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CCTV News Mobile Network News October 14 news, spend more money to buy brewed soy sauce, is a picture of peace of mind, figure a soy sauce has a taste. However, some soy sauce manufacturers have significantly marked themselves as brewing soy sauce on the label, but in fact the core ingredient is zero, which hides the quality of soy sauce.
The core ingredient of brewed soy sauce is amino acid nitrogen, which is also one of the most core indicators to measure the quality of brewed soy sauce. However, the esoteric old vinaya of the Guangxiangtai brand chicken rice produced by Guangxiangtai Pte Ltd. in Singapore was found to have an amino acid nitrogen content of (0.23g/100ml) of only 57.5% of the standard minimum value and a carbohydrate content of only 61.8% of the standard minimum. In addition, the total nitrogen content does not meet the minimum requirements of China's soy sauce standards.
In layman's terms, even if measured only by the standard minimum, about 40% of the money paid by consumers who buy this product is spent unjustly. Of course, strictly speaking, such products are not allowed to be sold on the market. At the same time, this sample is an imported commodity, but it is not labeled on the outer packaging that conforms to China's prepackaged food, which does not meet the relevant regulations of China's imported food.
Another nominal crab garden brand braised soy sauce produced by Huamei Condiment Factory in Sihong County, Suqian City, the label is significantly marked with the words "brewed soy sauce", but after testing, the amino acid nitrogen content is 0.01g/100ml, which is only one-fortieth of the minimum value of the standard, which can be said to be about equal to none.
These two shockingly low-quality soy sauce products were found by reporters from the results of the soy sauce comparison test released this week by the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Commission.
Senior Shuai, engineer of Far East Chia Tai Inspection Group Co., Ltd.: It does not meet the minimum standard requirements for brewing soy sauce in China, and it can even be said that it cannot be called soy sauce, but its label is prominently marked with the words brewed soy sauce.
In further investigation, the reporter found that the comparative test also found more intolerable inferior products.
Soy sauce is a common name for the thick soy sauce in the southern region, nominally known as Tengzhou Huafeng Xiucai Condiment Co., Ltd. production of Huafeng Yilijia brand grass mushroom old soy sauce (braised sauce, production date 2017/03/03) Although the packaging of this sample is also marked with braised sauce, but the location of the straw mushroom soy sauce label is very obvious, through the test, the amino acid nitrogen content is zero, and the total nitrogen content is only 0.19g/100ml, which does not meet the national standards for soy sauce.
Gao Shuai: This sample misleads consumers by marking the name, thinking that it is soy sauce and old soy sauce, but in fact it is not at all.
The reporter learned that the comparative test of soy sauce released by the Consumer Protection Commission of Jiangsu Province tested 120 soy sauce samples from 48 brands sold in shopping malls, supermarkets, farmers' markets and online e-commerce platforms, 56 enterprises or agents, of which 29 samples did not meet national standards, and the main problems focused on labeling, nutritional composition labeling (explicit) and quality indicators.
The deputy secretary-general of the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Committee is on the top: among them, the proportion of cases where the labeling and nutritional ingredient labeling do not meet the national standards is high, the label labeling of soy sauce is not clear, and the explicit value of the nutritional ingredient and the actual value are inconsistent, which will seriously mislead consumers and damage the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
In April 2018, the relevant media sorted out the quality sampling of soy sauce in the past four years from the beginning of 2014 to April 2018 announced by the national and provincial food and drug regulatory departments. The results showed that a total of 8831 batches of soy sauce were sampled, of which 349 batches were unqualified, with a pass rate of 96%, and the unqualified items mainly involved low amino acid nitrogen and the total number of colonies exceeding the standard.
Compared with the 96% pass rate in the past four years, the compliance rate of this comparative test is only about 76%, experts said that although there are certain reasons for the difference between quality sampling and comparative tests, there are also some regularity problems, for example, the core problem found in the past four years is mainly that the amino acid nitrogen content is too low, and although this comparative test also found that the amino acid nitrogen content of individual samples is too low, the main problem has changed to label labeling, nutritional content labeling and other issues.
Experts told reporters that this surface change is a sign of the complication of soy sauce quality problems, and behind these labeling problems, the core problem is still the problem of amino acid nitrogen content.
The nutritional composition list specified in the soy sauce label must not only meet the labeling requirements of the "National Standard for Food Safety, General Principles for Prepackaged Food Nutrition Labeling", but also ensure that the labeled value is consistent with the actual measured value, such as the national standard clearly stipulates that the measured value of the three components of energy, fat and sodium shall not be higher than 120% of the stated value, and the two components of carbohydrate and protein shall not be less than 80% of the stated value.
