Although the information I found is a bit long, it is published in People's Daily, which is more true and reliable. There is meat in it. Sausage is a kind of meat food. It is made of livestock and poultry meat as the main raw material, supplemented by fillers (starch, plant protein powder, etc.). ). Then season (salt, sugar, wine, monosodium glutamate, etc. ), spices (onion, ginger, garlic, cardamom, Amomum villosum, aniseed, pepper, etc. ), quality improvers (carrageenan, Vc, etc. ), color fixative, water-retaining agent, preservative and other substances, through curing, chopping (or emulsification), high-temperature cooking and other processes to make products. In order to let you and your classmates know more, I looked up some information. The 18 ingredient of a ham sausage, from pig to pork to ham sausage, seems to be a simple change, but it reflects the food production mode and food safety problems in the food industry era. The ingredients of ham sausage are complex: pork, chicken, water, starch, egg liquid, white sugar, vegetable protein, edible salt, food additives (thickener, humectant, edible essence, flavor enhancer, potassium sorbate, monascus, sodium D_ ascorbate, sodium nitrite) and pig bone extract. How many people will look at the ingredients of a ham sausage so carefully? It contains 18 substance! What are the strange and awkward chemical terms such as Redmi, sodium D_ ascorbate and sodium nitrite related to the ham sausage we eat? Eye-catching vision: Pigment Pengcheng Food Company is located in Shunyi, Beijing, formerly known as Beijing Shunyi Meat Joint Factory. In the pigsty, 6000 pigs are waiting to be slaughtered. This is the massacre in Pengcheng in one day. In the morning, the meat cut from the slaughtered Landrace pig was cooled for 10 hour, and then pushed to the elective workshop by the workers. Skilled operators use hand knives to remove fascia and broken bones attached to the depth of meat pieces one by one, and classify them preliminarily. The operating room temperature is controlled at 65438 00 degrees Celsius. A strong worker dumped a bucket of viscous liquid, red, completely covering the pork pieces just selected in the stainless steel bucket. "The red water is pickling solution, salt and monosodium glutamate," explained Liu Changrong, a worker in the R&D department of Pengcheng Food Company. "Red is monascus, which is an added pigment. After adding pigment, the future ham sausage will have a fresh and tender meat red, and there is a more exaggerated pigment called temptation red, which is also widely used. In the food industry, good sales are essential. " Pigment is added to make food more beautiful, but is it safe? Fan Zhihong, an associate professor at China Agricultural University and a doctor of food science, has been studying food safety. People confuse "edible pigment" with "industrial pigment" intentionally or unintentionally. In fact, these are completely two concepts. She said: "Pigments approved by the state can be legally added to food as long as they pass the hygiene inspection and are used according to the dosage and scope. Non-edible pigments must not be added to food, and it is illegal to join. " For example, sunset yellow, carmine and caramel pigments are allowed to be used in China and are used in most countries. The color of cola we often drink is brought by a lot of caramel pigment; The color of Sugar-Coated Berry is brought by the naturally occurring caramel pigment. Sudan red is a kind of non-edible pigment, just like the dye used in painting and painting. May not be used in food. But in reality, the harm of pigment abuse is not uncommon. Fan Zhihong found that some restaurants are so keen on adding color to cooked meat that they can hardly buy braised beef in the market. Cattle, sheep and pork are all pink, and cooked chicken is either red or beautiful pale yellow, but these are not normal colors, but a lot of pigments or nitrite colorants are added. Once, Fan Zhihong ate the famous "old duck soup" in a restaurant. She found that the cooked old duck was grayish white, but pink in color, and its fragrance and taste were similar to those of China ham. Fan Zhihong's professional knowledge told her that if she dyed with red yeast, it should be bright red, not this pink. "There is no doubt that this meat is dyed with nitrite, and it is used a lot. Suddenly my appetite was greatly reduced. " Meat is rich in amino acids and other amines. When it is combined with nitrite, it is easy to produce carcinogenic nitrosamines. Without accurate weighing and quantification, it is difficult to ensure the accuracy of nitrite dosage, and the risk of carcinogen residue caused by excessive use is considerable. Preservation risk: preservatives and pigments are added to ham meat in injection workshop, as well as preservatives. This process is called "injection", which is really appropriate. Pickled pork is transported to the machine by workers and mashed repeatedly. Inject the prepared red curing liquid into the meat through the pressure of the machine needle, knead it repeatedly and fully absorb it. "It's like giving these meats a massage and adding enough seasoning at one time." Liu Changrong said. This is the key step in making ham sausage. The ingredients we see on the packaging are basically added in this process. They include: pigment, salt, monosodium glutamate, preservative and water-retaining agent. After that, in the rolling and kneading workshop, the machine kept rolling and stirring, so that the pickling solution continued to penetrate into the body, allowing karst protein to flow out, making its components dense and finally having good slicing property. Liu Changrong said, "Without these preservatives, the sausage will go bad in a few days. Consumers can't eat anything in the supermarket. " Preservatives are the most controversial among all kinds of food additives. So far, only 32 permitted food preservatives have been approved in China. Before 2000, chemically synthesized preservatives were the mainstream of China food market, among which nitrite used to preserve lunch meat was proved to be harmful to human health and a potential carcinogen. The illusion of happiness: in the processing stage of ham sausage, in addition to pigment and preservative, essence is added. Beifang Xia Guang Food Company, located in Fengtai, claims to be the largest food additive supermarket in China, with more than 2,000 kinds of food additives on its simple shelves. Many of our delicious chicken wings, bread and fruit drinks come from these flavor enhancers. For example, Coca-Cola and fresh orange are mostly prepared with different flavors and pigments. The flavor in meat is produced by trace elements. Now, pigs, cattle and sheep are all grown rapidly and processed at low temperature, unlike those cooked for a long time in the past, and the aroma is naturally not strong. "This is related to the short feeding cycle and short production chain. A cow used to grow for a year. Can meat not be fragrant? " Zhang Lisheng of North Xia Guang said. If you don't add these non-nutritive flavors, can consumers still be attracted by these tasteless foods? Zhang Lisheng attributed this to the contradiction between rapid production and consumption: in order to make up for production defects, these flavors came into being. Terrible non-edible substance additives are actually not terrible. The terrible thing is that other non-edible substances have been added. Alum fried dough sticks, talcum powder noodles, bleached steamed bread, big-headed baby milk powder, waste oil, melanin soy sauce, poisonous vermicelli, formaldehyde beer, water-injected pork, etc. These chemicals have never been approved to be added to food, and they are not food additives, but they have become the protagonists of food. Some netizens once described our "happy" life helplessly: "In the morning, we uncovered the quilt made of black cotton, brushed our teeth with cancer-causing toothpaste, drank milk with excessive iodine and melamine, ate fried dough sticks with diesel oil, and added a Sudan red salted egg, alas …" Although it was extremely ridiculous, it was also a bit sad and helpless. In this era when consumption determines production, the choice of consumers determines the behavior of producers. The only way to really avoid eating a lot of food additives and dangerous food is to buy fresh and natural food raw materials and spend some time making healthy family food by yourself in the traditional way. Excerpted from Du Nan Weekly on March 26th, 2009.