The Lunar New Year would not be the same without such traditional favorites as cured meat, sausage, and ham. So what better place to start our investigation of food additives!

"Take pressed ham, for example. After salting, the pork is chopped and then spices and emulsifiers are added... eight steps in all," says Tsao Chien, former general manager of a number of large food processing factories. In his book Do You Know What You Eat? he describes how during the food manufacturing process a wide array of additives are used, including binding agents, elasticity agents, color protecting agents, preservatives, and pigments. The most harmful of these additives is the color protecting agent known as nitrite. Clostridium botulinum--the bacterium that produces the toxin that causes botulism--grows easily during meat processing, and a mere one-millionth of a gram of the toxin can be fatal, but nitrite is effective in controlling the bacterium's growth. Consequently, despite the fact that nitrite contains carcinogens, it is added to processed meat by manufacturers who have little alternative than to choose the lesser of two evils.

But eating nitrite along with food products which contain amine results in the production of nitrosamine, another kind of carcinogen, making it necessary to add ascorbate.

Thus, mass-produced sausage and ham shouldn't be eaten too often, but what about hotpot? The fresh meats and vegetables are safe to eat; the problem lies in the processed surimi products, including fish balls, meatballs and other hotpot ingredients. Surimi is high in protein, low in fat and quite nutritious, but in order to extend its shelf life and improve its flavor a dazzling array of chemical additives are added--nearly 20 different types in all, in nine different categories.

Candy, cookies, watermelon seeds, and dried fruit--an indispensable part of any leisure time activity--are chock full of potentially carcinogenic additives such as artificial sweeteners and coloring agents.

From natural to chemical

Article 3 of the Food Hygiene Control Act defines a food additive as "any substance added to or coming into contact with a food product in the course of manufacture, transportation or storage, and used in order to color, flavor, preserve, emulsify, aromatize, stabilize, thicken, enrich, or protect from oxidation."

Previously, natural substances were used as food additives, but advances in food technology resulted in their being superseded by a wide variety of chemically synthesized additives which have been in common use for some time now. From fresh to frozen, from crackers and beverages to seasonings and sauces, pretty much every edible item you see in the supermarket has some additives. At present there are over 1,000 known food additives.

In all countries of the world the safety of chemically synthesized additives is monitored by relevant legislation, which at present is based on the standards issued by the World Health Organization in 1958. The WHO defines the quantity of food additives which can be safely ingested on a daily basis as the amount which has no effect according to the results of the "chronic toxicity test," divided by 100 to 250. In other words, a person is basically in no danger of chronic poisoning from food additives as long he doesn't consume between 100 and 250 times the daily limit in the course of a single day.

So which additives are safe? And which ones are harmful or can lead to chronic poisoning?

"The smaller the molecules of an additive, the more harmful they are to the human body," explains a food products specialist who prefers to remain anonymous. The body is unable to break down the larger molecules, so they eventually get expelled without doing any harm. But the smaller molecules are readily assimilated by the body. They quickly enter the body and begin to circulate, and become a serious burden for the liver and kidneys.

The nitrite added to sausage may be carcinogenic; there are ten or twenty kinds of additives in a typical selection of hotpot ingredients; artificial flavorings and colors in sweets and cookies are bad for the digestive system, and may also be carcinogenic... consumers really have to keep their eyes peeled.

Cheap and delicious

The chemical structure of additives with small molecules is highly hydrogen-bondable (so they combine with water) and bridgeable (so they combine with food). Therefore, they make the food more delicious. Since this type of additive is very easy to synthesize and thus inexpensive, it is naturally favored by manufacturers.

MSG, chicken powder, soup stock cubes, barbeque sauce, even oyster oil and fish sauce--these tasty seasonings which leave a parched taste in the mouth are the best examples.

A list of ten other unhealthy food additives has been compiled by Hsieh Ming-jer, director of the College of Public Health and Nutrition at Taipei Medical University. Amongst them is hydrogen peroxide, commonly added to noodle products (such as oolong noodles and oil noodles), bean products, and fish balls, both to improve their appearance and to kill germs. By law, sodium dehydroacetate (a preservative) can only be added to four types of dairy products such as cheese and butter, but it's also routinely added to bread, fen yuan (flour balls), and taro products to increase softness and improve flavor. According to statistics compiled by food product specialists, about 1.5 metric tons is legitimately used per year by domestic cheese manufacturers, but over a thousand times that amount is imported.

While some additives, however undesirable, are openly identified as such, there are others whose use few consumers are aware of.

The nitrite added to sausage may be carcinogenic; there are ten or twenty kinds of additives in a typical selection of hotpot ingredients; artificial flavorings and colors in sweets and cookies are bad for the digestive system, and may also be carcinogenic... consumers really have to keep their eyes peeled.

