Vegetable Cream: Is Eating Too Much Self-Destructive?
According to media reports, recently, some domestic experts have made severe accusations against vegetable cream, claiming it "poses a great health hazard and can increase the risk of consumers developing serious diseases such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes," even calling it "the greatest disaster in the history of human food."
Some jokingly say that we are constantly "educated" through our diet. For example, eating pork made us aware of clenbuterol, eating duck eggs introduced us to Sudan Red, drinking milk taught us about melamine, eating rice made us hear about white wax oil, and eating daylilies introduced us to nitrites...
Now, there has been a safety scandal involving hydrogenated oil. Hydrogenated oil, also called vegetable cream, vegetable butter, or non-dairy creamer, is widely used in fried foods like fried dough sticks and hamburgers, baked goods like bread and cakes, and cold treats like ice cream. Some experts say: "Hydrogenated oil produces a large amount of trans fatty acids, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and other conditions. Many countries have imposed restrictions, but China is still using it on a large scale without limits." Therefore, experts call on food regulatory authorities to intervene quickly to restrict or ban vegetable cream.
However, there are opposing views. Some believe that hydrogenated oil has been legally used for over a hundred years, and people have only gradually recognized its harm, leading to calls for restrictions. Currently, only a few countries and regions regulate hydrogenated oil, so calling it "the greatest disaster in the history of human food" is somewhat exaggerated.
In fact, the public has long heard that eating foods with hydrogenated oil is unhealthy. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization have specifically recommended that daily intake of trans fatty acids should not exceed 2g, as exceeding this amount may affect human health. So the question arises: how can consumers know how much trans fatty acid is in the foods they buy? Only with this knowledge can consumers estimate the potential harm of the foods they consume. But the problem is that food manufacturers do not clearly label the trans fatty acid content, so consumers cannot know if their intake exceeds the limit.
It should be said that in the field of food safety, hydrogenated oil is not the worst. Unlike melamine, it is not a substance explicitly banned from food, nor does it cause immediate obvious harm to health after consumption. The public's concern mainly stems from increased awareness of food health. People care not only about which foods are toxic and should not be eaten but also about which foods are unhealthy and should be limited. The previously media-exposed "miracle doctor" Zhang Wuben, with his absurd theory that "mung beans and long eggplants can cure all diseases," also indirectly shows how much the public cares about food health.
Resolving the public's concerns is an important aspect of the government's commitment to serving the people. From this perspective, food and drug regulatory authorities should take proactive measures to promote the assessment and restriction of the health hazards of trans fatty acids. At the very least, they should accelerate the implementation of "requiring foods containing trans fatty acids to be labeled on packaging." Only by ensuring consumers' right to know can collective food safety panic be avoided. Reflecting on the recent false alarm regarding the Shengyuan milk powder precocious puberty incident, it is clear that the lack of guaranteed right to know leaves room for rumors and panic.
The vegetable cream incident is essentially different from the melamine incident; the latter was a serious public food safety event, while the former is public anxiety over potential health issues due to unmet rights to information. Now, the public generally doubts hydrogenated oil. Food regulatory authorities should actively respond and intervene promptly, both to educate the public on scientific knowledge about food health and to help the public avoid unhealthy foods as much as possible, to prevent the spread of panic.