Gao Shuai: A total of 120 soy sauces were detected this time, of which 23 soy sauces have a situation where the label label value does not match the measured value, one of which is that the protein content of the nutritional content of the soy sauce is greater than or equal to 1.47, while our measured value is only 0.4, and the sodium in this soy sauce Is marked with a value of less than or equal to 360, and our measured value has reached more than 5000, this phenomenon actually belongs to the manufacturer to mislead consumers, causing consumers to choose soy sauce There is a serious misunderstanding.
Of the 120 soy sauce samples sampled this time, 23 samples had nutritional content indications that did not match the actual test values. Wherein, the nominal b. b． Brand one children's soy sauce sample, nominal Lee Kum Kee brand Jin Zhensheng sample, nominal delicious Si brand ben brewed fresh special soy sauce sample, nominal Pearl River Bridge mushroom old sample, nominal Japan (Weiba International Trade (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.) maru natural fish fillet preparation soy sauce sample, nominal Japan (Yuanying International Trade (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.) Chaozi prepared soy sauce sample, sodium content does not meet the requirements of national standards.
Experts said that the quality of soy sauce should have been based on amino acid nitrogen content as the core, considering the proportion of total nitrogen, and having suitable nutritional indicators to comprehensively evaluate, if the core index amino acid nitrogen source is clear and stable, the content is up to standard, in general, other indicators clearly meet the standard is a logical thing. Behind the confusion of various component indicators lies a deeper problem.
The reporter's investigation also found that while the labeling of soy sauce was chaotic, the price closely related to consumers was also very chaotic. The Consumer Protection Commission of Jiangsu Province analyzed the prices of the samples in this comparative experiment.
Involving special grade, first-class, second-class, third-level and other different levels of soy sauce, as well as brewing soy sauce and preparing soy sauce and other different types, including 5 samples marked as children's soy sauce, after conversion, the price of a pound of soy sauce samples from 8 cents more than a pound to a few dollars, a dozen pieces, dozens of hundreds, the most expensive up to 700 yuan a pound.
Since the specifications of each soy sauce sample are different, the inspector calculates the price of each sample according to the unit price and the specifications of the actual product at a uniform rate of 500ml.
Gao Shuai: For example, the two soy sauces in this comparative test, their quality is very close, they are converted into a pound to calculate, the price difference is as high as 80 times.
Some soy sauces clearly claim to be brewed soy sauce, but the test results do not contain the core ingredients of brewed soy sauce, and some soy sauces, although the core ingredients meet the national standard, but the proportion between the ingredients is unreasonable, these problems in the market are manifested as label confusion, price confusion, so that consumers are confused.
In the market investigation, the reporter found that the current soy sauce on the market is very diverse, such as seafood soy sauce, high-fresh soy sauce, grass mushroom soy sauce, children's soy sauce, raw fish soy sauce and so on, the price is also from more than a dozen yuan to one or two hundred yuan The gap is huge.
A salesperson told reporters that the reason why the price of some soy sauces is high is because the ingredients of these soy sauces are healthier and more nutritious.
However, another salesman told reporters that many soy sauce labels look tempting, but in fact, it is difficult to say how the soy sauce ingredients are, he revealed that some soy sauce, although labeled as seafood soy sauce, is not necessarily directly related to seafood.
The reporter further investigated and compared and found that the ingredient list on the outer packaging of these products labeled seafood soy sauce, freshening soy sauce, and mushroom soy sauce is often marked with some freshener ingredients that are the same or similar to the msg ingredients. The reporter noted that among the 120 soy sauce samples in this comparative test, 86 samples were detected with fresheners, accounting for more than 70%.
Inspectors say that adding soy sauce to a freshener or additive called a flavor enhancer is not as simple as adding taste.
Originally, the national standard stipulates that the packaging of soy sauce should directly indicate the corresponding production process and the most important quality indicators - the content of amino acid nitrogen, and the amino acid nitrogen content of the product shall not be lower than the content value indicated on the label, of course, it cannot be lower than the minimum value of the national standard.
Gao Shuai: The national standard stipulates that the quality indicators of brewed soy sauce generally include four items, namely amino acid nitrogen, full nitrogen, soluble unsalted solids and ammonium salts, of which amino acid nitrogen is an important indicator, which determines the quality level of soy sauce. Unqualified quality indicators mean that the relevant enterprises are shoddy and deceive consumers, if the quality indicators do not meet the minimum indicators of China's soy sauce standards, it means that consumers may not buy brewed soy sauce.
The inspectors said that it is precisely because of the strict requirements of the national standard for amino acid nitrogen, the core indicators of soy sauce, so a considerable number of soy sauce manufacturers are keen to add fresheners or other similar substances to soy sauce.
