????Many people often say that snacks are all additives, and even an ice cream contains more than a dozen food additives, which are unhealthy.
????They firmly believe that food without food additives is safer. So, what exactly is a food additive? Are food additives really unhealthy?
????What are food additives?
????According to the provisions of China’s Food Hygiene Law (1995), food additives are artificial or natural substances added to food to improve the quality of food such as color, aroma and taste, as well as to meet the needs of preservation and processing technology.
????At present, there are 23 categories and more than 2,000 varieties of food additives in China, including acidity regulators, anti-caking agents, defoamers, antioxidants, bleaches, leavening agents, colorants, color protectors, enzyme preparations, flavor enhancers, nutritional fortifiers, preservatives, sweeteners, thickeners and spices.
????Are there food additives in snacks?
????There has long been a misconception that food additives are equated with "unsafe", and the public pays more attention to its related information. Especially in recent years, many foods are advertised as selling points under the banner of "no additives". The proliferation of such content will have a serious impact on the food industry, industrial development and people’s health.
????Food additives will undergo strict safety evaluation before being approved for use. So far, no incidents that harm consumers’ health due to standardized use of food additives have been found.
????The misunderstanding of food additives reflects many people’s distrust of industrial production and non-"natural", such as watching advertisements for skin care products and thinking that it would be better to write natural herbs; When people talk about nutritional supplements, they think that they are synthetic and there is no need to eat them. It is enough to rely on daily diet.
????In fact, if the daily diet is unreasonable, or because of the wrong concept of nutrition, eating some dietary supplements properly will have more health benefits.
????Food additives are synthetic or natural substances added to food to improve the quality of color, aroma and taste, and according to the needs of preservation, preservation and processing technology.
????Whether or not to add food additives is determined by the nature of food and production technology. For foods with high protein content, a certain amount of preservatives must be added to ensure the food quality and safety, otherwise it is easy to spoil.
????Therefore, food safety can’t be judged simply by whether there are food additives, and food safety can be guaranteed by standardizing the use of food additives, conforming varieties and moderate dosage. The food without food additives has a short shelf life and is easily spoiled.
????The main functions of food additives
????Food additives have greatly promoted the development of food industry and are known as the soul of modern food industry. This is mainly because it brings many benefits to food industry, and its main functions are as follows:
????1. Prevent deterioration
????For example, preservatives can prevent food spoilage caused by microorganisms, prolong the shelf life of food, and also prevent food poisoning caused by microbial pollution. Another example: antioxidants can prevent or delay the oxidative deterioration of food, so as to improve the stability and storage resistance of food, and at the same time, prevent the formation of auto-oxidation substances of oil that may be harmful. In addition, it can also be used to prevent enzymatic browning and non-enzymatic browning of foods, especially fruits and vegetables. These are of certain significance to the preservation of food.
????2. Improve the sensory properties of food.
????Proper use of colorants, color fixatives, bleaches, edible spices, emulsifiers, thickeners and other food additives can obviously improve the sensory quality of food and meet people’s different needs.
????3. Keep improving nutritional value
????Proper addition of some food nutritional fortifiers in food processing can greatly improve the nutritional value of food, which is of great significance to prevent malnutrition and nutritional deficiency, promote nutritional balance and improve people’s health.
????4. Increase variety and convenience
????There are more than 20,000 kinds of food in the market for consumers to choose from. Although most of these foods are produced through certain packaging and different processing methods, in the production engineering, some products with good color, fragrance and taste are mostly added with coloring, flavoring, seasoning and other food additives to varying degrees. It is these numerous foods, especially the supply of convenience foods, that bring great convenience to people’s lives and work.
????5. Convenient food processing
????The use of defoamers, filter AIDS, stabilizers and coagulants in food processing can be beneficial to food processing operations. For example, when δ lactone gluconate is used as the coagulant of tofu, it can be beneficial to the mechanization and automation of tofu production.
????In the final analysis, the safety of food additives depends on the amount and intake, which is not necessarily related to the variety and quantity used. As long as the food additives are used reasonably according to the requirements of national standards, the safety of food additives is guaranteed, and everyone does not have to worry too much.