Be vigilant
Much of the concern about the safety of food additives stems from the public's discovery that ingredients are contaminated or unsafe. Cyclamate, an artificial sweetener widely used in soft drinks, was banned in the United States in 1969 because of concerns that it could cause cancer. In 1976, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of margarine #2, a widely used artificial food colorant, also due to concerns that it causes cancer. These high-profile actions have seriously undermined public confidence in artificial food ingredients.
But further inspections revealed that the bans were also a sign of food authority vigilance. Cyclamate was found in one study to increase the incidence of bloating cancer in rats, and its use in the United States has since been banned. From a human perspective, the dose of cyclamate fed to rats in the study is equivalent to drinking 350 cans of soda in a day. Even the most serious soda addicts have never achieved such high intakes, let alone cyclamate, so the study is controversial. Cyclamate is still allowed in 55 countries, including Canada and much of Europe. A later report released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suggested that the available evidence was insufficient to prove that cyclamate was associated with the occurrence of cancer. However, its use in the United States is still prohibited because the FDA is reluctant to accept the recommendation and reissue it.
Raymond Pigment #2 had a similar experience. The initial skepticism was raised by Soviet researchers, and eventually the U.S. Food and Drug Administration repeated the study, and rats ate a daily dose equivalent to the amount of dye contained in 7500 cans of soda soda. Although it is unlikely that humans will be able to take such large doses, consumer protection groups and lobbyists still call for a ban on the pigment dye. The FDA's decision to ban red dye #2 is mainly their insistence that the link between this pigment and cancer is difficult to discover. Although the link between this compound and cancer has not been proven, Canada and most European countries still allow the use of margarine #2. These examples show that the FDA's ban on suspicious food ingredients is very rapid, even if there is not enough evidence that they cause harm. Canadian and European safety agencies require much stricter evidence than U.S. food and drug administration before banning the use of a substance. Ultimately, these practices raise a very simple question: Are food regulations based on politics and skepticism, or are they based on science? However, there are also many people who draw the opposite conclusion based on these examples.
Since some food additives have been banned, they believe that all food additives are questionable until they have been proven safe. When pesticides and other non-food contaminants are confused with legitimate food additives, another common problem arises. The two substances are completely different, the additive is "intentionally" added to the food, and the pesticide residue is an accidental contaminant that should not have appeared in the food. Compounding the problem is that advocates of organic food conflate all food additives and pesticides, as well as non-organic farming practices.
In everyday life, we always hear some members of the public, including chefs, indiscriminately say that they don't want "chemical additives, preservatives, or pesticides" to appear in their food, as if all three things belong to one substance. Instead, loyalists of organic food always see everything that is labeled "organic" or "natural" and "pure" as something more worth eating. In their eyes, certain ingredients used in modernist cooking also need to be carefully guarded against, as their strange names don't sound like "natural." However, as we discussed above, large-scale studies have not shown any health benefits from eating only organic foods. In addition, the so-called natural things are also relatively correct. Many food products are heavily processed and have become completely different from the original state, sugar, flour, butter, fatty cream and gelatin are very important processed natural ingredients in the kitchen; And, of course, there's wine, vinegar, and spirits like brandy and whiskey.
Compared with the original ingredients, the processed ingredients have become unrecognizable. White sugar eventually becomes completely different from molasses. The gelatin flakes used in desserts have been different from the pig or fish skins that make them. The same is true of many modernist ingredients, gum arabic is made from the sap of the tree, and locust bean gum is of course derived from locust beans. In fact, most of the hydrophilic colloids are either extracted from plants or from bacteria. Agar, alginate, and carrageenan come from seaweed. Pectin is made from the peel (mainly orange juice squeezed from oranges). Xanthan gum and gum gum, like yogurt and vinegar, are produced by bacteria through fermentation.
We can't find any reasonable reason why, since we are allowed to extract sugar from sugar cane or sugar beets, why should we be restricted to extracting only pectin from orange peels. Both products are extracted and purified from natural ingredients through a series of processing steps. In both cases, if you wish, you can designate (and pay more) a certain food as "organic": if that's the case, the safety standards for modernist ingredients are equally high compared to traditional foods, because they are highly purified and must meet the strict requirements set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Manufacturers who make these food ingredients must operate according to very strict purity specifications, because the requirements of their industrial customers are very high. Companies like Nestlé and Coca-Cola use billions of dollars to make and lose in the food they use in their packaged food.
They rely on careful and rigorous chemical analysis by chemists to ensure the accuracy and consistency of each batch of products. As a result, these products are shipped more purely and consistently than any food produced in any chef's kitchen. In fact, most modernist ingredients are tested far more than the food in our family pantry. Traditional ingredients are subject to the old rules, the so-called "grandfa-ther clause", which is usually used for the term "GRAS", which means "generally recognized as safe". These foods do not need to be tested with particular care and do not need to comply with specific protocols. Nowadays, sucrose (the common table sugar) is also often debated. If sucrose is approved as a new food additive, it will face an uphill battle. After all, it is refined through industrial processes, and apparently these sugars can cause harm to people by increasing obesity, diabetes, and caries. Sucrose was originally only used as a foreign additive in line with the "grandfather clause", only allowed to be sold in small quantities in pharmacies, while largely avoiding the strict regulation of the new additive rules. In fact, the biggest difference between so-called "artificial" additives and traditional food additives such as sucrose, baking soda, and baking powder is that the new additives need to undergo a complete safety test, while those older GRAS additives escape this test and enter the market in a relatively loose period.
Now we know that butter is actually good, and margarine rich in trans fats can be life-threatening: these are exactly contrary to the traditional view that we are a generation away. As medical science becomes more aware of the underlying causes of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and other common conditions, we may be able to find the real culprit in our food. However, we may also find that certain diseases may not be related to our diet.
Ultimately, scientific research will figure everything out, but to achieve this goal, large randomized controlled clinical trials lasting for many years will be needed to provide sufficient evidence. Until the final conclusion comes, everyone can hold their own opinion, but there will be no scientific basis.
Thank you for watching, I hope to support the editor more, and bring better healthy food science and principles in the future.