China has used additives for a long time, starting with fried dough sticks and tofu. As early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, tofu used brine as coagulant. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, the formula of one alum, two alkalis and three salts fried dough sticks has been recorded, which is a cheap food on the breakfast table of ordinary people. People in China have been eating fried dough sticks and tofu for thousands of years, and there have been no cases of poisoning caused by eating this food for a long time in history.
Nitrite was used in bacon production in the Southern Song Dynasty about 800 years ago. In the 6th century, Jia Sixie, an agricultural scientist, recorded the method of eating natural pigments in the Book of Qi Yao Min. Kimchi has a history of thousands of years. In the process of processing, our ancestors unconsciously used food additives. In the past, salt, sea salt and so on were all natural crude salt, which is also the reason why kimchi tastes crisp.
Throughout the world, in 1500 BC, Egypt used food pigments to color candy, and in the 4th century BC, people began to artificially color wine. The earliest chemical synthetic food additive was aniline violet, which was a dye pigment prepared from coal tar by British W.H.Perkins in 1856.
Up to now, there are 25,000 kinds of food additives in the world, of which 80% are spices. There are 3000-40000 kinds that can be eaten directly, and 600- 1000 kinds are more common.
In terms of quantity, the more developed countries, the more varieties of food additives. There are 65,438+0,967 kinds of food chemicals listed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission of the United States, about 65,438+0,654,38+0,000 kinds of food additives used in Japan, and 65,438+0,500 kinds allowed by the European Union.
This list is also being adjusted. Potassium bromate has been used as dough regulator in developed countries for more than 80 years. In recent years, research reports in many countries show that excessive use of potassium bromate will damage people's central nervous system, blood and kidneys, and may cause cancer. On July 1 day, 2005, China issued the order of "Prohibiting the Use of Potassium Bromate".
The history of standardized development of food additive market in China is not long. Peng Chong, deputy general manager of North Xia Guang Food Additive Company, recalled: "Probably from 1996, it was all in the form of chemical shops and small shops. Fertilizer is sold here, and food additives are sold there. They are all packed in sacks. This creates an illusion that additives and pesticides are of a nature. "
65438-0996, the country issued GB2760 "Hygienic Standard for the Use of Food Additives", and additives began to be widely used in food processing. 10 years later, in 2007, the state promulgated stricter national standards for food additives, from what additives were banned in the past to what additives were allowed in each product.
1992, Zhang Lisheng of Xia Guang North Food Additive Company graduated from dalian polytechnic university Food Engineering Department. At that time, there was no special food additive factory in China, so he worked as a technician in a food processing factory, studying drinks, meat, jam and canned food. He often processed fruits in spring and summer and meat in winter.
After working in that factory for 8 years, Zhang Lisheng went to another food processing factory to study the production formula of meat products. "When I first came into contact with food additives, I was a little scared. I think additives are a bit like poison. " Now, he thinks that food additives are the soul of the food industry.
This view coincides with Fan Zhihong, an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, College of Food Science, China Agricultural University. "Large-scale modern food industry is based on food additives. Because consumers have strict requirements on the appearance quality, taste quality, convenience and storage time of food, it is almost impossible to produce it in a family way. If you really don't add food additives, I am afraid that most foods will be ugly, unpalatable, or difficult to preserve, or expensive, which is unacceptable to consumers. "
Fan Zhihong doesn't think food additives are the devil. "In fact, the overall safety of food additives licensed by the state is relatively high, and it will not cause adverse reactions under normal dosage. For processed food, without these food additives, it is hard to imagine that food can have enough time to transport and sell, and it is hard to imagine that consumers can eat safe food. "
Basically, the industrialization of food supply in China began about 20 years ago, and 20 years is not enough for China to establish a completely reliable food safety control system, which has been widely used in western industrialized countries for more than 100 years. The higher the degree of industrialization, the higher the requirements for food processing, and the more non-edible substances are added to food. There are legal and harmless additives and illegal and toxic additives. With the deepening of food industrialization, people in China eat more and more things made by biochemical technology every day.
