Is it really okay to eat dozens of food additives a day?

Have you thought how many food additives you can eat a day?

A small bread in the morning, a box of yogurt in the afternoon, and eating a popsicle in the evening. On this flat day, you are likely to have dozens of food additives.

Does this sound terrifying?

Recently, a net red milk has been exposed to add "melterol" to violate the rules, and the food additives add "doubt" on the head of the food additive. After all, it sounds like a good thing.

So why do you add food additives? Is it really safe to eat so many food additives a day?

01

Why do I have to add food additives? What is the use of it?

Although the reputation of food additives is not good, it always exists in the packaging food at our entrance.

According to the definition of my country's Food Safety Law, food additives refer to:

In order to improve the quality of food and color, fragrance, and taste, as well as the need for anti -corrosion, preservation and processing technology, add artificial synthesis or natural substances in food. Nutritional enhanced agents, food spices, basic substances, and food industry processing additives in the food industry are also included.

There are about 15,000 food additives approved by countries around the world, and more than 2,300 kinds of approval in China.

In my country's "Food Additives Use Standards", food additives can be used in the following circumstances:

a) Keep or increase the nutritional value of food itself;

b) The necessary ingredients or ingredients of some special dietary foods;

c) Improve the quality and stability of food, and improve its sensory characteristics;

d) It is convenient for food production, processing, packaging, transportation, or storage.

So if you look at it like this, the food additive itself is good. It is to make food better, better, and more convenient.

The food we eat every day, from oil and salt seasoning to snack snacks, contain food additives. However, as long as it meets the national standards, food additives added according to regulations and quantities are safe.

For example, in the carbonated beverages we drink, carbon dioxide is also a additive, which bear the effect of preservatives.

Some people may ask that food safety issues have emerged endlessly in recent years, and each time it is harmful to health because of adding "XXX". But food additives want to say: I don't carry this pot.

Sudan red, melamine, white blocks, etc. are not food additives, but illegal additives. Many people's panic about food additives comes from these illegal additives that should not appear in any food.

This time the net red milk was exposed to the propylene glycol added illegally. It is also a legal food additive. It can be applied to the humid noodle products and pastries. Many flavors of flavors are also used as solvents. Regulating use will not harm health.

Picture source: Standard for Food Additives National Standard Food Safety National Standard

The reason why propylene glycol detected in net red milk is illegal because it is not allowed to be directly added to milk, and flavors are not allowed to be added to milk.

However, from the perspective of consumers, I will definitely give birth to such questions: then I want to eat natural food, can I not do it?

02

Does natural food exist?

Many people have a general understanding. The previous food was pure natural and non -added. Everything was the fault of modern processing food, which made people eat a large amount of processing foods containing food additives.

But in fact, food additives have been there since ancient times.

For example, the well -known brine tofu, salt (the main components are magnesium chloride, sodium chloride, calcium chloride, magnesium sulfate, etc.) as the role of coagulant, which allows soy milk to shrink and solidify quickly, forming tough tofu.

Another example is the traditional ramen added with gray, that is, the gray burned by the grass. The potassium carbonate in the ash creates an alkaline environment to make the surface more gluten. Today, ramen agents that are more stable and more suitable for mass production are used as acidic regulators.

But the pursuit of natural food is still the wish of many people. "Natural" is also unsurprisingly by the food industry as a selling point, and whether it is natural to indicate that it is really natural, it has caused many disputes.

In the book "The Counterattack of Food", the doctor of food engineering wrote such a story.

In 2013, there were three lawsuits containing genetically modified corn foods that were accused of naturally. The courts that accept three lawsuits require the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make a judgment.

However, the FDA rejected the court's request. FDA pointed out that it did not make a formal definition of "natural", but only made a description of the meaning of "natural" in the food label: there is no artificial or synthetic component that is not added to the food (including various sources of various sources (including various sources. pigment).

Why can't it be formally defined to naturally?

Because this meaning requires the joint participation of consumers, industry, government agencies, etc.

If you want to form a formal definition of naturally, you need to consider various factors: related science, the tendency of consumers, the information that consumers perceive from the definition, the new technologies of food production other than genetically modified (such as chemical fertilizer, promoting promotion, promoting promotion Growth drugs, breeding technology, etc.), countless food processing technology (such as nanotechnology, thermal treatment technology, sterilization technology, radiation technology, etc.).

Except for a few countries such as the United Kingdom and Canada have a little definition of "natural", most countries and regions in the world have not been clearly defined. China is also among most of these.

In other words, everyone can have their own understanding of natural foods. The natural food that merchants say are not necessarily natural foods that nutritionists call, nor may they be natural foods that consumers think. 03

What should I pay attention to when looking at the ingredient table and nutrition table?

Perhaps some people will have such questions. Although the content of food additives for a food is safe, I eat many of them a day, will it exceed the standard and harm health?

If you want to figure out what you eat, you can refer to the following small suggestions.

First of all, in accordance with relevant regulations, in the ingredients list, the marking order of various ingredients is marked in the order of decreased amounts.

That is, the more ingredients in front, the more content.

Using this, you can distinguish the juice in the juice drink. Some are 100%juice, and some are water, white sugar, etc., and then concentrated fruit juice.

If you don't want to eat sugar, you can pay attention to the nouns such as sugar, sweetness, Asba sweet, and chloride sucrose in the ingredient table.

In addition, compared with adults, children need a higher safety factor, so for children's food, a more conservative and cautious attitude should be adopted. Cultivate children to develop good eating habits and enjoy "natural foods", pay more attention to whether the ingredient table contains too much pigmentation.

For preservatives that are talked about by everyone, you don't need to be too anxious.

The foods seen in the market usually add potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate. These two most widely used preservatives are usually excreted with urine after the human body.

Common food additives. Picture source: Jingyi Tong

When selecting food, we should not only pay attention to the ingredients table, but also pay attention to the data on the nutritional composition table.

Many people are more concerned about the "fat" and "energy" on the nutrition table in order to lose weight. In recent years, another ingredient that has frequently noticed is the trans fatty acid.

At present, my country's national standards require pre -packaged foods with hydrogenated vegetable oils in raw materials in raw materials, which must be marked with trans fatty acid content.

Even if some foods use "hydrogenated oil" as raw materials, they will also improve the label threshold of "trans fatty acid content ≤0.3 grams/100 grams" by improving the hydrogenation technology or controlling the amount of consumption. "".

If the nutritional component table does not indicate that the trans fat is 0, then pay attention to the invisible trans fats in the ingredient table, such as the fat planting, hydrogenated vegetable oil, milk essence, artificial cream, butter, album cocoa and other nouns Essence

There is another data that is worth noting, but it is often ignored, which is "NRV%".

"NRV%" is the reference value of nutrients, which refers to the content of the nutrients in 100g of food, which accounts for the daily intake of the nutrient.

For example, a pack of snacks is marked with 100g of fat NRV%of the food, then it means that eating 100g snacks has already taken 20%of all fats needed for a day. If you eat 500g of snacks, the fat you need to reach the standard one day has reached the standard, and it will exceed the standard.

To understand NRV%, you can quickly calculate the various nutrient intakes of a day, and you can control the amount of snacks (if you can really).

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