Original title: gold and silver foil powder has no nutrition, and the worship of "gold" on the tip of the tongue should stop

● There are many consumers who fall into the trap of "gilded food" because of curiosity or pursuit of extravagance. Some businesses see the business opportunities behind the food containing gold and silver foil powder. They not only sell such goods, but also use various scripts to promote the packaging of such goods

● The "healthy" selling points of some "gold-plated food" that were hyped when they were sold are not true. The gold and silver foil powder will not be absorbed by the body, but will be discharged from the body as it is, and has no nutritional value to the human body

● There are difficulties in the supervision of "gilded food". The core reason is that the specification is not clear and the technical supervision means cannot keep up. For the industry using gold and silver foil powder, the policy and legal rules are not clear enough, which to some extent gives the space for businesses to use gold and silver foil powder arbitrarily

□ Sun Tianjiao, a trainee reporter of Legal Daily

□ Legal Daily reporter Zhao Li

A circle of gold foil is inlaid around the delicate cake, which complements the gold and silver ball decorations on the cake surface; The round and smooth chocolate is scattered with broken gold foil powder, like the stars in the night sky shining; The small and fresh sea urchin sashimi is decorated with several pieces of broken gold, which makes people very excited... The food added with gold and silver foil powder is called "gold plated food", but no matter how luxurious and eye-catching the packaging, it can not cover up the fact that gold and silver foil powder is an illegal additive.

Recently, the State Administration of Market Supervision, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the National Health Commission and the General Administration of Customs jointly formulated the Regulations on the Investigation and Treatment of Illegal Acts in the Production and Operation of Gold and Silver Foil Powder Food (hereinafter referred to as the Regulations), which clearly stipulates that gold and silver foil powder is not included in the National Standard for the Use of Food Additives in Food Safety (GB2760-2014), is not a food additive or food raw material, It cannot be used for food production and operation.

However, a recent investigation by the reporter of the Legal Daily found that although the shops selling gold and silver foil powder could not be found in the search keywords of online shopping platforms and takeaway platforms, after searching with the keywords of "edible gold foil" and "edible silver powder", many shops could still be seen selling relevant materials. In addition, many consumers still favor this kind of "gold plated food" and share their own "gold eating" pictures and videos on social platforms.

Why should "gilded food" be prohibited? Why is it not forbidden? How to prevent? With these questions in mind, the reporter launched an investigation and interview.

Gold and silver foil powder has no nutrition

Extravagance should be prohibited

Mr. Jia, a resident in Chaoyang, Beijing, still keeps a bottle of gold foil wine bought by him several years ago. "No one drinks it. It's a pity to throw it away. It's just under the bed. It's dusty."

In the summer of 2018, when Mr. Jia was shopping in a tobacco and wine supermarket, he saw a bottle of wine on the shelf. The bottle was transparent, and the golden light at the bottom of the bottle could be clearly seen. Mr. Jia asked the shopkeeper about the wine. The shopkeeper immediately took the wine off the shelf and shook it gently twice. The gold foil in the wine floated up. The whole bottle of wine looked "sparkling" under the light.

According to the shopkeeper, this is the gold foil wine that he purchased through internal channels. The edible gold foil powder added to the mellow wine has not only nutritional value, but also high collection value. He praised that "gold foil powder can only be eaten by ancient emperors" and "buying it home means promotion and wealth". Mr. Jia was impressed and bought two bottles of gold foil wine at the price of 300 yuan a bottle.

According to the photo of gold foil wine displayed by Mr. Jia, this wine is printed with the words "Gold Tasting Wine" on the outer package, and a large number of ancient Chinese classics such as Compendium of Materia Medica and Materia Medica Seeking Truth are used in the text description to promote that "eating gold" is good for health.

Later, Mr. Jia gave a bottle of gold foil wine to a friend who knows how to drink, but he was told that this wine was actually a gimmick. It was developed and sold privately by a small distillery, and the cost was extremely low. It was probably a "three no" product. "Don't say it is good for your health, it is not certain whether you will get food poisoning after drinking it".

According to the information provided by Mr. Jia, the reporter searched the relevant information of the gold foil wine on the Internet, and found that the relevant products could not be found. However, on some forums, we can see photos of the same type of gold foil wine shared by some people. From the content of netizens' speeches, the selling prices of this wine vary greatly, ranging from 120 yuan to 600 yuan.

Like Mr. Jia, there are many consumers who fall into the trap of "gilded food" because of curiosity or pursuit of extravagance. Some businesses see the business opportunities behind the gold and silver foil powder containing food, not only sell such goods, but also use various scripts to package and publicize such goods.

