"Green organic additive-free, absolutely natural good products", I believe that everyone will not be unfamiliar with such slogans. I don't know when a food movement about healthy additive-free has quietly emerged.
People began to pursue a good body and a healthier way of eating. In this movement, food additives are seen as "health killers".
Common food additives/figures from Health Times
For a long time, food additives have been listed as "harmful substances", but in fact, many experts have publicly rumored that food additives are essential in food, as long as the content is within the limit, it will not be harmful to health.
However, everyone still scorns food additives. Especially in 2016, the "carrageenan carcinogenicity" incident caused a sensation, allowing more people to begin to understand food additives, and also brought the food additive of carrageenan into everyone's field of vision.
How big is the health impact of food additives? Is the carrageenan mentioned in the opening paragraph at any risk of carcinogenicity? Let's take a look.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > food additives that are indispensable in daily life</h1>
It is estimated that a person will eat dozens of food additives a day, and if it is really harmful to health, the results will be frightening. But in fact, if you understand food additives carefully, you will change your mind about it.
Before discussing food additives, we must first understand what it does. According to the provisions of China's health law, food additives mainly refer to substances added to food in order to improve the color and flavor of food, or the need for preservatives and processing processes, including synthetic substances and natural substances. It is widely present in our daily lives, such as common: leavening agents, colorants, crisis increasers, sweeteners and preservatives.
So, are these food additives as harmful to the human body as some common news reports say? As the old saying goes: toxicity aside is hooliganism, and this standard applies to many other areas as well. Our general common food additives are actually required to dose, if the dose is exceeded, it must be harmful to the human body. For example, the vinegar we often eat contains acetic acid, if it exceeds 3.5 grams per kilogram, it will be harmful to the human body.
The same is true for food additives, different food additives, the limited dose is not the same. For example, the carrageenan we mentioned, in different foods, the dosage of carrageenan is also slightly different, for example, in jelly, 0.5%-1.0%; in sauces 0.2%-0.5%; in imitation milk 0.05%.
Another common additive is Sudan red, but because studies have proved that long-term intake of Sudanese red pigment will increase the risk of human carcinogen, China's "Sanitary Standards for the Use of Food Additives" has banned the use of Sudan red as a food additive.
It can be seen that as long as it is a regularly listed food, its content is generally within the prescribed range, and it is not tight to eat.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > carrageenan, is it true or false? </h1>
As a well-known food additive, carrageenan has excellent performance and is widely used. It is a hydrocolloid extracted from red seaweed. Because it has the function of thickening and emulsifying, it is widely used in food addition. For example, common jellies, jams, candies, chocolate, beverages, dairy products, noodle products, etc., all contain carrageenan.
In most cases, the management agency will not limit the amount of carrageenan, one is because it will affect the taste of more, and the other is that many countries have recognized the safety of carrageenan as a food gum.
In 1974, the World Health Organization and the International Food and Agriculture Organization's Committee of Experts (JECFA) believed that carrageenan was safe and reliable and could be used in food, but there was still opposition in the industry, and later JECFA repeatedly evaluated the safety of carrageenan and came up with the result that "no limits are required". The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also long listed carrageenan as a GRAS substance, determined that carrageenan is safe, and approved its use in various types of food.
So what is carcinogenic about carrageenan?
This stems from a paper. The paper clearly points out that after animal experiments, food-grade carrageenan has been found to cause gastrointestinal inflammation and higher frequency of intestinal damage, ulcers, and even malignant tumors.
For a time, it caused panic among the broad masses of the people.
To this end, JECFA decided to re-evaluate carrageenan, and it was estimated that the dose of intestinal ulcers caused by carrageenan was 45,000 mg, and to achieve this dose, an adult had to eat 45 kilograms of jelly a day. Obviously, no one can do that at all.
On the other hand, the paper mentions that it is actually "degrading carrageenan", which is not the same thing as carrageenan, it does not have the ability to thicken and improve food stability, so manufacturers basically do not add it to food, and in the human digestive tract, carrageenan does not degrade.
From this, JECFA experts once again concluded that "carrageenan is safe".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > food additives are harmless in themselves, and it is mainly necessary to prevent "abuse of food additives"</h1>
Through the above science popularization, perhaps everyone has a certain understanding of food additives. Experts say that the safety of food additives mainly depends on how much they are used and how much they eat. As long as it meets the national standards for use, then the safety of food additives can be guaranteed!
But in today's social environment, the abuse of food additives is also repeatedly prohibited.
Sun Baoguo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in the "Let's Talk" program that food additives do not exceed the scope and amount in food, which are harmless to the human body, and even some are beneficial to the human body.
Dr. Zhong Kai, who focuses on food safety research, also shows that the abuse of food additives or the illegal addition of food additives are all illegal and illegal. However, the safety evaluation of food additives has taken into account the lifelong, daily, and large intake of food additives, so consumers do not have to panic too much when they encounter the problem of food additives. If you inadvertently eat food with excessive food additives, do not feel that it is necessarily harmful and carcinogenic. Because under normal circumstances, it will not cause the amount of health hazards, after all, everyone can not eat food with excessive additives for life and every day.
All in all, food additives are widely used and diverse, and appear from time to time in our daily lives. When consumers look at food additives, they should use a scientific and rational attitude to analyze, and do not have to panic too much about their potential harm. Generally in line with the national standards of food, even if there are food additives, will not greatly damage everyone's health. For additives, we should pay more attention to whether they are abused and whether the production of food meets national standards. #Healthy May Day ##39 Health Super Group ##清风计划 #
Resources:
Zhang Hui,Jia Jingdun,Wang Wenyue,Chen Xiujuan,Wu Shijia,Wang Hongxin,Wang Jing. Research progress and development trend of domestic food additives[J].Journal of Food and Biotechnology,2016,35(03):225-233.
HE Xiang. Research on the construction of national food safety standard system[D].Central South University,2013.
Wang Jing,Sun Baoguo. Food Additives and Food Safety[J].Science Bulletin,2013,58(26):2619-2625.
[4] Does the "carrageenan" in infant formula really cause cancer? Beijing Youth Daily.2016-12-28