Disguised preservatives

Acetic acid, the main acid found in vinegar, is a good example. Acetic acid and propionic acid are two simple carboxylic acids that are used as food additives. Propionic acid is approved for use as a preservative, but only in limited quantities. Acetic acid (vinegar) is officially classed as a seasoning and there are no restrictions as to how much can be added to food products.

In other words, though acetic acid is classified as a seasoning, it can also function as a preservative, yet the laws allows its unlimited use. As another example, sorbic acid is an approved preservative which can be added to foods in limited amounts, but adipic acid, which has a similar preservative effect, is classified as a conditioner (an additive that improves qualities such as color, aroma, taste or flesh quality, or reduces the viable bacterial count), and can be used in unlimited quantities.

"For the most part a shrewd manufacturer won't use propionic acid or sorbic acid as a preservative," says the anonymous specialist mentioned above. Many of the sausages on the market today claim to be preservative free. Why, then, don't they spoil when left out at room temperature for a few days? Because the seasonings and conditioners which have been added are very effective preservatives!

Large quantities of acetic acid are added to food products as a preservative. But to offset the sour taste, it is necessary to add one of three additives: sodium DL-malate, trisodium citrate, or sodium phosphate. Inevitably, then, one additive is used to offset the effects of another.

The nitrite added to sausage may be carcinogenic; there are ten or twenty kinds of additives in a typical selection of hotpot ingredients; artificial flavorings and colors in sweets and cookies are bad for the digestive system, and may also be carcinogenic... consumers really have to keep their eyes peeled.

What happened to the foam?

In addition to those with sterilizing and preservative effects, food manufacturers use a wide range of other additives for a variety of reasons, including making their products more convenient to prepare or more attractive to consumers. For example, why doesn't the soy milk sold in supermarkets have a layer of foam on top like you see in the traditional soy milk shops? In the traditional method of making soy milk, the foam produced in the process of boiling and filtering is continuously scooped up and discarded, while the heat is carefully controlled. But mass-produced soy milk contains silicone resin and polyglycerol fatty acid esters, which absorb water after oxidizing, added in order to eliminate the foam. However, silicone makes the soy milk too thick, so emulsifiers are added to make the final product "delicious and foam-free."

Another example is fruit-juice milk. Ordinarily, milk with juice added spoils easily, and natural colorants readily fade. Obviously, then, this so-called "fruit juice" is really produced from artificial food coloring and fruit flavors.

By now additives are so widespread and numerous that it's hard to know which is which, and even harder to be clear about which are toxic and which aren't. It seems that experts are only unanimous about one thing: the less you ingest the better. In addition, there are some principles which consumers can follow in order to minimize the health risks. Here are some suggestions offered by Chiang Hsiao-min, a dietician with the Dieticians Society of Taipei County.

(1) By and large, you get what you pay for. Low-cost food products are usually made with old or low-quality ingredients, which then have additives added to improve the taste or mask the inferior quality. Therefore, avoid buying food products solely based on cost, as well as products whose origin is unclear.

(2) Select food products which have a government seal of approval.

(3) You can be more confident of a product's quality if it is properly packaged and labeled, and includes the names of any additives, the expiration date, and the address and telephone number of the manufacturer.

(4) When comparing products of the same type, excessively rich or bright colors, extreme elasticity, and an extremely long shelf life may all be the result of illegal additives.

(5) Do an experiment: Buy a take-away meal and put it out in the sun. If it hasn't spoiled after a day, or if bread hasn't gotten moldy after three or four days, there could be a problem.

Additives are all-pervasive. It's no exaggeration to say that on a daily basis people consume 100 or 200 different additives which are suspected to be toxic. What better time than when having dinner on New Year's Eve to start giving some serious thought to how to avoid ingesting poison!

The nitrite added to sausage may be carcinogenic; there are ten or twenty kinds of additives in a typical selection of hotpot ingredients; artificial flavorings and colors in sweets and cookies are bad for the digestive system, and may also be carcinogenic... consumers really have to keep their eyes peeled.

The nitrite added to sausage may be carcinogenic; there are ten or twenty kinds of additives in a typical selection of hotpot ingredients; artificial flavorings and colors in sweets and cookies are bad for the digestive system, and may also be carcinogenic... consumers really have to keep their eyes peeled.

Food additives are everywhere, but because you can't see them and they pose no immediate risk, they are generally ignored. But over time you end up eating a lot of toxins.

The nitrite added to sausage may be carcinogenic; there are ten or twenty kinds of additives in a typical selection of hotpot ingredients; artificial flavorings and colors in sweets and cookies are bad for the digestive system, and may also be carcinogenic... consumers really have to keep their eyes peeled.

The nitrite added to sausage may be carcinogenic; there are ten or twenty kinds of additives in a typical selection of hotpot ingredients; artificial flavorings and colors in sweets and cookies are bad for the digestive system, and may also be carcinogenic... consumers really have to keep their eyes peeled.