Many people like to eat Lao Tan sauerkraut flavored instant noodles, but have you ever thought about the soul of this kind of instant noodles - how lao tan sauerkraut buns are produced?
This year's (2022) 315 party exposed the production process of Laotan sauerkraut buns, which was shocking.
Laotan sauerkraut bun is known as "Laotan craft, full time fermentation", and the propaganda screen is also a clean jar of fermented sauerkraut.
But according to the 315 party report, the sauerkraut you actually eat in your mouth is actually the "pit sauerkraut" collected from the field.
The flag planting vegetable industry exposed by 315 is a large vegetable reprocessing enterprise in Huarong County, Hunan Province, and its official website introduces that it has cooperative relations with many well-known enterprises such as Master Kang and Unification.
(Source: CCTV Finance)
In the place where the sauerkraut is collected, workers either wear slippers or step on the sauerkraut barefoot. Some even work while smoking, and throw the cigarette butts directly on the sauerkraut.
The pickling process of these pit sauerkraut is even more rough: mustard greens are not cleaned, and some even have withered and yellowed leaves after being placed, adding water, salt, etc., wrapped in film, covered with soil and directly pickled.
However, the manufacturers who collect sauerkraut turn a blind eye to all this, they just put it in, and then wash, root, cut, and then transport it to the next process.
(A worker with a spoon fills a sauerkraut bag with liquid.)
Source: CCTV Finance)
The whole process does not detect bacteria, E. coli and other indicators at all. Even in order to make sauerkraut sell well, excessive preservatives will be added to it.
As a food company, they do things that people put into their mouths, but they don't care what happens when people eat them.
As soon as the news broke, many manufacturers have issued apology statements or removed related products.
(Source: Screenshot of World Wide Web Weibo)
(Source: A treasure screenshot)
Even the big-name products are like this, and many netizens are forced to make their own sauerkraut.
(Source: Screenshot of Weibo)
Dian Ge still has to remind everyone: pickle yourself, do not pay attention to the method, otherwise it is easy to exceed the nitrite standard.
"Healthy Hangzhou" has reported cases of poisoning because of eating pickles.
Zhang Dabo, a 52-year-old in Hangzhou, suddenly became grumpy after dinner, vomiting incessantly, and urinary incontinence, and his hands and lips turned purple. Sent to the hospital emergency department, he was told that it was "nitrite poisoning", and the cause of the poisoning was pickled vegetables.
(Old Zhang's palms are compared to normal people.) Source: Healthy Hangzhou)
If the pickles such as sauerkraut are not properly pickled, the excessive amount of nitrite inside will affect the oxygen combination in the blood, resulting in the rapid appearance of symptoms of general hypoxia in the poisoned person, such as lips, nail beds, etc. become brown, blue-brown, blue-black, chest tightness, breathing difficulties and other symptoms, severe cases can be coma, shock, and even death.
In order to be healthier and safer when picking sauerkraut, studies have shown that the best time to pickle is about 20 days, at which time nitrite will be reduced to a relatively low level [1].
(Source: Reference 1)
In addition, pay attention to [1] when marinating:
1. Do not put too much salt, so as not to make the pickled sauerkraut bitter, and the amount of salt added can be about 1.0% of the weight of the cabbage.
2. When taking sauerkraut, take it from top to bottom layer by layer, and never take out the stone pressed on the sauerkraut, so as to prevent the sauerkraut from floating up naturally without pressure and becoming bad.
3. In the process of marinating sauerkraut, there must be no oil on any utensil, otherwise the sauerkraut will easily rot during the pickling process.
If it is bought sauerkraut, someone has studied controlling the amount of nitrite by controlling the water temperature, soaking time, adding different doses of vitamin C and garlic, and making the sauerkraut cleaner [2].
The study found that:
1 kg of sauerkraut is added at a 1:4 water addition, then 1.2 g of vitamin C and 45 g of garlic are added and soaked for 6 minutes at a water temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, and the nitrite can be reduced by 70.24%.
Of course, no matter how low the nitrite control of sauerkraut is, after all, it is still a not very healthy food, I hope that everyone will eat it occasionally, and do not eat it as a dish.
Reviewers:
Nguyen Quang Feng
Director of science and technology department of Coxin Food and Health Information Exchange Center
Liu Pingping
Registered Dietitian
bibliography
Wang J X, Guo H, Diao Quan P, et al. Study on the pickling process and nitrite formation law of traditional Northeast sauerkraut[J]. Shandong Chemical Industry, 2017, 46(16):2.
Liu Yan, Sun Jianhua. Study on rapid reduction of nitrite in sauerkraut[J]. Science and Technology of Food Industry, 2005, 26(10):3.
*The content of this article is a popularization of health knowledge and cannot be used as a specific diagnosis and treatment recommendation, nor is it a substitute for face-to-face consultation by a practicing physician, for reference only.
*The copyright of this article belongs to Tencent Medical Code, unauthorized media reprinting is prohibited, and illegal reprinting will be investigated for legal responsibility according to law. Individuals are welcome to forward to the circle of friends.