Sweetener abuse poison

The rise of sugar price has led some food enterprises to widely use sweeteners instead of sugar Food experts pointed out that the abuse of sweeteners has made snacks become chronic poison snacks, which has always been the leisure "love" of children, women and young people, just like a good partner that can't be separated from every day However, the abuse of sweeteners in snacks has been exposed frequently The "invisible killer" is quietly turning delicious snacks into chronic poisons Consumers used to "dance with Wolves" all day long Recently, Guangzhou Municipal Administration of industry and Commerce found that the qualified rate of candied fruit was only 52% when it was spot checked on children's food in Guangzhou market A large part of unqualified products were due to the over standard of sodium cyclamate (a sweetener), some of which even exceeded the limit by 7 times In the preliminary inspection of ice cream and ice cream, Guangdong Provincial Quality Supervision Bureau also found that some small-scale cold drink manufacturers' products exceeded the standard of sodium cyclamate, and some even directly used sodium cyclamate instead of white sugar to produce cold drinks Before that, some drinks, small food, hawthorn, milk chips and other sweeteners have been found out to exceed the standard, and the abuse of sweeteners has become a common and serious problem in the food industry And food experts further remind consumers: choose sweetener food carefully, and guard against the "sweet killer" Sweeteners are widely used in food It is known that there are two kinds of sweeteners that are allowed to be used in China at present: nutritive and non nutritive Nutritive type mainly refers to maltitol, sucrose, glucose syrup, etc., which not only have sweet taste, but also produce heat; non nutritive type mainly refers to the sweetener with little or no heat, which is added in sugar free food Among these sweeteners, xylitol, aspartame and saccharin sodium are commonly used Among them, xylitol is mostly used in chewing gum and sugar reducing food; aspartame is widely used in beverages, cold drinks, and a considerable number of dairy products, drugs, health food, pickles and other food; saccharin sodium is more commonly used than the former two, basically used to replace sucrose, used in all food, especially preserves and preserved fruits In addition to these three kinds of sweeteners, such as cyclamate, stevioside and sucralose are also common sweeteners, as well as acesulfame, which is commonly used in the foods of diabetic patients In recent years, the phenomenon of abuse has been aggravated by the rise of sugar price, and many foods have been investigated and punished for exceeding the standard of sweeteners In response, industry insiders revealed that because the cost of sweetener is much cheaper than sugar (for example, the price difference between sweetener and sugar is more than 15 times), the abuse of sweetener by a small number of food enterprises has been repeatedly prohibited, and the recent situation of sweetener exceeding the standard is more serious, mainly because the price of sugar has been soaring for more than a year, forcing many small enterprises to "jump the wall" In order to reduce costs, they reduce the use of sugar in products, add a large number of sweeteners in violation of regulations, and even directly use sweeteners instead of sugar to produce food Since 2005, the price of domestic sugar has risen from 2800 yuan / ton to 5700 yuan / ton, the highest this year In the face of such "Crazy" price rising momentum, large sugar enterprises can still be parried because of their "thick foundation" However, for some small enterprises, the cost of sugar has nearly doubled, which makes their income even more meager, even to the point that it is difficult to maintain the operation "Sugar prices have been rising, but it's hard to raise the prices of products!" A small and medium-sized cold drink production plant director helplessly told reporters According to the staff of the quality inspection department, at present, the abuse of sweeteners in China's food industry is becoming more and more serious Illegal manufacturers make profits by unscrupulous means in order to reduce costs and seriously violate the relevant provisions on the use of national standards for food additives There are three ways of violating the rules: ⑴ abusing saccharin and sodium cyclamate; ⑵ the production enterprises use a variety of artificial sweeteners to achieve the goal of not only exceeding the standard individually, but also increasing the use of sweeteners, drilling through the loopholes of laws and regulations to avoid legal sanctions; ⑶ stealing the concept, using the name of "proteoglycan" to cover up the truth of stealing various sweeteners in food Some sweeteners may cause cancer food experts said that most sweeteners in the daily diet are allowed to be added by the state, and the amount of added sweeteners is limited to a certain range Some sweeteners are relatively safe, such as sorbitol, which has less calories than glucose and has few side effects However, more sweeteners have some side effects or are not suitable for some people to eat For example, stevioside, which has low calories, can reduce blood pressure, promote metabolism and other functions, but the research found that it may have a certain carcinogenic effect, so it has been banned from selling foods containing stevioside in Hong Kong and other places Although the nutritional value of xylitol and maltitol is higher than that of sweeteners, too much of them may cause diarrhea and even gastrointestinal dysfunction Sweeteners often contain cyclohexylamine and dicyclohexylamine, which can cause cancer Therefore, we should be careful when choosing them as sweeteners The main metabolite of aspartame is phenylalanine, which is harmless to normal people, but can affect the development of phenylketonuria patients Saccharin sodium is a kind of artificial sweetener, which is widely used, especially in the preserved fruits that women like to eat However, the possibility of carcinogenesis has not been completely ruled out Therefore, we should avoid long-term consumption in large quantities It should be noted that side effects protect consumers' right to know Although the side effects of sweeteners are harmful to human health, because a large number of foods do not mark the content at present, and even there are errors in the labeling of sweetener ingredients in ingredients, consumers are still "in the dark" According to GB7718 general standard for food labeling in China, the food additives in food ingredients must be marked, and the product name and category name specified in gb2760-96 shall be used, and the sweetener and preservative shall be marked with specific names Among them, the sweeteners shall be labeled as "saccharin sodium", "sodium cyclamate (cyclamate)", "aspartame methyl ester (also known as sweetener)", "potassium acetylxanthate (Acesulfame)", isomaltulose (hydrogenated parakinose), etc However, when the reporter visited the market, he found that there were a large number of snacks everywhere, such as supermarkets, convenience stores, small stores, and local stalls The problem of labeling was very prominent A large number of foods had the problem of name labeling error, nonstandard, or inaccurate labeling, such as "molasses", "sweeteners", nonstandard labeling such as "proteoglycans", and inaccurate labeling It refers to labeling only "sweetener" without indicating which sweetener to use For its side effects, there is no reminder Experts appeal that wrong labeling or not is a violation of consumers' right to safety and knowledge China should consider changing the current food management regulations, and urge enterprises to clearly mark the specific sweetener varieties and corresponding side effects in the product labels If the food contains aspartame, the package shall indicate that it is not suitable for phenylketonuria patients In the United States, all foods added saccharin sodium as sweetener are required to be marked with the warning that saccharin sodium can cause animal tumors Consumption reminder try to eat less sweetener food experts said, generally speaking, the amount of sweetener eaten by each person in a day is very small, which will not affect health, but only if the manufacturer must add the specified amount of sweetener in the food In particular, saccharin sodium with low cost can not be used in large quantities because it is cheap Since most of the sweeteners are snacks, consumers must be careful not to overeat the same snack When purchasing, you should carefully read the food label to see which sweetener it adds and whether it is suitable for your own consumption From the perspective of health and physical development, children, pregnant women and other special consumers should not eat foods containing artificial sweeteners.