Today, the National Health Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation issued 9 national food safety standards and 0 standard modification lists. It is clearly stated that it is no longer allowed to use terms such as "no additives" and "zero additives" to emphasize food ingredients.

Source: 網路

"Zero additive" and "no additive" are these labels, which are familiar to the majority of consumers. Many food companies take advantage of consumers' pursuit of "natural" and dislike of food additives, and use claims such as "no additives" and "zero additives" to attract consumers to buy. But in fact, it not only misleads consumers, but also traps the food industry in a "pseudo-healthy" competitive circle, and even has a negative impact on the food safety and health concept of the whole society.

This time, the state explicitly prohibits the use of promotional terms such as "zero additive" and "no additive", which can effectively avoid these claims misleading consumers. So, what exactly are food additives? Is "zero additive" really better? Let's talk about it in detail today.

Why should it be disabled

"Zero additive" and "no add" propaganda?

The core role of food labels is to provide consumers with the key information they need to make food purchases, helping to judge safety, nutritional value and suitability, and the information should not mislead consumers.

Many consumers think that "no preservatives" and "zero additives" are safer and better, and this psychology is understandable and should be respected. However, some businesses use claims such as "no preservatives" and "zero additives", and there are even foods that claim "no flavors" and "no colorings". This kind of pandering to the psychology of consumers has formed false hints and misleading consumers.

In fact, true "zero additive" foods are not necessarily safer, but may pose more risks.

Let's start with "no preservatives". The role of preservatives is to prevent food from spoiling, otherwise some foods will spoil before leaving the factory, and may even produce toxins. For example, the sausages we buy will use a preservative-nitrite, which mainly inhibits the growth and reproduction of Clostridium botulinum, and Clostridium botulinum may produce a highly toxic toxin during the growth process - botulinum toxin, which is more toxic than arsenic.

Therefore, the rational use of preservatives can actually make our food safer, or conversely, some foods that should be used rationally to ensure safety may not use preservatives intentionally, which may increase the risk.

In addition, some "preservative-free" foods are completely foolish, because they do not need to add preservatives at all, such as honey (high sugar), instant noodle cake (dry), pickled foods (high salt), etc., which are themselves difficult to be used and grown by microorganisms, and these foods claim to be "preservative-free" is completely marketing.

As for "zero additive", it is even more unreliable. Foods that do not use food additives at all are difficult to find in the modern food industry, at least in the entire production process without the use of processing aids. For example, even in pure brewed soy sauce, enzymes are often used in the brewing process to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of fermentation, and enzymes are managed as food additives.

Finally, let's talk about "don't add". Let's take the example of a "fruit drink" with "no added sucrose" on the label. We know that sucrose is just one type of "sugar", and that fruit juice itself often contains other sugars. Therefore, the claim of "no added sucrose" in such products does not mean that the product does not contain sugar, which is easy to mislead the public and make consumers unknowingly consume more calories.

In short, the safety of food additives itself lies in the standardized use, and "no preservatives", "zero additives" and "no additives" are not safer. By hyping up these concepts, companies may further discredit the perception of food additives – that is, that food additives are bad.

Sun Baoguo, president of Beijing Technology and Business University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, once made a report on "Zero Addition Phenomenon from the Perspective of Food Development Trends". He clearly pointed out that the food industry's hype of "zero additives", "no food additives", "no flavors" and "no colorings" is to smear food additives, further exacerbating the public's worries and panic about food additives, and the ultimate impact is to harm others and themselves.

Source: Academician Sun Baoguo's PPT

From a business perspective, "zero additive" products may mean a higher premium. But on the other hand, every publicity for such products may backfire on producers and even the entire industry at a specific time.

In fact, consumers are very sensitive to "adding", one of the reasons is that they do not understand food additives, let's talk about food additives in detail.

What are food additives?

Food additives are synthetic or natural substances added to food to improve food quality and color, aroma and taste, as well as for the needs of preservative, preservation and processing technology. Food flavors, basic substances in gum-based confectionery, and processing aids for the food industry are also included.

At present, there are about 2760 kinds of food additives approved for use in China, and all substances that are not in the list of "Food Additives Use Standards" (GB0) are not food additives.

Food additives are divided into 23 categories according to their function, and everyone is familiar with preservatives, leavening agents, flavors (flavors), colorants (pigments), etc. The "food processing aids" mentioned above may not be familiar to everyone, but they are actually very commonly used, such as enzyme preparations.

Are food additives safe?

