to yourself, before you look it up.
Anyway, if you live long enough, you will be made aware of substances and chemicals that were once thought good for you, become bad for you, and vice versa on the public awareness stage. So far, we are all just rolling the dice, as it takes a lifetime to make a determination one way or the other on what we've accumulated. Hunger notwithstanding, you always have a choice of weather to stuff it in your mouth, or not.
As a baby, I'm told I ate dirt. I don't recall why. It wasn't a diet mainstay. But, a playtime snack. But, it has certainly lost it's allure for quite some time, an hasn't killed me yet. There were no societal pressures to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle either. Today, my parents would have been vilified for child endangerment.
Great time to live, eh?