Liu Aiping, senior engineer of Far East Chia Tai Inspection Group Co., Ltd.: Sodium glutamate is actually a flavor enhancer, which is what we usually call monosodium glutamate, so with sodium glutamate also adds some other flavor enhancers, these things can make the flavor of soy sauce more plump, which is a development trend of soy sauce in these years, that is, the ingredient list is more and more things. But there is also a problem in this regard, with the increase of the freshener, it is possible that some soy sauce its grade can not reach the original level, is through sodium glutamate, by increasing monosodium glutamate to increase its grade.
After testing, the ratio of amino acid nitrogen to total nitrogen in 65 samples marked with freshening substances was between 0.6 and 0.8. The inspectors said that this ratio exceeds the proportion of amino acid nitrogen normally produced after the protein is decomposed in the general pure brewed soy sauce (between 0.5 and 0.57). Amino acid nitrogen provided by the freshening substance can have a certain impact on the overall amino acid nitrogen content.
Therefore, the increase in the ratio of amino acid nitrogen to total nitrogen is not excluded as due to the addition of freshening substances or other substances, so that the content of amino acid nitrogen alone has been increased, and the total nitrogen content has not been increased.
Liu Aiping: If 500 ml of soy sauce is added with 1 gram of sodium glutamate, it can increase the content of this amino acid nitrogen by 0.014 percentage points. So after it is raised, the total nitrogen does not rise, the amino acid nitrogen rises, this is what we estimate that the quality of the entire soy sauce here may not meet the standard after mixing with water, that increase a little sodium glutamate makes this grade increased again.
It is worth noting that this comparative test detected a total of 120 soy sauce samples, and as many as 65 samples with amino acid nitrogen to total nitrogen ratio exceeding the normal range, the proportion has reached 54%, more than half. More generally speaking, more than half of the samples may have increased the content of amino acid nitrogen, the core substance that shows the quality of soy sauce, by adding a freshener or other substance.
The inspectors said that at present, China does not limit the use of fresheners in soy sauce, but the purpose of enterprises using fresheners should not be to cope with the detection of amino acid nitrogen content of soy sauce, and this targeted response deviates from the original intention of soy sauce standards.
Zhang Dongfei, engineer of Far East Chia Tai Inspection Group Co., Ltd.: There is no limit to the amount of freshening substances added to soy sauce in China, but the unlimited addition of freshening substances is a departure from China's traditional brewing soy sauce process, and it is difficult for consumers to taste the original soy sauce.
According to data released by the China Condiments Association, soy sauce is the largest condiment consumed in China, with an annual output of more than 3 million tons. Since 2012, the per capita production of soy sauce in China has exceeded 5 liters.
The reporter learned that the regulatory authorities have noted the new quality problems in soy sauce products, and have begun to solve, the national standard "soy sauce hygiene standards" that are currently being implemented stipulate that brewed soy sauce refers to soybeans and (or) defatted soybeans, wheat and /or bran as raw materials; liquid condiments with special color, aroma and taste made by microbial fermentation. Formulated soy sauce refers to a liquid condiment prepared with brewed soy sauce as the main body and acid hydrolyzed plant protein flavoring liquid, food additives, etc.
The new standard of "National Standard soy sauce for food safety" will be implemented in December 2019, and the new standard stipulates that enterprises can no longer use the blending process to produce and process soy sauce, and only by using the traditional brewing process can it be called "soy sauce", and the "soy sauce" can only be called "compound seasoning".
Experts said that the illegal and untrustworthy behavior of production and operators that harm the interests of consumers will seriously hurt consumers' confidence, damage consumer rights, and undermine economic order.
Professor Wang Wei of the Political science and Law Department of the Central Party School: Some food producers, their product quality has the problem of unqualified, for example, the nutritional content marked on the label is not consistent with the actual situation, then the situation and problem of such unqualified products are actually the problem of untrustworthiness of enterprises. Their (untrustworthy enterprises) such a quick success, harm to others and self-interest, will make them seriously overdraft their credit capital, they in the market, in the society, is doomed not to go far.
Brewed is called soy sauce, and unbreuished is called "compound seasoning". This measure can be described as a quick knife to cut the mess, and we naturally have to clap our hands and applaud. But looking back, some companies can now label the preparation of soy sauce as brewed soy sauce, so after the implementation of the new standard, will they also label "compound seasoning" as "soy sauce"? Therefore, even the best standards must be implemented by honest enterprises, and there must be strong regulatory measures to ensure it.
Trainee Editor zhou Yuhua in this issue