Confessions of Japan’s “God of Additives” tell you what not to eat!
The Meatball Incident That Changed My Life
It was my daughter’s third birthday, and I was working like hell, rarely eating at home, and often coming home in the middle of the night. So I had to make up for my daughter’s birthday by coming home early from work.
The table was filled with meals prepared by my wife. Among them was a plate with meatballs with cute Mickey Mouse toothpicks stuck in them. I casually picked one up and threw it into my mouth, and froze.
It was no other than the meatball I had developed, and as long as the additives were pure, even if they were mixed in the food, even if there were more than 100 of them, I could tell them all with my tongue.
That meatball was the flavor of the chemical seasonings, binders, and emulsifiers I had blended. I hastily asked, “What’s going on here? xx production?” My wife replied as if nothing had happened, “Yes, it’s made by XX,” and took out the bag to show me.
Yes, it was indeed a product that I had developed myself, but because it had a Mickey Mouse toothpick stuck in it and was topped with my wife’s soup, I was too negligent to recognize it at once.
“These meatballs are cheap and the kids love them, so I buy them often. As soon as they serve this, the kids grab it.” I looked up to see that my daughter and son were both eating those meatballs with gusto. “Wait, wait, wait!” I panicked and covered the plate with the meatballs with both hands, and my family froze when I made such a panicked move as a father.
Truth: This is how meatballs are made
We were commissioned by a manufacturer to develop those meatballs as a supermarket specialty item. That manufacturer procured a large amount of cheap minced meat. Minced meat is the part that can barely be called meat that is picked off the bones of cows, and is generally used to make pet feed
So he came to me to see what he could do with the minced meat.
First, add in some ground meat from chickens that can no longer lay eggs for extra portion size. Next, add in something called organized soy protein in order to create softness. Lots of beef gravy, chemical seasonings, etc. are used to add flavor. Lard and processed starch are also added to make the texture tender. In addition, adhesives, emulsifiers, etc. are added. Since it is mass-produced using a machine, the work is much easier.
I also used coloring agents to make the colors look good, preservatives and pH adjusters to extend the shelf life, and antioxidants to prevent fading.
In this way, the meatballs are basically ready.
Finally, the meatballs are mixed with additives to give them “the flavor of sauces and tomato sauces”. This soup is poured over the meatballs, which are then placed in a vacuum bag and sterilized by heating, and the product is finished. About 20 to 30 kinds of additives are used in the production process, making it an “additive pile”.
The meatballs I developed cost less than 100 yen (about 6.8 yuan) per box. The reason for the low price is that it costs only 20 to 30 yen. When the product was released, it was an instant hit, loved by children and housewives alike. That was the goal set at the beginning of development. That manufacturer was all smiles, and it was said that he built a building with the profits from that one item alone.
“Dad, why can’t you eat that kind of meatball?” Immersed in the process of making the meatballs, I heard my child’s innocent voice and instantly snapped back to my senses. “Anyway, you can’t eat this one, no eating!” I removed the plate and fell into a deep self-loathing as I made the unexplained explanation.
Food plant manager: I wouldn’t have eaten it myself
Until then, this kind of meatball was a source of pride for me. Making food out of something that was no longer useful and was about to be thrown away was good for the environment on the one hand, and on the other hand it was a boon for housewives who had to save even a dollar.
But it was then that it became clear to me that I didn’t want my children to eat these meatballs at all. That night, I stayed up all night.
Maybe it’s not the right analogy, but I think additives are like military products. Aren’t I in the same league as the “merchants of harm” who sell murderous weapons to enrich themselves? This can’t go on, I thought. Some words that I had ignored gradually came back to me.
Factory manager A of a certain factory always said in private, “The ham I sell at a special price is not edible at all.
Factory director B of a pickle processing factory also often said, “Although the price is super low, it’s better not to buy our pickles.” That’s made by bleaching blackened vegetables and coloring them with synthetic coloring agents.
C, the maker of the bagged lotus root, also said, “We wouldn’t eat that kind of root ourselves.” Of course, no one in their right mind would eat lotus root that was black as garbage and turned white in a flash.
D at the dumpling store and E at the tofu store said the same thing.
I’ve heard that the city where I live has more children suffering from genetic atopic dermatitis than anywhere else. Shouldn’t I take a few thousand percent of the blame for this? The very thought of this question made me suffer from a pang of conscience. Of course, I have not broken the law. I have been using the additives in strict compliance with the usage methods, standards and dosages set by the State, and I have also marked them clearly on the labels of the products.
But that doesn’t erase my guilt. It was a late awakening, but now that I had “woken up,” I couldn’t continue to work like this. I quit my job the next day.
Are food additives the “enemy”?
In fact, the large-scale modern food industry is based on food additives. If food additives were not added, I am afraid that most of the food would be ugly, unpalatable, difficult to preserve, or expensive, and unacceptable to consumers.
When I went on a business trip a while ago, I had to leave home at 5 am for a 7 am flight. Since there was no time for breakfast, I bought sandwiches and coffee at the airport before getting on the plane. As I ate, I counted how many additives were used in that sandwich and it turned out to be over 30.
