Experts in China are urging for tougher regulations and improved information dissemination with regard to the use of food additives.
Experts are asking for more public education on the use of the substances and their effects, especially since they play such a huge role in the country's food production industry.
Chinese people are starting to worry more about what food they consume and whether their health can be compromised by eating delicious foods full of additives.
"I am often asked 'is anything completely safe to eat?'," shared Chen Junshi, chief adviser at the Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment.
"People are genuinely worried about the use of too many food additives. Yes, people should be wary of food products which claim 'no colorings, no preservatives' on the packaging, but there is actually a lot of misunderstanding surrounding food additives, which has to be sorted," Chen added.
As such, more public education on food additives is needed as well as regulations to ensure that additives are safe to consume.
According to experts, not all additives are unhealthy. In fact, most are important for the manufacturing processes of some food. Additives not only add flavor or color, but they also preserve the products for a longer period of time. In China, there are currently 2,000 types of food additives under 20 categories.
Sun Baoguo, an academician working for the Chinese Academy of Engineering and is also the president of Beijing Technology and Business University, said that one would be hard pressed to find food products without additives. The problem is that not all people know how to use them correctly.
"Some food producers have been guilty of using excessive amounts of additives or even using banned substances to lower their production costs, and those are the ones which have caused a lot of the recent panic we have seen," Sun shared.
"In many cases, it's how the additives are being used which is wrong, not the additives themselves--and this had led to additives practically being demonized by many consumers," Sun added.