During the holiday season, several acquaintances and friends asked me about the additives in soy sauce,
It is said that I read a popular online article in the circle of friends, saying that the soy sauce of a certain company is “double-standard”, the domestic sales products contain a large number of additives, and the exported foreign products have clean ingredients. They say, don’t know what soy sauce to eat… Which additive in soy sauce is the most dangerous?
I will work overtime during the holidays, and I will tell you what the food additives in soy sauce are, why they are added, and how safe they are. Then I will talk about choosehow to choose soy sauce, what indicators to look at, and how to eat soy sauce reasonably.
1. What additives are added to soy sauce? Why add them?
Any type of soy sauce has these four main ingredients: water, soybeans (yellow soybeans or black soybeans), wheat (flour), and salt. So, they will occupy the first four positions on the ingredient list.
Following, possible toppings are:
The first category: sugar, fructose syrup, sucralose and other sweet substances.
Everyone knows that adding a spoonful of sugar to a savory dish can make it more savory and full-bodied. Therefore, sugar should be added to braised pork, braised pork, etc., fish-flavored pork shreds and Kung Pao chicken should be added to sugar… A small amount of sugar added to the soy sauce will also make the salty taste soft, delicious and rich.
No need to say more about white sugar. Fructose syrup is a product made from corn starch by enzymatic hydrolysis. The ingredients are glucose and fructose, and it has a refreshing and delicious sweetness. Fructose syrup is the main ingredient in drinks like Coke Sprite.
Sucralose is a sweetener with high sweetness and positive sweetness. It is licensed to be used in more than 20 types of foods such as soy sauce in my country. This sweetener was first developed by the British, approved by the International Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), and first used in Canada, while the United States is its largest sales market.
The second category: sodium glutamate, disodium 5′-flavor nucleotides (sodium inosinate and sodium guanylate), yeast extract, etc. fresh material.
Sodium glutamate is monosodium glutamate extracted from kelp by Japanese scholars more than 100 years ago. Disodium 5′-flavor nucleotide is an umami substance that exists in chicken broth. One of the reasons why products such as “Sour Pork” are more delicious is that more disodium 5′-flavor nucleotides are produced during the after-cooking process of chilled meat. Nucleotides exist in the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) of all living organisms, including the human body, and are not some strange synthetic substance.
Yeast extract is made of yeast as raw material, the protein and nucleic acid in it are enzymatically hydrolyzed, then the umami substances are separated, and then concentrated. Fresh products. It not only contains umami substances such as disodium 5′-flavor nucleotides and amino acids, but also contains a variety of B vitamins. (Everyone remembers the product “Yeast Flakes”.)
In short, fresheners aren’t something to be afraid of. The key is not to overeat. If you lose the natural flavor of the food, and everything you eat is the taste of yeast hydrolyzate, and the taste of monosodium glutamate chicken essence, it will be very boring.
The third category: sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, sodium dehydroacetate and other antiseptic substances.
Soy sauce contains more salt, which itself has a certain antibacterial ability. Salt is the oldest preservative, but when there is too much salt, soy sauce can be extra salty, neither tasty nor healthy. If the salt content is reduced, the bacteriostatic ability will be reduced. After all, we can’t use up soy sauce in one day. A bottle of soy sauce will take one or two months. If it is kept at room temperature every day, there may be cases where microorganisms multiply and grow a layer of “mildew”, or even the mold exceeds the standard.
In order to prevent this from happening, it is only necessary to add a small amount of preservatives to help, and there is no risk of “excessive use” (after all, food additives also cost money to buy, There is no point in adding more after the effect is achieved). Whether sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate, have been widely used in countries around the world for decades, and have never found any relationship between them and cancer risk.
Sorbic acid itself is a substance existing in human metabolism, and its toxicity (half-lethal dose) is even lower than that of table salt. Benzoic acid is also present in many fruits, such as blueberries and cranberries, so don’t be afraid.
For soy sauce, if you want to avoid adding preservatives, you need to add more salt; and for reduced-salt products to be safe, you need to add preservatives. Studies have shown that the dietary factor that contributes the most to the risk of cardiovascular death in my country is excessive sodium intake. Therefore, Salt reduction is the first priority, and eating soy sauce without preservatives does not make people live longer.
Fourth class: caramel coloring.
Caramel coloring is only added to dark soy sauce products, not to light soy sauce. This is because it has a strong “coloring” ability, adding a spoon or two can turn a pot of dishes into brown, which is suitable for braised and stewed foods.
Caramel is the brownish substance produced when frying sugar for color. To make food such as candied haws and yam, you need to heat and melt the sugar. After the sugar is heated and melted, the color slowly turns brown, and this color is caramel coloring.
Of course, modern industryThere are different types of caramel coloring produced, some are used in beverages such as cola, some are used in pastries (such as black forest cakes, cocoa biscuits, etc.), and some are used in condiments such as soy sauce and sauces.
Why is it not scary to drink a lot of caramel coloring from cola, and not afraid to eat brown biscuits, but so afraid to eat the caramel coloring in soy sauce?
Second, how to choose soy sauce?
According to my country’s latest regulations, only pure brewed soy sauce products can be called “soy sauce”. If you add ingredients similar to soy sauce made by chemical hydrolysis or enzymatic hydrolysis without brewing, it cannot be called soy sauce, but can only be called “so-and-so seasoning liquid”. So, now consumers don’t need to worry about using “prepared soy sauce” to pretend to be brewed soy sauce.