A person in charge of a cake shop who did not want to be named told the reporter that in the industry, it is almost a consensus to use gold and silver foil powder for cake or dessert decoration. Even if the ban is issued, some peers quietly use gold and silver foil powder. "Generally, the cakes with gold and silver foil powder are of certain styles, and the slogans are" extravagant style "and" money worship ", which emphasize the high-end and high-grade. After the ban was issued, some peers would change the publicity picture and copy, avoid the key words such as gold and silver foil powder, and declare that they are "not sold" and "out of stock". However, if the familiar customers put forward an order demand, they can still do it. "

The "healthy" selling points of some "gilded food" that were hyped when they were sold are not true. Zhu Yi, an associate professor of the School of Food, China Agricultural University, told the reporter that gold and silver foil powder would not be absorbed by the body, but would only be discharged from the body as is, without nutritional value to the human body.

"Not only that, if it is fake gold foil and gold powder mixed with other unknown impurities, there may also be some unexpected food safety risks, such as ingestion of heavy metals, pigments, etc., too much gold foil may damage the intestinal mucosa, and too small nano gold powder may also have risks, and may also stay in the digestive tract mucosa, damaging intestinal epithelial cells." Zhu Yi said.

In her opinion, it is necessary to ban "gilded food". In addition to not encouraging extravagance, the more important thing is the preventive protection of consumer health.

Related goods exist in disguised form

Repeated prohibitions for various reasons

In fact, this Regulation is not the first time that relevant departments have issued relevant documents on the addition of gold and silver foil powder to food.

As early as January 29 this year, the State Administration of Market Supervision, the State Health Commission and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued the Notice on Investigating and Dealing with the Illegal Acts of Production and Operation of Gold and Silver Foil Powder Food in accordance with the Law, requiring to crack down on the illegal acts of production and operation of gold and silver foil powder food, false propaganda of the edible gold and silver foil powder, and import of gold and silver foil powder food.

Huang Qunhui, a lawyer from Beijing Yinghe Law Firm, told the reporter that from January this year to the promulgation of the Regulations, in just a few months, the competent department has sent documents in succession, the number of joint units has ranged from three to four, and the level of documents has ranged from notification to regulation, which shows the degree of attention and determination to investigate and deal with.

However, the reporter recently found that food containing gold and silver foil powder can still be seen on some online shopping platforms and social networking platforms.

After searching for "gold and silver foil powder food" and other words on some online shopping platforms, the reporter found that although there was no gold foil wine, gold foil cake and other food in the pop-up commodity interface, a large number of gold and silver foil powder additives with "edible gold and silver powder" and other contents in the title could still be retrieved, of which more than 800 were sold monthly with the highest sales volume.

Although some gold and silver foil powder additive products show "inedible" in the title, the reporter found that almost all businesses displayed the photos of gold and silver foil powder added to food in the detail page after clicking the detail interface of some gold and silver foil powder additive products. On the product question and answer interface, a consumer left a message asking whether the product was "edible", and the answer given by other consumers was "yes".

After searching for "gold and silver food", "gold foil" and other keywords on a social platform, the reporter found that there are still a large number of sharing posts about tasting, buying and selling gold foil containing food in the past six months. "The sea urchin is covered with gold foil, which can't hide its golden color" "Goose liver mousse, which is covered with raspberry jam, has a small piece of gold foil, which is very delicate" "Goose liver with red skin, which is covered with gold foil, looks very advanced"

Why is the trend of "gold-plated food" repeated?

Zhu Xiaojuan, deputy secretary-general of the Commercial Law Research Association of the China Law Society and associate professor of the China University of Political Science and Law, told the reporter that the repeated prohibition of adding gold and silver foil powder to food is caused by a variety of reasons, the most direct reason being that businesses have a demand for profits. The exaggerated propaganda of merchants caters to and misleads consumers' consumption psychology of pursuing extravagance. The patronage of consumers further promotes the motivation of merchants' "research and development", which not only uses gold and silver foil powder in food, but also uses gold and silver foil powder in various ways. It is accompanied by consumers' curiosity. "Many irrational consumers want to try as long as they see some new products sold on the market".

In Zhu Xiaojuan's opinion, the difficulty in the supervision of this kind of food is mainly due to the lack of clear specifications and technical supervision measures. For the industry using gold and silver foil powder, the policy and legal rules are not clear enough, which to some extent gives the space for businesses to use gold and silver foil powder arbitrarily. The limited ability of the regulatory authorities to take the initiative to supervise by means of technology, coupled with the lack of punishment and deterrence under the premise of unclear relevant regulations, has encouraged businesses to take chances.

