Is homemade food always healthier?
You've surely heard these sayings in daily life
As someone from Shaanxi, where noodles are a staple, my mother always insisted: "Homemade noodles require hand-kneaded dough and hand-rolled sheets. Avoid store-bought noodles with food additives—skip them if possible." Yet life often presents situations that leave you both amused and exasperated.At the school gate, I saw a breakfast vendor's curtain proclaiming "Authentic Beijing Pancake Rolls—No Additives." During break, a student confided that his mom joked his body would never decompose because he loves instant noodles.
Examples like these—whether it's additive-free pancakes or instant noodles that might as well be formaldehyde—reflect a deeper question among consumers: Why must food additives be used at all? This shows we still have a long way to go in educating the public about food additives.
Food additives are not a modern invention
Many likely wonder—are food additives truly necessary? Today we address this question.
Food additives refer to synthetic or natural substances added to food to enhance quality, color, aroma, and taste, or for preservation, freshness retention, and processing requirements.China implements a licensing system for the production and use of food additives. Only those deemed necessary, safe, reliable, and approved by the Chinese government are considered legal food additives.
It's also important to emphasize that food additives are not a product of the modern food industry. The history of human use of food additives is as long as the history of human civilization itself. The invention of using brine to coagulate tofu dates back to China's Western Han Dynasty over two thousand years ago, and brine is a type of food additive.The alum and baking soda used by Chinese people to fry dough sticks are also food additives with over a thousand years of history. Modern food production relies on additives Finally, we must recognize that food additives play an increasingly vital role in the modern food industry.Whether it's Western bread, cakes, sausages, dry red wine, beer, fruit drinks, ice cream, chewing gum, chocolate, and instant coffee, or Chinese staples like steamed buns, dumplings, fried dough sticks, glutinous rice balls, moon cakes, and various dishes—the production of these foods relies on food additives. This is an objective fact, regardless of our personal preferences.Without food additives, the dazzling array of foods lining store shelves would cease to exist.Food additives serve as a benchmark for a nation's scientific, technological, and socioeconomic development. The more advanced a country, the greater the variety and per capita consumption of food additives. Without them, not only would modern food industries cease to exist, but modern food itself would vanish. Even staples like oil, salt, sauces, vinegar, rice, and flour contain additives—without them, home kitchens couldn't function.