Cold drinks are generally "added with spices". Are these spices harmful to the human body?

This year is July 16th, and many of us like to drink cola, drink soda, eat ice cream, etc. to cool off the heat. These cold drinks taste delicious because they are all added with spices.

So what are spices? Are synthetic fragrances harmful to humans? In terms of spice production technology, what are the "stuck necks" in our country?

First of all, what are spices?

Aromas in foods such as soft drinks and ice cream are just a few applications of spices. Spices are the raw materials of incense, which can provide aroma or fragrance and can be perceived by our olfactory and taste organs.

Fragrance can be divided into two categories, one is natural fragrance and the other is synthetic fragrance. Natural flavors have a very long history.

In ancient times, there was a legend that "Shen Nong tasted all kinds of herbs". Shennong not only discovered some raw materials for food and medicine, but also discovered some fragrant substances, which are spices.

Of course, the earliest we used was the natural flavor, which refers to the aroma substances extracted from the raw materials of animals and plants. For example, the extract of Riley flower can be extracted from jasmine, and musk can be extracted from the sachet of the mature male body of musk deer.

Synthetic fragrances that are widely used today have a history of more than 150 years. Humans use different raw materials to imitate natural fragrances through their own science and technology, and a "single" fragrance prepared or created through chemical or biological synthesis is synthetic fragrance, also known as artificial fragrance.

When it comes to synthetic fragrances, many people may think that synthetic fragrances do not have the fragrance of natural fragrances. In fact, this problem does not exist.

Most of the earliest fragrances were not artificially synthesized, and the main ingredients were isolated from natural fragrances. For example, to extract peppermint oil from peppermint, the main component of peppermint oil is menthol, which is menthol. We can separate the menthol from the natural peppermint oil by crystallization, then the separated peppermint is called single away from spices.

At first, we classified the single-li fragrance as artificial flavor, but now people tend to count the single-pear flavor as a natural flavor. Synthetic fragrances are entirely synthesized through organic methods. However, most synthetic flavors come from the flavor components in natural flavors, and their flavor intensity is exactly the same as the chemical substances of the same structure in natural flavors.

Compared with natural flavors, synthetic flavors have a purer flavor and are more convenient for perfumers to use in the process of blending. At the same time, natural flavors also have unique advantages. Because there are at least hundreds or even thousands of ingredients or substances in each natural spice, the aroma or fragrance of natural spice is often stronger and softer, and it can complement each other well with synthetic spice. So, natural flavors are not necessarily better than synthetic flavors.

Are synthetic fragrances harmful to humans? People often worry that synthetic fragrances are not as safe as natural fragrances because they are chemically synthesized. In fact, whether it is a natural fragrance or a synthetic fragrance, it must be guaranteed to be safe for the human body before it is approved for use, and it has undergone a series of scientific studies.

It is manifested in two aspects. One is that daily spices, such as perfumes and cosmetics, must not be irritating to human skin; the other is that after entering the human body, edible spices cannot cause acute, subacute or long-term harm to human health. .

However, in daily use, we do not directly use natural fragrances or synthetic fragrances, and there are very few cases of direct use of fragrances, because the fragrance or aroma of a single fragrance often does not make us feel particularly satisfied unless it is very special. For some spices, this may be the case.

One of the spices that is allowed to be used alone in our country is vanillin, also called vanilla essence. It is mainly allowed to use vanillin in older infant formula milk powder, but no flavor is allowed. This is not for safety reasons, but mainly not to make infant formula taste too good. Otherwise, infants and young children may not like to drink breast milk, or older children may prefer to drink formula milk powder and do not like other foods.

In most cases, what we use is called essence. Strictly speaking, according to the logical relationship, it should be called spice essence, because perfume is the raw material of essence, so essence is made of various kinds of spices, including natural, synthetic, and perfumer. A very pleasant mixture of scents created by art.

Therefore, the essence must be a mixture, and some spices can be single or mixed. Most natural flavors are mixtures, so synthetic flavors are generally a single compound.

In fact, ordinary consumers rarely use fragrances directly. What we can feel is some flavored products, such as perfumes. Perfume is a solution of alcohol and water of fragrances, such as Chanel No. 5, CD and so on.

The most common things that people come into contact with are daily spices and food spices. Food flavors belong to the category of food additives. There are 22 categories of food additives in our country, one of which is called food spices. Although food spices are only one of these 22 categories, their varieties account for the vast majority. There are currently more than 2,300 kinds of 22 categories of food additives in our country.

Among them, there are about 1,900 kinds of spices for food. Therefore, sometimes people who worry about food additives will also realize the worries about spices now. Of course, you should not worry about the safety of food additives. All the food additives approved by our country have undergone risk assessment and proved to be safe. You can rest assured!