Our three meals a day may deal with food additives. But when it comes to food additives that can "sing", do you feel a little fresh?
In fact, it is not far from our lives, the polished candy on your table, the bright and beautiful fruit, and the chewing gum that can chew out the realm... Maybe it all contributes.
This somewhat amazing food additive is lac.
Image source: Yongfeng.com
How does lac show its skills in food?
Lac, also known as shellac, is a hard, tough, amorphous and brittle resin solid material. The main components are divided into three categories, namely resin (65%-80%), waxy (4%-8%) and lac pigment (containing moisture) (2%-7%). It has almost no odor in cold environments, but produces a characteristic odor when heated or melted.
Chemical structure of lac (a. polymer, b. monomer)
Lac is the only known commercial resin derived from animals, and people are more concerned about its food safety. In this regard, we can completely reassure that as long as the product meets the national food additive standards, it can be eaten with confidence. It turns out that lac has a good edible safety. China's national standards for food additives allow lac to be used as a coating agent, gum sugar base agent and coloring agent for food.
Coating agent: chocolate, apple surface manifestation
At first glance, you may feel a little strange when you hear the membrane agent, but in fact you have definitely seen it. Coating agent refers to a type of food additive that is applied to the surface of food to ensure quality, preservation, glazing and inhibit the evaporation of water.
According to the provisions of China's national standards for food additives, lac is used as a coating agent and can be applied to cocoa products, chocolate and chocolate products, wafer biscuits, collagen casings and the surface treatment of apples and citrus fruits.
Applying lac on the appearance of candy and chocolate can improve the quality of the senses, and can also achieve moisture-proof and quality-preserving effects. Coating bread and pastries prevents mildew and extends shelf life. Coating citrus and apples reduces water evaporation and spoilage.
Application scope and dosage of lac red (Source: Reference [2])
Gum base: Chew gum, bubble gum and chew
The pleasure of eating gum and bubble gum lies in the leisurely chewing. But why do you have to chew some gelatin? In fact, this is what we call gum base agent.
The gum sugar mentioned here refers to candy such as chewing gum and bubble gum. The base agent is generally used as natural rubber or synthetic rubber, and then add some other ingredients.
Image source: picassosmiles.com
The production of gum sugar is inseparable from the base agent, because the base agent is a special substance that gives the gum sugar foaming, plasticizing, chewing resistance and so on. It is special because it is only a carrier, does not have a nutritional function, and cannot be absorbed by the human body.
The base agent generally accounts for 15% to 30% of the sugar body weight, and its importance can be seen. According to the provisions of China's national standards for food additives, lac can be used as a basic agent for gum-based candy and other candy, and the amount of use is 3 grams/kg.
Colorants: Give drinks and jams some color
Colorants are substances that can give food color or improve food color, and there are food synthetic colors and edible natural colors. Edible natural colors are mainly derived from automatic plant tissues or microbial metabolites, and are processed as organic colorants. Although edible natural pigments are not as stable as synthetic pigments, they are safer than synthetics.
The red pigment extracted from lac is called lac red, and because of its ability to resist ultraviolet rays and does not darken with aging, it is a common natural colorant in the food industry.
The color of lac red varies with the pH value, yellow when ph is less than 4, orange when ph is equal to 4, red when ph is equal to 6, and purple when ph is equal to 8. Lac red is good for light and heat stability in acidic media, stable for vitamin C, but very sensitive to metal ions.
According to the provisions of China's national standards for food additives, lac red can be used for jams, cocoa products, chocolate and chocolate products, flavor pie fillings, compound seasonings, fruit and vegetable juice (pulp) drinks, carbonated drinks, fruity drinks, prepared wine, etc., with a usage of 0.5g/kg.
Sing without ambiguity
Through the above introduction, has it dispelled people's doubts about the safety of lac? Next, it is time to verify the unique skill of "singing" in laurels.
Perhaps people living in the digital age have a hard time understanding the special place of records at the end of the 19th century. When it comes to records, people naturally think of phonographs. As we all know, the phonograph is a major invention of Edison, but the phonograph invented by Edison is called the wax cylinder gramophone. Today we are going to talk about the turntable phonograph invented by Emile Berliner, whose impact on human society cannot be underestimated!
Edison invented the wax cylinder phonograph in 1877 (Credit: sohu)
Berliner improved early models of Edison's phonograph and produced the first flat disc that could be played with a phonograph. In 1895, Berlinner introduced Shellac Records – as the name suggests, shellac was found in the materials used to make the records. Before the advent of vinyl, most phonograph records were pressed with a mixture of shellac.
Historical shellac records (Image: sogou)
From 1912 to 1952, shellac records dominated, and some countries continued to use it even in the 1980s.
Lac, shellac, what is the origin?
After reading the two major skills of lac, you may also be curious about what it is. It turned out that lac was a purple natural resin secreted by the female lac worm after absorbing the host sap.
Lac is an insect that lives in tropical and subtropical regions and is taxonomically belonging to the order Insecta , Homoptera , and The Gum Borer family. Lac worms are mainly distributed in Yunnan, Tibet, Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Guizhou, Hunan, Taiwan and other provinces and regions in China. The top three in the world in terms of lac production are India, Thailand and China.
Lac worm (Image source: Wikipedia)
Lac worms live on host plants to suck up plant sap to sustain life. Lac worms are male and female, with different metamorphosis. Males are completely metamorphosed, and the life cycle goes through five stages: egg, larva, pre-pupa, true pupae and adult, while females are incompletely metamorphosed, and the life cycle only passes through three stages: egg, larvae and adult.
As an important resource insect, the lac worm is completed by the female insect. Female lac worms protect themselves by secreting a waxy waterproof coating from special glands, which for humans is a gift from nature.
After the female larvae settle on the new shoots and shoots, they begin to secrete lac. This secretion initially appears in shiny layers and quickly hardens upon contact with air. The lac worm is a very tiny insect, with an average of 300,000 animals producing 1 kg of lac resin.
Interestingly, lac worms and ants are good friends with reciprocal symbiosis. Don't underestimate the weak little ant, it is a "big role" in the kingdom of lac worms!
Ants and lac worms – good friends of reciprocal symbiosis (Image: feedthedatamonster)
The use of lac by humans has an extremely long history, and the earliest documented case is the Mahabharata Palace. This extravagant palace, built 3,000 years ago, is said to have been built with lac, which shows that humans have a long history of using lac.
Li Shizhen recorded the medical value of lac in the "Compendium of Materia Medica". In modern times, lac is also used as a coating material for drugs. It is reported that before the birth of polyacrylic acid, lac has been a commonly used coating material for enteric-coated drugs.
In recent decades, lac has been widely used in the food industry, electrical appliance industry, plastics industry, paint industry, shipbuilding industry, aircraft manufacturing industry and defense industry and other fields, making great contributions to mankind.
bibliography
[1] Yu Xin, Li Xiaohua, editor-in-chief. Natural Food Additives, China Light Industry Press, 2014.
[2] National Standard of the People's Republic of China, National Standard for Food Safety Standard for the Use of Food Additives (gb2760-2014).
[3] National Standard of the People's Republic of China, National Standard for Food Safety, Food Additives Lac (also known as Shellac), (gb 1886.114-2015).
[4] National Standard of the People's Republic of China, National Standard for Food Safety, Food Additives, Lac Red (also known as Shellac Red), (gb 1886.17-2015).
【5】https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/shellac。
【6】https://biography.yourdictionary.com/emile-berliner。
Source: Tadpole staves
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