Break down the "four grievances" of Chinese canned products
2020/09/25
Canned food plays an important role in daily life. However, people have certain misunderstandings about the manufacturing, preservation principles, nutritional value, how to distinguish the quality of canned food, and the method of storage. This makes canned food, a safe, healthy and convenient snack food, suffer "eternal injustice". Let’s count down the "four grievances" of canned food.
Grievance 1: Canned food contains many preservatives, which are harmful to human health.
Fact: The reason why canned food can be stored for a long time without deterioration is due to the sealed container and strict sterilization, and has nothing to do with preservatives. The principle of canning is very simple: first fully heat the raw materials to kill all microorganisms; at the same time, fully heat and sterilize the packaging can; then put the sterile food into a sterile container and seal it while it is hot; finally heat and sterilize it After cooling, the volume of air in the top space of the container shrinks, which will produce negative pressure, and the originally sealed bottle will not be opened, and the bacteria from the outside cannot enter. After these processes, the food will not spoil, and no preservatives are needed. According to Hao Yu, secretary general of the China Food Industry Standardization Technical Committee, "canned food contains preservatives" is actually a prejudice against canned food and misleading consumers.
Grievance 2: Canned food is a convenience food, no different from instant noodles. Can only satisfy hunger, no nutrition.
Fact: The processing procedure of cans is very simple, generally only heating is required. More importantly, the heating temperature for canned food is not too high, sometimes lower than the cooking temperature at home. Therefore, to a certain extent, the nutrient loss of canned food is less than that of home cooking. In general, using pasteurization, the processing temperature of canned meat and canned seafood will not exceed about 120℃; the processing temperature of canned vegetables and fruits will not exceed 100℃; and our daily household cooking The temperature can easily exceed 200°C.
Grievance 3: Canned food is made of scraps.
Fact: In fact, canned food uses high-quality, good-looking ingredients. For example, most of the canned fruits are packaged in glass bottles or transparent flexible packaging. You can directly see beautiful and complete oranges, yellow peaches, hawthorns, pineapples, etc. As for the cans with invisible "content", if raw materials of questionable quality are used, the quality of a batch may be affected, and few manufacturers take this risk. Finally, China is a large canned food producer in the world, and its products are exported to the United States, the European Union, Japan and other countries in the world, with the export volume reaching 3 million tons. These countries have very strict inspections on food. The fact that Chinese canned food is so popular in the international market can prove the excellent quality of canned food.
Grievance 4: Canned food, no matter how safe and nutritious it is, as long as it is processed, it is still not fresh!
The truth: First of all, the raw materials used in canned food are fresh. To make canned food, in order to pursue lower cost and better taste, we will choose the freshest raw materials in the most suitable season. Moreover, in order to save costs, regular canners have their own raw material bases and build production lines in the nearest place to the base. In this way, it is equivalent to "harvesting and making now" from your own backyard, greatly shortening the process from picking, transportation to processing.
Although we can easily buy "fresh" fruits from all over the world, they just look fresh, but the nutrients are constantly being lost. Because any fruits and vegetables continue to "breath" after being picked, some nutrients will continue to decrease. The whole process from the picking of the raw materials to the processing of canned fruits does not exceed 6 hours. High-temperature heat treatment will stop or slow down the chemical reaction of nutrient loss and maintain the freshness and nutrition of the food. Take yellow peaches as an example. One day after picking, vitamin C will lose 30%, while canned yellow peaches lose only 10%. Therefore, canned fruits are fresher than "fresh" fruits transported over long distances.