High Frequency of Use of Additives in Children's Food in China

The first non-profit organizations that focus on children's environmental education "iearth - Love the Earth" recently released the "Children in 9 cities in China Intake of Food Additives Investigation Report". The survey shows that children's intake of food additives in China is not optimistic. - press of Xinhua Beijing, December 26 (Reporter Zhang Xi)

The questionnaire survey was conducted from June 2012 to July 39 primary schools in nine cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Shenyang carry. and the report shows that 34% of the surveyed children occasionally or frequently feel unwell for snacking.

The report said, the potential hazards of the nine types of children often eat snacks, including instant noodles, ham, candied fruit, jelly, ice cream, cookies, chewing gum, potato chips, milky tea, etc.. Ham, for example, the the ham sample survey, nitrite utilization rate up to 85.71%, while the long-term heavy intake of nitrites, amines reaction in the human body to generate carcinogenic nitrosamines.

The survey figures show that 7% of children eat instant noodles everyday, 8% of the children eat jelly everyday, 9% of children's eat potato chips daily, 11% of children eat ham everyday, 10% of children eat confection and milky tea everyday, the ratio of children with a daily consumption of chewing gum and biscuits is 15%, and in summer, the proportion of children eat ice cream every day is up to 26%.

The above foods listed are all have been added one or more types of additives, noted in the report, however, the So far, iearth has not yet collected the evidence or research on the security of a variety of mixed-use food additives, and whether toxic substances will produced between the different additives is still has no clear answer.

Research conclusions show thesurveyed children eat food additive-containing foods are generally high frequency, there may be a potential risk; and a large number of food additives which are not allowed to be applied in the infant food, remains widespread in food that young children often eat; food additives which are  banned in Europe and the United States countries are still widely eaten in our country, such as carmine, tartrazine, sunset yellow, light blue and so on.

The experts called for the children's parents should be aware of food additives are not safe for children, if your children enjoy eating snacks in long-term heavy, which will causing long-term damages to the children's health.

* Oroginally posted: About Additive