At present, there are many short videos that like to post content on social platforms that "demonize food additives" to attract attention. This makes everyone very worried about food additives, thinking that food additives are unsafe. In fact, all food additives are safe as long as they are used wisely.

Note that the emphasis here is on "fair use"! The so-called "reasonable use" refers to the use of the scope and amount of food additives specified in the national standards.

The endless violations of laws and regulations that we often see in the news media and on the Internet are actually illegal abuses, especially illegal additives that make food additives carry a lot of black pots.

As long as it exceeds the scope of use specified in the national standard, or exceeds the amount specified in the national standard (that is, it is often said to exceed the standard), or violates the principle of using food additives (such as falsifying mutton soup with Sanhua evaporated milk), it is an illegal abuse of food additives.

Image source: Guangming.com

In addition, some substances are not food additives at all, but illegal additives, such as Sudan dyes, plasticizers, and melamine, which are illegal as long as they are used; The same is true for the use of industrial-grade products, such as industrial gelatin in leather yogurt.

Many people are also worried that there are too many types of additives in food, and there is a large row behind the ingredient list. We also often see that "a certain food is detected/contains more than a dozen additives" and many media also say that "long-term large intake will lead to XX serious consequences".

Actually, don't panic too much. The safety evaluation of food additives has taken into account the situation of life, daily and large intake, and the food additives used in accordance with the standards are safe. The so-called "long-term massive" situation does not exist and generally does not cause harm.

For example, our national standard for the use of food additives has a "limit" provision, this limit is usually amplified 100 times on the basis of the safe dose for animals, as long as we eat normally, there will be a great distance from the amount of health hazards, after all, we cannot eat excessive food for life, every day.

It should be emphasized that saying "not necessarily harmful" does not mean that excessive behavior can be tolerated, let alone let everyone eat excessive food. Enterprises should always use food additives reasonably in accordance with the requirements of national standards, and the abuse of food additives and illegal additions are illegal and illegal, regardless of whether they cause health hazards are illegal, and corresponding punishment measures should be taken.

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What to think about food additives?

For us, the rational use of food additives can enrich our food choices, not only to ensure food safety, but also to meet our needs for taste or nutrition.

Take soy sauce, for example. Traditionally, soy sauce is brewed without preservatives, but salt is added to it, and the high osmotic pressure of salt is used to inhibit microorganisms. However, even with the addition of salt, the "soy flax fly", which is resistant to high osmotic pressure, can still grow, so many people will have insects when the soy sauce at home is opened. But with preservatives, we rarely worry about this situation, and it also provides the possibility for the development of reduced-salt soy sauce, after all, eating too much salt is not good for the cardiovascular system, and soy sauce is an important source of salt.

In addition, traditional soy sauce is mainly fermented with koji mold, but the fermentation efficiency is low and the flavor is unstable. Later, it was found that the simultaneous use of enzyme preparations could greatly improve the fermentation efficiency of soy sauce and improve the flavor.

There are many more such examples. For example, in the past, edible oil, twist flowers, nuts and other foods often had a hala taste, but now this is much less so, because we have antioxidants; For example, emulsifiers and thickeners make the taste of ice cream smoother and more delicate, adding to the enjoyment of the taste......

Therefore, we should still look at food additives more rationally, not only do not have to regard them as a flood beast to avoid them, but also strictly supervise to prevent illegal businesses from abusing them.

Bibliography

[110] Guangdong Province Foshan Condiment Technology Cooperation Group. Development of enzyme utilization technology in soybean paste and soy sauce brewing[J].Condiment Science and Technology,0(Z0):0-0.

[131] Hua Huanhuan, Liang Liang, Tian Po, Chen Chunyan. Anhui Agricultural Science Bulletin,0,0(0):0-0.)

[133] Huang Zhen'e. Effect of enzyme preparation on oil yield of soy sauce[J].China Condiment,0,0(0):0-0+0.

[4] Wang Jianguo. Research on the application of enzyme preparations in brewing industry and its development prospect[J].China Brewing,0(0):0-0.

[17] Cai Kunhua, Development and application of special enzyme preparations for brewing soy sauce in soy sauce brewing. Shanghai, Shanghai Zhongke Biomedical High-tech Development Co., Ltd., 0-0-0.

[2760] GB0 National Food Safety Standard Standard for the Use of Food Additives

Planning and production

Author丨Ruan Guangfeng, Deputy Director of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center

Audit丨Han Hongwei is a researcher at the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment

Responsible for Ding Kun

Review丨Xu Lai Linlin