Text | Wei Chen
Codonopsis has the use of soup, hot pot ingredients, and soaking wine. In my country's traditional dietary culture, this Chinese medicinal material is often regarded as ingredients for nourishing, as the so-called "medicine and food are of the same origin." Because of this, the recent news that a confinement club in Ningbo, Zhejiang was fined 30,000 yuan for adding Codonopsis pilosula in chicken soup has caused controversy.
Codonopsis pilosula (Photo source: Jinan Times)
The administrative penalties given by the Ningbo Market Supervision Bureau do violate people's daily life experience, but they make sense. The Food Safety Law stipulates that no medicines should be added to the food produced and operated, but substances (food and drug substances) that are both food and Chinese medicinal materials can be added. The folk diet tradition believes that Codonopsis is both a food and a Chinese medicinal material, and the law does not formally recognize the food identity of Codonopsis. The confinement club was fined for "illegal additives of drugs", which is reasonable and well-founded.
Is it suitable for Chinese herbal medicines? Should it be judged based on dietary traditions and life experience, or should it be scientifically evaluated? The answer is obviously the latter.
National Health Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation implement dynamic management of the food and drug quality catalog. The substances included in this catalog must not only be included in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and prove that they have been consumed as food for more than 30 years, but more importantly, they must pass safety assessments, including toxicological evaluation, hygiene testing, and special targeted pharmacological effects. . Whether Codonopsis is used for consumption of food safety, whether it should be obtained for food and drug quality and refer to food management should be a scientific question, not an empirical question.
Life experience and scientific research are not completely opposite. In fact, the existence of the food and drug quality catalog itself is a recognition of the concept of "medicinal and food" and a respect for traditional eating habits. But on this basis, there are more security checks.
In 2020, the National Health Commission issued the "Notice on the Pilot Work of the Management of 9 Substances, including Codonopsis, Pilot Work, which is both food and Chinese Medicinal Materials in accordance with the tradition", and many provinces selected some substances for production and operation pilot work based on local needs. According to media statistics, only Gansu, Hebei and Hubei have included Codonopsis in the pilot project, and Zhejiang is not among them. Looking at the pilot programs in the three places, food safety risk monitoring of pilot products is the top priority, including foodborne disease monitoring, food pollutant monitoring and emergency monitoring. As a "candidate" for food and drug quality, Codonopsis can only move forward steadily and far-reachingly on the road of safety assessment. After all, can not tolerate any carelessness in ensuring food safety and maintaining public health.
Friends who often eat Codonopsis pilosula may ask, Codonopsis has a long history of safe consumption and is often eaten at home. Is it necessary to undergo safety assessment?
In 2020, a family in Heilongjiang ate sour soup contaminated by pathogenic bacteria during a family dinner. All 9 people were poisoned and died after eating it. In the Northeast, sour soup is a home-cooked delicacy that many people have eaten since childhood. Traditional foods bloomed "evil flowers", which seriously questioned people's usual dietary methods.
For many traditional foods, ingredients, processing methods, usage and dosage, they all require rigorous research and recognition. How many people know the overall picture? Just like the National Health Commission marks in the "Notes" column of Codonopsis pilosula that "use ≤ 9 grams per day, pregnant women and infants should not eat it" , the performance of the confinement club that should be more professional is not satisfactory.
You should also see that merchants add Codonopsis and their own dietary use causes different food safety risks. The latter often only needs to be responsible for themselves. Whether to compare the food and drug quality catalog before making soup depends on the individual. When opening the door to do business, you must be responsible for the life, health and safety of consumers.
No matter what, it is necessary to carefully examine the "familiar strangers" in life. avoids treating the traditional generalization as scientific, constantly improves food safety literacy, and ensure that "medicine and food are of the same origin" plays a healthy and healthy role.
【Author】Yang Yue
Southern Comments