The question now is how to choose soy sauce in the face of all kinds.
First, look at the amino acid nitrogen content of soy sauce.
The grade of soy sauce is divided by “amino acid nitrogen”. It reflects the amount of amino acids produced in the brewing process of soy sauce, which is closely related to the umami taste and nutritional value of soy sauce. It can be said to be the “dry goods” indicator of soy sauce.
Amino acid nitrogen ≥ 0.40%: tertiary soy sauce.
Amino acid nitrogen ≥ 0.55%: secondary soy sauce.
Amino acid nitrogen ≥ 0.70%: first-class soy sauce.
Amino acid nitrogen ≥ 0.80%: Premium soy sauce.
Of course,some products have higher amino acid nitrogen levels, up to 1.20%~1.30%. Such soy sauce is naturally the best quality, not only delicious, rich in taste, rich in aroma, but also theoretically higher in nutritional value such as a variety of B vitamins and minerals.
Looking at this indicator, it is better than shaking the bottle to see the foam (adding a thickener can make the foam richer), pouring it on the food to see the dyeing effect (adding caramel coloring can make the color better It is much more reliable to taste the umami with the tongue (more MSG and sodium nucleotides can be more fresh).
Secondly, it depends on the purpose of soy sauce.
If you need a strong color for braised dishes, choose dark soy sauce. If you want to stir-fry or cold dishes, you want the taste to be fragrant and the color is refreshing, you can use light soy sauce. Some soy sauces are dual-use types. There is no indication of whether it is dark soy sauce or light soy sauce. You can check whether there is “caramel coloring” in the ingredient list. If not, the coloring ability is not so strong.
Third, look at the sodium content.
For health-conscious consumers, reducing the sodium content of soy sauce is an important option.
The Nutrition Facts table for soy sauce usually lists the sodium content in “servings” per 10 g/ml, or 15 g/ml. A spoonful of soy sauce is about 10 grams, so it is convenient to label it this way.
Pay attention to converting each product into 10 grams, and then choose the one with the lowest sodium content among the products with the highest amino acid nitrogen content.
For example, both products are “Premium Soy Sauce”. Product A is 1.20% amino acid nitrogen and contains 495 mg of sodium per 10 g serving; product B is 0.90 percent amino acid nitrogen and contains 1132 mg sodium per 15 g serving. Then, when all converted into 10 grams, the sodium content of product B is 754 mg. Obviously, product A has high amino acid nitrogen and low sodium content, which is better than product B.
Fourth, don’t pay too much attention to words with little meaning such as “zero additive”, “top road”, “special brew”.
Whether it is high-quality soy sauce, look directly at the data. All rhetoric doesn’t matter.
Explain here,The food additives approved for use in our country are almost all varieties approved for use in other countries. The so-called “foreign countries do not use food additives” are outright rumors.
Even if you don’t understand English or Japanese, you can buy a pack of potato chips, buy a bottle of Coke, read the Chinese ingredient list at the back, and see if there are food additives in the products produced by foreign companies , you know.
If you really care about food additives, you can buy organic soy sauce and “zero-additive” soy sauce produced by major brands in China. There is no “additive products sold in China. No added products to sell abroad” problem. If you can’t find it in the supermarket, you can just buy it online. However, the so-called “zero additive” does not mean that the product is the safest, nor does it mean that the product is of the highest quality.
Three, the skill of using soy sauce for stir-frying
When cooking with soy sauce, the most important technical points are:
Use high-quality soy sauce, pour the sauce over the pan, and reduce the amount of other seasonings.
The soy sauce is rich in flavor and contains a small amount of sugar and freshness enhancers, then no need to add MSG chicken essence, sugar can be reduced or not, and salt can also be reduced /strong>.
The delicious taste and aroma of soy sauce cannot be replaced by salt + chicken essence. It will make it easier to season when cooking: no salt is added in the front at all,Just add a tablespoon or two of soy sauce when out of the pan. A good soy sauce without caramel coloring can add a thin layer of red to the cut edges of the vegetables without affecting the overall green color of the vegetables. (You can imagine the state of the dish “shredded cabbage”. It is a classic work of cooking without salt and adding soy sauce to the pot.)
There are four benefits of pouring soy sauce in the pot:
One is to avoid the soy sauce going deep into the dish and affecting the color;
The second is to prevent the soy sauce from being heated to produce a paste taste and affect the flavor;
The third is to let the salty taste adhere to the surface of the dish, without going deep into the interior for the time being, and at least one third of the salt (sodium) can be reduced on the premise of achieving the same salty taste;
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Fourth, it is possible to rely on a small amount of sugar in soy sauce to achieve a fresh and sweet feeling, without the need for a large spoon of sugar.
In short, using soy sauce in this way can easily reduce salt, sugar, and increase nutrients. Soy sauce contains a variety of B vitamins, potassium, magnesium and other nutrients, although the amount is small, a little more is counted. In addition to sodium and sugar, salt and sugar contain no other nutrients.
Alright, let’s all enjoy the deliciousness of high-quality soy sauce!
Fan Zhihong_original nutritional information
Beijing Food Nutrition and Human Health Advanced Innovation Center Post Scientist
Director of Beijing Dietitian Association
Director of China Association of Health Promotion and Health Education
China Association for Science and Technology hires chief expert in nutrition science communication
PhD in Food Science, China Agricultural University
