Antioxidants added to cooking oils, can carcinogenic?

Rumors

Vegetable oils sold on the market are fortified with antioxidants, which are unsafe and carcinogenic. Therefore, long-term consumption of vegetable oils will have a risk of carcinogenicity.

Truth

Vegetable oils have a long shelf life of up to 18 months. If it is not stored properly, under the action of light, oxygen and temperature, it will oxidize and deteriorate.

In order to ensure that vegetable oil is not oxidized and deteriorated during the shelf life, measures such as low-temperature storage, nitrogen filling and the addition of antioxidants allowed by the state can be adopted. The first two methods are less effective or not easy to achieve in practice. Therefore, the same as the international general practice, in the vegetable oil production process, the most commonly used method in China is to add antioxidants.

Among antioxidants, the most criticized are dibutyl hydroxytoluene (BHT) and butyl hydroxyanisole (BHA). In fact, BHA and BHT have been almost no longer used due to price, use effect and other reasons. As for the safety of BHA and BHT, further test certification is pending, and at present, there is no conclusive evidence that they are harmful.

For safety and performance reasons, the most used antioxidant in Edible Oil in China today is tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), and the dosage used is usually less (generally less than 0.2 g/kg).

Many studies on TBHQ by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization's Expert Committee on Food Additives have shown that TBHQ, used as an antioxidant, does not have a genotoxic effect in vivo and that further genotoxicity studies are no longer required. In general, as long as it is a cooking oil that uses antioxidants in accordance with national standards, its safety is not a problem, and consumers can buy and eat with confidence.

Source: "Eat Three Meals a Day" Studio; Author: XXX; Agricultural Futures Network reprints this article for the purpose of disseminating more information only, and does not mean that this website endorses the author's views in the article. If the author of the reprinted article thinks that there is something wrong with this website, please call this website at 010-51289506, and this website will immediately consult with you and solve relevant matters.