Dr. Yun Orfila (net name), an American food engineer, introduced the early history of food safety development in the United States. 1906, upton sinclair, a writer famous for his social novels and exposing scandals, published a book called Jungle, which described the horror of a meat processing factory. Dirty and messy, just like the "black-hearted workshops" that pop up from time to time in our society. This book has a great response and often makes people unable to eat. At that time, a chemist named harvey wiley, the head of the Chemical Bureau of the US Department of Agriculture, organized some brave volunteers to carry out the experiment of "Shennong tasting a hundred herbs"-they took a lot of things that people added to food at that time, such as formaldehyde (preservative) and boric acid (leavening agent), which eventually led to illness. Jungle and Harvey's experiments pushed the United States Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Chemical Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture led by Harvey managed the production and sale of food and drugs. This department is the predecessor of FDA. The food safety system in the United States has been gradually established.
At the early stage of food industrialization in China, food safety was not put on the agenda. The chain of food from the field to the table is not long. In Fan Zhihong's words, it would be nice to have something to eat at that time, and food safety awareness was out of the question.
But Fan Zhihong said, in fact, there were many food safety accidents at that time. In 1980s, the consumption of clam in Shanghai led to an outbreak of hepatitis A, involving 300,000 people. At that time, it was common to mix red brick powder with Chili powder. Because there was no awareness of food safety and no relevant laws and regulations, there was no scruples about mixing anything at that time.
According to the data of the Ministry of Health, the qualified rate of food hygiene in China was 6 1.5% in 1982, increased to 82.3% in 1994 and increased to 88.6% in 5438+0 in 2006. Food safety incidents came into public view from 200 1, with increasing frequency and influence.
As an insider, Zhang Lisheng has been worried about the demonization of food additives by the media. He said: "It is good for everyone to pay attention to food safety. However, melamine and Sudan red are not food additives at all, but illegal fillers. To put it bluntly, putting these things is poisoning, but everyone blames these on food additives. "
At present, more than 200 million farmers in China produce primary agricultural products in small workshops, including the grain, vegetables, fruits, chickens, ducks and fish we eat. Because its production has not formed a certain scale, farmers lack food safety knowledge and legal awareness, and it is inevitable that pesticide residues will exceed the standard.
Combing the food safety incidents in China in recent years, we can find that the whole chain of feed and fertilizer, breeding, slaughtering, production and processing, transportation, sales and food supply is becoming increasingly industrialized. There are security holes in every link. Non-edible substances of various names may be added to food in every link, and even foods "made" entirely of chemical raw materials are increasingly occupying the market.
From March to September in 20001year, Guangdong Zhongyang Feed Co., Ltd. produced mixed feed for pigs by purchasing "lean meat", which led to the poisoning of more than 600 citizens in Heyuan and became a major shock case. Lin Qingyuan, the former manager of the company, was sentenced to 4 years in prison.
In 2004, an incident of inferior milk powder occurred in Fuyang, 12 babies died because of eating this "hollow milk powder" with no nutritional value, and 229 babies were malnourished. Inferior milk powder is made of starch and sucrose instead of milk powder and flavored with milk essence.
In May 2004, CCTV's weekly quality report program exposed the adulteration of Longkou fans. In order to reduce the cost, some vermicelli manufacturers add corn starch and use carcinogenic ammonium bicarbonate fertilizer and ammonia water for whitening. The famous historical brand Longkou fans were also captured by illegal additives. The Sudan Red incident highlights the horror of global food supply security.
In February 2005, the British Food Standards Agency announced in official website that the products of 30 companies such as Heinz and Unilever may contain the carcinogenic industrial dye Sudan Red 1 ... Then, a massive campaign to ban the sale of Sudan Red No.1 swept the world. Finally, the food additive Chili Red 1 produced by Guangzhou Zengcheng Tianyang Food Co., Ltd. was identified as the source of this global food safety incident.
Just after Britain issued a warning, on February 23rd, 2005, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China issued an urgent notice, demanding that the food sold in China (especially imported food) be inspected to prevent the food containing Sudan Red 1 from being sold and eaten. On March 29th of that year, China urgently formulated the national standard for the detection method of Sudan red dye in food, which was formally implemented.
