Yihao Classroom
Preservatives are harmful or not, the key is quantity
Recently, the Beijing Municipal Food and Drug Administration has spotted six unqualified foods and has taken measures to stop sales. Among the unqualified products notified this time, the preservative benzoic acid exceeded the standard and "on the list" again. Not only Beijing, but other cities also have problems with excessive preservatives. Experts say that long-term intake of foods with excessive benzoic acid preservatives may induce immune system diseases such as asthma and urticaria. It should be noted that, due to the immature development of their various organs and incomplete metabolic functions in infants and young children, the health damage caused by long-term intake of preservatives is unpredictable.
Food additives are an unavoidable topic in life. In the health education classes of communities or enterprises and institutions, people often ask us various related questions. Due to the lack of common sense on food additives, coupled with some media hype about illegal food additives incidents, the negative effects of food additives have been magnified, so people are prone to panic about food additives.
In fact, food additives have long been an indispensable content in our dietary life. Even if we regress to 100 years or more, our lives cannot be separated from food additives, such as traditional plaster for making tofu, monk for making preserved eggs, and fried The alum used for fritters, as well as Shisanxiang, red yeast rice, amaranth, etc., are all food additives. With the development of food science and chemical industry, mankind has confirmed that there are thousands of chemically synthesized or natural chemical substances that can be used as food additives. At present, my country’s food additives have more than 20 categories and nearly 3,000 varieties, including acidity regulators, anticaking agents, defoamers, antioxidants, bleaching agents, leavening agents, coloring agents, color retention agents, enzyme preparations, and Flavoring agents, nutritional enhancers, preservatives, sweeteners, thickeners, spices, etc.
Preservatives are a kind of food additives with a wide range of applications. Benzoic acid and benzoate are typical representatives among them. They are used in jams, pickled vegetables, preserves, gum candies, flavored syrups, vinegar, soy sauce, sauce products, and compound seasonings. They can be found in foodstuffs, mixed wine, fruit and vegetable juice, carbonated drinks, tea, coffee, cold drinks and other foods. If the above-mentioned foods are not added with preservatives, the proliferation of bacteria can easily lead to their deterioration, which will not only cause waste, but also cause food poisoning, various gastrointestinal diseases, and even death.
The purpose of adding preservatives to food is to ensure that the food is not deteriorating and healthy and safe. It is actually a friend of our human beings, but the prerequisite for use must be the varieties allowed by the state, the range of addition meets the regulations, and the amount of addition is within the allowable range. All food additives that are not entered in the GB 2760-2014 National Food Safety Standard Food Additives Use Standard Catalog are non-additives. Even the varieties in the standard catalog will limit their scope of use, otherwise they will be used across the range. For example, adding the preservative sodium benzoate to cakes is illegal. In addition, there are strict regulations on the dosage of preservatives. For example, the dosage of preservative benzoic acid (salt) per kilogram of finished product (calculated as benzoic acid) is 0.5 grams in preserved preserved fruits. Exceeding this dosage means excessive use. , This is also illegal.
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