How much sunset yellow added in milk tea will be poisoned?

Recently, a brand of milk tea was removed from the shelves because it was detected by the local food and drug department for adding sunset yellow pigment, and the explanation given by the food and drug department was that sunset yellow "must not be added". Subsequently, the media reported that "sunset yellow can cause chronic poisoning".

In fact, "must not be added" only means that the national standard does not include milk tea in the scope of use of sunset yellow, and "chronic poisoning" is purely the imagination of some media who do not understand the facts.

I. Why did the food and drug department determine that the milk tea involved violated the law?

Sunset yellow is a synthetic pigment that is widely used in the food industry around the world. In the Chinese national standard GB2760-2014 "Food Additive Use Standard", "sunset yellow and its aluminum lake" is allowed to be used as a colorant in 11 categories and dozens of sub-categories of food and beverages.

In the food classification, milk tea belongs to the "tea drink" and the classification number is 14.05.01. This category is not included in the scope of use of sunset yellow.

That is to say, the same as the drink, most of the species can be added sunset yellow, and tea drinks are not included, so it is "not allowed to add". According to national standards, the food and drug department judged that the addition of sunset yellow to milk tea was illegal, which was justified.

It should be pointed out that the national standard does not include a food in the scope of use of a food additive, and does not mean that it is harmful to add it - the same substance is safe in other beverages such as milk drinks, lactic acid bacteria drinks, plant protein drinks, carbonated drinks, flavored drinks, etc., and "chronic poisoning" in milk tea, which is obviously absurd.

A class of foods that is not included in the scope of use of a certain food additive is usually in these two cases:

1. "There is no need to add" in this type of food;

2. No enterprise has applied to use this additive in this type of food.

In fact, with the development of products such as milk tea, if a company applies to use sunset yellow and other pigments, it will basically be approved.

Second, what is the safety of sunset yellow?

Sunset yellow is a synthetic pigment that has passed extensive safety assessments many years ago and has been approved for use in food. In 1982, the international authority JECFA formulated the ADI (Allowable Daily Intake) at 2.5 mg per kilogram of body weight per day, which means: "As long as the daily intake does not exceed this value, it will not have any adverse effects on health for a lifetime".

However, people are often wary of "synthetic" substances. In 2007, the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom published a study in the journal The Lancet. The study sought more than a hundred three- and eight- and nine-year-olds and gave them three drinks over a six-week period. The other ingredients of the three drinks are the same, but two of them contain sodium benzoate and four synthetic pigments. By looking at how these children behaved during different drinks, a score was given as a measure of "attention and hyperactivity." Finally, it was found that the combination of these synthetic pigments and sodium benzoate in some cases can cause children to lose attention and hyperactivity.

This study caused a huge sensation, and some institutions in the United States asked the FDA to ban synthetic pigments. The FDA replied that the trial design and data of the study were not enough to draw conclusions, and simply rejected the request. The European Food Safety Authority(EFSA) review also found that the study was clearly flawed, and the data could not support the conclusion, but out of the "principle of caution", they lowered the ADI values of several synthetic pigments and required a "warning message" to be added to the product. For Sunset Yellow, they "temporarily" lowered the ADI value to "1 mg/day/kg body weight."

In 2011, JECFA reassessed the safety of sunset yellow, relaxed the ADI value to "4 mg/day/kg body weight", and noted that sunset yellow pigment in the diet does not cause health problems.

In 2014, the European Food Safety Authority revisited the data and changed the ADI value of Sunset Yellow from the previous "tentative" "1 mg/day/kg body weight" to "4 mg/day/kg body weight", thus aligning with JECFA's standards.

According to this ADI value, an adult of 60 kg can consume 240 mg of sunset yellow per day. That is to say, drinking so much sunset yellow every day is not harmful to the body. According to Chinese national standards, the maximum dosage of sunset yellow in flavored beverages is 0.1 g/kg, so if you want to drink enough 240 mg of sunset yellow, you need to drink 2.4 kg of flavored drinks. According to this conversion relationship, if anyone wants to drink "chronic poisoning", it is estimated that it is also a very difficult thing.

Third, although it is harmless, the violation must still be investigated

It should be emphasized that according to the current national standard standard, the use of sunset yellow or other pigments in milk tea is indeed illegal. This violation belongs to the "use of food additives beyond the scope", although it will not endanger the health of consumers, but it is still a violation.

National standards are the code of practice that producers must follow and are the basis for law enforcement by regulatory authorities. Neither producers nor law enforcement need to ask why the national standard is set this way – that's what standard-setting experts consider. However, if the media, when reporting such violations, baselessly exaggerate "harm" and hype "poisonous food", it is irresponsible to create panic.