"At present, 17 kinds of illegal additives have been blacklisted." Zhang Lisheng introduced.
In China's food industry, 99.8% of the technical standards currently used are formulated abroad. Foreign countries generally set standards according to products, and standards correspond to products one by one; China is classified by category. For example, there is only one standard for all kinds of vegetables-vegetables. Therefore, there are more than 2000 standards for a pesticide residue abroad, and there are only 100 standards in China.
Zheng Xinli, deputy director of the Central Policy Research Office, said that the revision period of foreign technical standards is generally three to five years, while the updating speed of China technical standards is slow. For example, milk, 1986 formulated the national raw milk purchasing standard GB69 14-86. According to the standard, the microbial index in milk should be less than 500,000 pieces /ml for the first-class milk, 654.38+00,000 pieces /ml for the second-class milk and 4 million pieces /ml for the fourth-class milk. The United States and Canada stipulate that if the number of microorganisms in milk exceeds 50,000/ml, it will be severely punished.
In addition to the lack of regulatory standards, the law has also become a straw to ensure food safety. Since 1982 the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) formulated the Food Hygiene Law (Trial), the first special food hygiene law in China was born. Up to now, there are more than a dozen laws and regulations related to food supervision in China, but the multi-head management and supervision are out of control, which makes food safety problems emerge one after another.
The Food Safety Law, which has attracted much attention, was officially promulgated on February 28th. Zheng Jianxian, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Light Industry and Food Science, believes that although the Food Safety Law stipulates that food safety issues should be led by the health administrative department, it remains to be discussed whether the health administrative department should take full responsibility for food safety.
In recent years, although more food safety incidents have been exposed to the public, many experts are not pessimistic about the future of food safety in China.
Chen Junshi, a researcher at China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has been targeted by netizens for his long-term defense of food enterprises. But he still insists on his own view: "It should be said that the food safety situation in China is generally good, and it is getting better every year. Its specific sign is that before 15, the total qualified rate of food in our country was only about 50% to 60%, and now it has reached about 90%. "
But do we have any other choice? In the supermarket, we tried to find food without any ingredients, but it was difficult to find it. Even natural unprocessed foods such as vegetables and fruits are shrouded in the shadow of pesticides, antibiotics and hormones. According to a data, 97% of human food contains additives, and more than 2,000 kinds of additives fill our lives. In 2007, the total output of additives in China reached 5.24 million tons, and the sales income was 52.9 billion yuan.
Students in Fan Zhihong have investigated 136 kinds of meat products in supermarkets in Haidian District. The results showed that 72% of them contained colored nitrite, 46% contained preservatives and 4 1% contained vegetable protein. The investigation also found that most meat products were added with flavor enhancers, that is, flavor enhancers.
Fang said, don't confuse illegal additives with legal additives. The use of food additives in processed food is inevitable and necessary in most cases. He said: "What we need to pay attention to is not whether additives should be used, but whether the dosage of additives is appropriate and whether the list of additives can be updated immediately. Do not exclude food additives, but also oppose the abuse of food additives, while trying to use safer additives. "
Japan's "God of Food Additives" Abe Si once calculated that a person's daily intake of additives is about 10g, and a year is about 4,000g, which is roughly equivalent to the daily intake of salt per capita. Just eating a sandwich, you may eat more than 20 kinds of additives such as emulsifier, yeast powder, seasoning, pH regulator, phosphate and spice at the same time. Although each additive has been tested by the national quality inspection department, the results of compound intake are unknown and vague.
Fan Zhihong thinks that additives are not terrible, but adding other non-edible substances is terrible.
Alum fried dough sticks, talcum powder noodles, bleached steamed bread, big-headed baby milk powder, waste oil, melanin soy sauce, vermicelli, formaldehyde beer, water-injected pork, blue-eared meat, anthrax beef, avian influenza chickens and ducks, industrial salt, sodium glutamate, malachite green fish, high-concentration residual vegetables and fruits, Sudan red salted eggs, polished old rice, sulfur tremella, melamine milk powder, formalin chicken feet, etc.
In Fan Zhihong's view, 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.