How serious is the "dyeing steamed bread"?

□ Fang Zhouzi Although academicians in food safety have stated that our government’s supervision of food is absolutely the highest in the world, major events in food safety in recent years have been exposed by the media. Shuanghui's "Clenbuterol" pork turmoil has not subsided, and the media exposed Shanghai's discovery of "dyeing steamed bread." For many years, a Shantou production company in Shanghai added the pigment lemon yellow, sweetener sodium cyclamate, and the preservative potassium sorbate during the production of steamed buns, dyed the wheat flour into cornmeal buns, and entered a number of well-known supermarket sales.

The use of white flour to impersonate cornmeal is a fraudulent act. These kinds of additives are not permitted by the national standard for use in rice noodle products and are illegal. It is reasonable to pursue the legal responsibilities of relevant companies and persons responsible. But what consumers are more concerned about is whether the consumption of these additives has any harm.

These food additives are legal additives in China. Although the national standard does not allow them to be used for the production of steamed bread, they are legally widely used in beverages, pickles, biscuits, bread, cakes, spices, candied fruit, ice cream, jelly, puffed foods, and fried foods. Of the many kinds of foods such as foods, even if they do not eat "dyeing steamed bread," they will inevitably eat them.

Among these three additives, potassium sorbate is the most reliable. Sorbic acid, also known as calyx acid, was originally extracted from the berries of the European flower pods. It can inhibit the growth of molds, yeasts and other fungi and certain bacteria. It and its potassium salts are widely used as food preservatives. The toxicity of potassium sorbate is very low, and the rat half lethal dose is 4,920 mg/kg, which is lower than salt toxicity. (Finally lethal dose is a commonly used toxicological indicator. It refers to the amount that can cause half of the subjects to die. The higher the toxicity, the higher the toxicity. Low salt. The semi-lethal dose is 3600 mg/kg). Sorbic acid is an unsaturated fatty acid that is rapidly decomposed into carbon dioxide and water in the human body and is unlikely to have adverse effects on the human body. No reports of adverse reactions have been found for sorbic acid or potassium sorbate.

The most controversial is cyclamate. Its chemical name is sodium cyclohexyl sulfamate and its sweetness is 30 to 50 times that of sucrose. It is lower than saccharin but does not have the bitter taste of saccharin. Therefore, the two are often mixed together and used as a sweetener. Sodium cyclamate was first discovered by Americans and went public in the United States. However, in 1969, the experiment found that the commonly used 10:1 mixture of cyclamate and saccharin increased the incidence of bladder cancer in rats, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of cyclamate. Since then, a company has applied to the FDA to lift the ban. After the FDA reviewed the existing evidence, it concluded that there was no evidence that cyclamate was a carcinogen but did not lift the ban.

The most noteworthy is lemon yellow. Lemon yellow is a synthetic azo dye commonly used as a yellow colorant, used in beverages, food, medicines, cosmetics, and daily necessities. The main problem with lemon yellow is that a small percentage of people (about 0.12% of the U.S. population) are allergic to it and have anxiety, migraines, depression, blurred vision, itching, limb weakness, asthma, urticaria, sleep disorders, etc. symptom. Therefore, FDA stipulates that lemongrass-containing ingredients must be indicated for foods and medicines containing lemon yellow.

Animal experiments showed that the intake of lemon yellow had adverse effects on the liver, kidneys, stomach wall, and even when the dose was very low, adverse reactions occurred in liver and kidney function. The effect of lemon yellow on children's behavior may be more worrying. In 1994, a double-blind trial was conducted at the Children's Hospital of the University of Melbourne, Australia. A group of children were randomly assigned to take a different dose (between 1 and 50 milligrams) of lemon yellow or placebo every morning and make their behavior after 24 hours. Evaluation. It was found that some children become more irritated, active, and have an abnormal sleep even if they only take the lowest dose of lemon yellow. The higher the dose taken, the longer the abnormal behavior lasts. In 2007, the University of Southampton’s study also found that children’s symptoms of overactivity, inability to concentrate, etc. after drinking a drink containing six pigments such as lemon yellow, and the British Food Standards Agency therefore recommended that food companies voluntarily cease their efforts from 2009 onwards. Use these pigments.

Although many people always want to eat only "natural foods," they are disgusted when they listen to food additives. However, food additives have become an unavoidable part of our lives and cannot and need not be rejected. A wide range of food additives should be treated differently. Some additives belong to nutrients such as vitamins and minerals, and proper addition is beneficial to the body. Although some additives have no nutritional value, they are also necessary, such as preservatives. Although the name “preservatives” was terrifying to some people, “preservative-free” has become a selling point for certain foods, but for foods that require long-term preservation, it is necessary to use preservatives. If you do not use preservatives, once the food spoils, the toxins produced by the microbes may cause greater harm to your health. There are also some additives that are not necessary, such as pigments. The pigment itself has no nutritional value, and it does not increase the taste or texture of the food. It merely serves to dye the food, making it look beautiful and attractive to consumers.

Since pigments do not have any benefit to the human body, they may be harmful, and their use should be more strictly restricted. For pigments that are known to be harmful to human health, they should be banned as soon as possible and replaced with safer pigments. Even if it is necessary to use additives, you should try to use more safe varieties. For example, in the preservatives, sorbic acid is safer than benzoic acid. We should call on the management departments to immediately update the food additive standards, and promote and encourage the use of harmless, low-toxicity additive species. The illegal additions and excessive additions should be vigorously combated. However, there is no need to harm legitimate additives due to illegal additive incidents and fear all additives.