Is the food packaging paper more "toxic"?

As the saying goes, "Diseases enter the mouth." Recently, the media exposed the barrels containing popcorn containing fluorescent whitening agents that may cause cancer. This news has made food packaging a hot topic for people to question and focus on food safety. Please pay attention--

White popcorn buckets may have artificially added fluorescent whitening agents.

Recently, relevant quality supervision departments in Shanghai conducted spot inspections on the products and raw materials of a Shanghai Paper Products Co., Ltd. and found that four kinds of fluorescent agents used for popcorn barrels exceeded the standards. The quality supervision department immediately exceeded 80,000 fluorescent agents. Popcorn buckets should be sealed and handled. Afterwards, some media reported that the napkins of 9 restaurants in Shanghai found that the fluorescent area of ​​4 of them was more than 5%, which was comparable to carcinogenic popcorn barrels.

The exposure of this series of food packaging and catering paper product safety issues directly pointed to the addition of fluorescent whitening agents. What kind of "additive" is this in the end? In the end, what is the problem with fluorescent brighteners in the food packaging that is usually found in daily life? What are the uses and hazards of fluorescent brighteners?

Fluorescent brighteners are chemical dyes

Professor Jing Hao of the College of Food Science and Technology of China Agricultural University pointed out: "Why use brighteners? It is obvious that packaging manufacturers want to make paper look whiter, and they need to add these things. Maybe because their paper quality is inferior, paper It would appear that the quality is better when it looks whiter, and the use of fluorescent whitening agents is much cheaper than using high-quality paper, which can be said to be driven by profits. In addition, some manufacturers do not rule out the use of qualified quality. In the case of wrapping paper, whitening agents are sought in order to look for a whiter effect on the paper surface."

According to Dong Jinshi, executive vice president and general secretary of the International Food Packaging Association, "Fluorescent whitening agent is a chemical dye that can improve the whiteness of products such as fiber fabrics and paper. It is mainly used in laundry detergent, soaps, paints and coatings, etc. In nature, fluorescent whitening agents are also included in nature, such as fireflies and bamboos, which have natural fluorescence. In general, fluorescent whitening agents are heterocyclic compounds that have a certain degree of carcinogenicity and certain toxicity. Therefore, it is generally used in clothing or building materials, and is not allowed to be used in food packaging according to regulations."

Food packaging prohibited to add fluorescent brightener

"Food packaging papers prohibit the use of fluorescent whitening agents. Because fluorescent whitening agents include many toxic benzene ring substances, and the benzene ring is also linked to many harmful bases, in particular, should avoid fluorescent whitening agents and foods. The contact, if consumed in large quantities, will have potential carcinogenic effects," Dong Jinshi said.

According to Dong Jinshi, because some natural plant materials used in papermaking, such as bamboo, contain fluorescent substances themselves, the national regulations stipulates that the fluorescent area in food paper should not exceed 5%. The amount of fluorescent agent contained in the napkins violated this exposure. It is beyond the scope of the regulations.

Jing Hao pointed out: "For food packaging, all chemical packaging materials, including plastic bags, etc., may have chemical residue problems, because there will be some unreacted small molecules in the material synthesis. After contact with food, it may migrate to food. Fluorescence in fluorescent whitening agents can be said to be one of them." He said that under different temperature or other conditions, the migration of these small molecules will be different. The performance will ultimately have different effects on food products. "In general, as the temperature increases, the mobility will increase. If the substance is fat-soluble, then contact with oils and fats will increase its migration."

However, Jing Hao also stated that there is no need for the public to worry too much about fluorescent whitening agents. Under certain circumstances, fluorescent whitening agents are less toxic. "Fluorescent agents contained in food packaging paper or disposable paper products are The degree of harm to the human body is closely related to the amount of migratory food and the amount of human exposure to contaminated food.

There is also a problem of migration. Therefore, the entire barrel may contain more or less fluorescent agents, but it does not mean that the entire fluorescent agent content of the barrel will be transferred to the popcorn, as long as the contained dose is within the safety dose range, it will not substantially threaten human health. . ""

Napkin to be fluorescent brightener GB

The author recently visited a number of cinemas in Beijing and found that the packaging of some shiny popcorn buckets is not standardized. Most popcorn drums in cinemas are not marked with basic information such as production date, manufacturer, production license, and QS logo. In addition, disposable bowls and disposable napkins used in small restaurants or food stalls everywhere are also no longer associated with safety signs and production information. When the author casually asked a vendor to sell his leather bowls and paper towels, the vendor could not provide detailed instructions and documents, but he always stressed that "it was bought from the formal market," "quality assured, there is no security problem." However, Are there really no problems with these one-off consumer products?

"The kind of white-looking drum may have added fluorescent brighteners." Dong Jinshi told the author that the state requires that food packaging paper cannot use waste paper and cannot contain fluorescent whitening agents. For napkins, at present, the state only stipulates that no waste paper should be used in production, and there is no express prohibition on the addition of fluorescent agents, and there is no standard for the content of fluorescent agents as in the case of food packaging paper.

Dong Jinshi pointed out: "If there are relevant national standards, many napkins will not meet the standards." He believes that the lack of national standards led many companies lack of self-discipline awareness, easy to take advantage of weaknesses, paper products fluorescent agent content worrying. "The napkin is in direct contact with the mouth. If the amount of fluorescent brightener is too large, it can easily cause health problems."

It is understood that since 2009, China has implemented a market access system for food packaging, containers, tools and other products. However, why is the market for unlicensed paper barrels still common? "The fundamental reason is that there is not enough supervision by the local quality supervision department and the industrial and commercial departments." Dong Jinshi believes that the quality supervision department should take the initiative to attack and impose penalties on enterprises that use unqualified raw and auxiliary materials for production. Second, the industrial and commercial departments should strengthen supervision, and dealers selling substandard products must not be soft.