Huang Qunhui said that merchants simply added gold and silver foil powder to all kinds of food, and immediately changed their appearance. The "value" of the goods increased dozens or even hundreds of times, and the profit margin was huge. In addition, the legal publicity related to food additives is not yet in place, and consumers still have misconceptions about eating gold and silver foil powder food. At the same time, food production from primary agricultural products to consumers will go through multiple links such as production, reprocessing and sales, and each link may involve food additives. Therefore, there are many practical situations such as long illegal chains, hidden adding methods, and difficulty in synchronous supervision.

Increase publicity of law popularization

Strengthen the coordination and co governance of supervision

To curb the "gold eating trend", supervision is on the way.

In March this year, the law enforcement personnel of Chongqing Yubei District Market Supervision Bureau found that two bottles of gold and silver foil decorations were stored in the decoration room of the cake shop, one of which had been opened for use. The law enforcement personnel seized and detained the relevant gold and silver foil powder products in accordance with the law, and filed the case according to the prescribed procedures. After investigation, it was found that the company used non food raw materials to produce food and added chemicals other than food additives to food. The Yubei District Market Supervision Bureau imposed a fine of 5000 yuan on the company in accordance with the law, and confiscated the materials involved in the case.

In April this year, a catering culture management company in Nanjing was fined 100000 yuan by the Qinhuai District Market Supervision Administration in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, for producing and operating food, food additives and food related products prohibited by the state. It was found that during the period from December 2021 to January 2022, the parties concerned used gold foil as raw material in the dessert "Pineapple Coriander Mousse". In addition, law enforcement officers found the "decorative silver foil" that had been activated on the kitchen console.

The Regulations also emphasize that local market supervision departments, agricultural and rural authorities, customs at all levels and other relevant government departments should strengthen the supervision and monitoring of food safety, and those who produce and operate food containing gold and silver foil powder and publicize that gold and silver foil powder is edible in violation of these regulations should be investigated and punished according to law.

Huang Qunhui suggested that "gilded food" should be eliminated and law enforcement should be used to promote law popularization. After investigating and handling the case, the law enforcement department shall publish the illegal facts and punishment results in a timely manner to warn potential violators of severe punishment; By publishing typical cases, interpreting food safety laws and regulations, and disseminating nutrition and health knowledge, the effect of law enforcement and law popularization can be achieved. At the same time, the reporting channels will be unblocked. On the basis of telephone and online reporting, the reporting channels for consumers will be further expanded. For example, one button reporting button will be added on the online trading platform to form a feedback mechanism of rapid reporting and timely investigation. In addition, the supervision responsibility of online trading platforms should be strengthened. The online trading platform should implement the main responsibility, strengthen the sense of supervision, make full use of the technical advantages, find illegal food containing "gold and silver foil powder" in time through text retrieval, picture comparison and the like, and ensure the first time off the shelf to minimize the loss of consumers.

Zhu Xiaojuan believes that the elimination of "gilded food" requires the cooperation and co governance of all parties. Relevant food producers, business operators, importers, etc. shall consciously fulfill their social responsibilities when producing, processing, selling and importing food, and resolutely resist the production, sale and operation of food containing gold and silver foil powder. Food containing gold and silver foil powder shall not be publicized or sold through the Internet and other information networks.

"The online platform should perform its main responsibilities, strengthen the qualification review of operators on the platform, and prohibit online food producers and operators from publicizing and selling food containing gold and silver foil powder. The platform should stop online food producers and operators from publicizing and selling food containing gold and silver foil powder in a timely manner and immediately report to the local market supervision department at the county level; If serious violations are found, the provision of online trading platform services shall be stopped immediately. " Zhu Xiaojuan said that in addition, the industry association should also formulate self-discipline management measures for the illegal use of gold and silver foil powder, and guide it through the rules of the industry association.

She also mentioned that the relevant government departments should strengthen the supervision and monitoring of food safety, and should investigate and deal with those who produce and operate food containing gold and silver foil powder and publicize that gold and silver foil powder is edible in violation of regulations. The administrative department of health and hygiene should work with relevant departments to carry out food safety science popularization, organize experts to interpret the safety risks of food containing gold and silver foil powder in a timely manner, and issue consumption warnings in a timely manner.

"Consumers should consume rationally, consciously resist abnormal and unhealthy consumption concepts and habits, and do not give opportunities to businesses selling food containing gold and silver foil powder," said Zhu Xiaojuan.