Any substance used in the manufacture or preparation of a foodstuff and still present in the finished product, even if in an altered form. Contaminants and adulterants are not considered to be ingredients.
The name of an item called for by a recipe—an ingredient—is closely related to some surprising words, including aggression and congress. The common source of these words is the Latin verb gradi, meaning to walk or to go. By attaching this verb to the preposition in, Latin formed the word ingredi, meaning to go in, which then gave rise to a present participle form, ingrediens, meaning going in. In the mid fifteenth century the Latin ingrediens became, via French, the English ingredient, an ingredient literally being something going in to a dish. The Latin gradi also became attached to the prefix ad to form adgradi, whose pronunciation and spelling was soon simplified to aggredi, meaning to go toward in a menacing manner. In English, the past participle of aggredi—agressus—gave rise to aggression, first recorded in the early seventeenth century. The word congress—literally meaning a going together—arose in a similar way at about the same time.
A substance which is used with others to make something.
Any part of a compound or a mixture; a unit of a more complex substance.