Lunch was also eaten during the trip, and thinking that I had to get some nutrients, I picked a bento lunch with more vegetables, and counted nearly 40 additives added to it as well.
That makes a total of over 70 additives (including duplicates) that I ingested in the morning and lunch alone.
But the truth is that I also get the convenience of having an easy meal to fix for a not too high price. Our food life has become so rich now that we can buy what we want to eat whenever and wherever we want. It is thanks to the development of food processing that we can enjoy this “convenience”. The development of food processing is undoubtedly facilitated by food additives.
Excessive use of additives is indeed a problem. But a blanket statement like “food additives = poison” is not going to solve anything. Come to think of it, we have actually been dealing with additives for a long time. The baking soda used to make steamed buns is also an additive. Calcium hydroxide used to solidify konjac is also an additive ……
There is no point in trying to scare people by erasing the benefits and “favors” that additives bring to us. Instead of simply rejecting additives as the enemy, think about how to deal with them, how to face them, and how much you can accept. That’s the key.
What’s not in the kitchen is an additive
What is a food additive? A scientist might explain it like this, “Something that is used in food by addition, mixing, infiltration, and other methods during the manufacture of food and during processing or preservation for the purpose of ……”
But my explanation is simple, “A food additive is something not found in the kitchen.”
There are basic flavorings like soy sauce, sugar, salt, vinegar, etc. in the kitchen. There may be chemical seasonings (monosodium glutamate) as well, and in addition things that look like additives are baking soda, baking powder, and the like. If you’re pickling your own pickles, there may be gardenia pigment to color the radish pickles. But no one would use the preservative sorbic acid, nor would they use benzoic acid, thickeners, carmine, sodium nitrite and polyphosphates.
Anything that is not in the kitchen and cannot be imagined is a food additive.
In this way, in the selection of food, try not to choose to contain a lot of “kitchen does not have things”, naturally, you will be able to buy food with fewer additives.
The only way for consumers to truly avoid consuming large amounts of food additives is to buy fresh and natural food ingredients themselves, spend some time and follow the traditional way of making healthy home-made food with their own hands!
How to stay away from additives
1
Look carefully at the “back”
How many people look at the “back” of the product when they buy something in the supermarket? I hope that when you buy something, you will get into the habit of turning it over and looking at the “back”.
Then, according to the formula “What’s not in the kitchen = food additives”, try to buy foods that contain less “what’s not in the kitchen”. Of course, it is impossible to find foods that do not contain anything that is not found in the kitchen. However, it is possible to find foods that contain less!
Take bagged vegetables as an example, some have only the name of the vegetable in the ingredient list, while others have the names of additives such as bleach, pH adjusters, antioxidants and so on. There is a big difference between buying without looking at the “back” and buying without looking at the “back”.
In this way, even if you don’t have any knowledge about the toxicity of additives, you will still be able to choose foods that are safe.
2
Choose less processed foods
When buying food, try to choose food with low processing.
For example, if you buy your own rice and cook it in a rice cooker at home, there are no additives, but if you want to process it into frozen rice or rice balls, you will need to add additives such as flavorings (amino acids, etc.) and glycine. If you don’t have the time to cook your own rice, don’t rely on the final product (frozen meat rice or rice balls) so easily, but choose rice that comes in a bag in the intermediate stage, and then process it a little bit yourself with a little bit of work!
The same goes for vegetables, fresh vegetables are free of additives, but chopped vegetables and bagged salads are sterilized with sodium hypochlorite.
I am not saying that highly processed foods should never be consumed, and there is nothing wrong with eating them once or twice in a while. It’s just that I would recommend that you don’t consume it too often, and try to make your own on a regular basis, or buy it ready-made when you just can’t.
Do you choose to put in a bit of effort, or do you choose additives? I hope that after careful consideration
3
Reflect on what you “know” before you eat it.
“It’s simply not possible to do it all by hand” and “There’s no time, it’s completely impossible”. Whenever I talk about additives, I often hear these voices. It is true that in today’s age, it is a bit difficult to make them all by hand without relying on additives at all, and there is no way around using them occasionally.
However, if you know what you are eating, you are bound to feel sorry for your family and yourself. Even if you don’t know much about the toxicity and dangers of food additives, if you know that the processed food your family is eating today contains additives, you will definitely feel the urge to make it yourself. After relying on processed foods for three days this week, wouldn’t you all feel the same way if you had to make them yourself on the remaining days?
With that kind of guilt, the next thing you’ll want to do is to feed your family meals that you’ve made yourself.
So, don’t say, “It’s impossible to cook everything by hand,” and try it for a week.
4
Don’t be cheap
Supermarkets are in a price war, and by cutting out the middleman’s commission, the price of goods will not be cheaper by 20% or 30%. Behind the price war, there are people like me and food processors operating in the shadows.
If a manufacturer says to us that sausages used to be sold for 398 yen, and from tomorrow they want to sell them for 298 yen, then our job is to make something for 298 yen without changing the profit. In other words, we will reduce the requirements for raw materials and use additives to make “appropriate products”.
However, consumers only look at the price of the “appropriate product” and think, “I’m lucky it’s so cheap,” and buy it.
There is a reason why it is cheap. Please keep this in mind.
