CCTV News: Food additives are not "fighting animals", the key lies in "using the right amount and accuracy". We should correctly understand food additives and do not have to change our minds when we hear them.
Food additives: can be antiseptic and fresh, and increase taste.
Food additives are artificial synthetic or natural substances added to food to improve food quality and color, aroma, and taste, as well as to the needs of antiseptic, fresh and processing technology. According to the function, there are 23 categories such as sweeteners, preservatives, and thickeners. Whether it is bread, cakes, dry red wine from the West, or steamed buns, buns, and fried dough sticks from Chinese food, food additives are indispensable in the production process.
Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Chairman of the Chinese Society of Food Science and Technology Sun Baoguo: Let me give you an example: We Chinese have eaten brine and ordered tofu for more than 2,300 years. If there is no brine, there is only soy milk and no tofu. Brine is one of the food additives called food coagulant.
Unlimited range: Use of food additives exceeds the limit is abuse
Wang Bei, professor at the School of Food of Beijing University of Technology and Commerce: Each food additive will indicate the food category it allows and the maximum amount of added to be used in that food category. Use beyond its use category, or use beyond its use, are considered to be an abuse of food additives. If you use too much food additive, it may accumulate in the body, and some may even cause cancer risk.
"Zero addition" has little to do with whether food is safe
Now many food products are marked with similar slogans such as "zero addition" and "0 preservatives" on their packaging. In response to this, experts said that "zero addition" is more of a description of the production process and has little to do with whether the food is safe. If consumers want to understand the true attributes of food, it is the key to correctly read food label information such as ingredients lists and nutritional ingredients lists.
Yu Hangyu, deputy director of the Standards Room 1 of the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center: Consumers often rely on these claims to choose food, and ignore the real attributes of food. We also hope that through such a revision, consumers can pay more attention to the food ingredients list and the nutritional content list of food to understand the real attributes of food.
