As the saying goes, "The people take food as the sky." In recent years, our food safety problems have become increasingly serious, with the continuous emergence of incidents such as poisoned milk powder and dyed steamed buns, people can't help but ask, is food additives safe?
Food additives refer to chemical compounds or natural substances that are criticized by the state and added to food due to the needs of preservative preservation and improving processing technology. China's "Hygiene Standards for the Use of Food Additives" will become preservatives, coagulants, quality improvers, flavor enhancers, nutritional enhancers, and more than 1,500 kinds of 22 categories. When human food entered industrial production, there was almost nothing without added ingredients except for a very small number of natural wild foods. At present, nearly 97% of food products use various additives. It can be said that food additives have become an indispensable substance in modern food industrial production.
The antiseptic and freshness effect of food additives on food is very obvious. According to food safety requirements, the total number of bacteria per gram of food cannot exceed 80,000. If preservatives are not used, even in a low temperature environment of 0 to 4 ° C, the total number of bacteria stored in meat products until the fifth day will exceed 100,000 per gram. Preservatives can curb the proliferation of Clostridium virulent in meat products and effectively extend the shelf life of meat products.
Food additives not only protect against corrosion and freshness, but also improve the appearance and taste of food. The sour, sweet and fresh food is usually not the natural domestic taste of the food, but is often "blended" by additives. The allure of food, such as the elasticity of noodles and crispy snacks, is mostly due to additives.
Now, people have found that many food additives also have the function of disease prevention and disease resistance. For example, curd red yeast is fermented from rice, which can reduce blood lipids, it is both a pigment and a functional additive; Sweeteners extracted from licorice can improve liver function; Xylitol extracted from the corn cob has the effect of protecting the liver and preventing caries. In addition, food additives can also adjust the nutritional structure of food, such as adding calcium powder, vitamins, etc. to the flour, which can make the nutrition of the flour more comprehensive.
The development of the modern food industry is inseparable from the out-of-product additives, and the use of food additives also directly affects food safety. For example, excessive intake of leavening agents or preservatives can cause drooling, diarrhea, rapid heartbeat and other symptoms, and heavy will cause serious harm to the stomach, liver and kidneys. In order to regulate the use of food additives, countries have formulated strict laws and regulations. For example, China's food hygiene standards clearly stipulate that potassium sorbate can be used as a food additive, but the proportion of addition must be strictly controlled, and its permitted addition amount is within 0.5%. In the United States, sodium benzoate is only allowed to be used in cosmetics and the concentration must be in the range of 0.1% to 0.2%. The World Health Organization also specifies an ADI value, which is an estimate of the daily allowable intake of a food additive that is not harmful to health, based on human body weight. For example, the ADI value of sodium saccharin is 5 mg/kg, i.e. the permissible daily intake of sodium saccharin is 5 grams per kilogram of body weight.
It must be pointed out that Sudanese red, melamine, etc., which have been condemned by people, are not food additives, but illegal additives. Such illegal additives are also common block yellow, boric acid, sodium thiocyanate, protein, acid orange and the like. In general, under the violation of not exceeding the amount of food additives do not exceed the scope of the use of food additives, food is safe.