Eating too much soy sauce will make you black and cause cancer? Soy sauce: I don't take the blame

Soy sauce is a must-have for every household

There are always various opinions

"Eating too much soy sauce can cause cancer"

"Eating too much soy sauce will make your skin darker"

…

How many of these rumors about soy sauce have you heard?

Let’s talk about soy sauce today!

01 Will eating soy sauce make you darker? Soy sauce: I don’t take the blame!

There are melanocytes in our skin, and tyrosine and amino acids are used as raw materials to produce melanin through the catalysis of tyrosinase and other complex chemical reactions.

Melanin is the main determinant of skin color, and its amount is affected by factors such as genetic genes, hormone levels, and ultraviolet radiation .

Although soy sauce does contain tyrosine, the content is extremely low, even less than that in milk and coix seed. This shows that the amount of tyrosine in food does not affect skin color as much as we imagined.

In addition, the most important catalyst in the melanin production process is tyrosinase, which cannot tolerate strong acid. Regardless of whether soy sauce contains tyrosinase, it will be inactivated by stomach acid when entering the stomach and lose its biological activity that can catalyze chemical reactions.

Since eating soy sauce will not make your skin darker, why do doctors still tell us to avoid eating soy sauce?

Because soy sauce contains a lot of salt, on average 5 ml of soy sauce contains 1 g of salt, and the normal salt intake for a normal person should be about 6 g per day. If too much salt is consumed, it will easily cause the blood to become viscous, which is not conducive to wound healing. Therefore, when there is a wound, whether it is a postoperative wound or acne, you should avoid excessive consumption of soy sauce.

02 Will eating too much soy sauce cause cancer?

Regarding the claim that soy sauce causes cancer, many people do so because soy sauce uses caramel coloring to adjust its color, which may produce 4-methylimidazole, a substance that has been identified as a Class 2B carcinogen by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO-IARC) (insufficient evidence of carcinogenicity to humans, but sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity to experimental animals).

But this does not mean that soy sauce is carcinogenic. First of all, "caramel color" itself is a legal food additive and is a substance allowed to be added to soy sauce according to national standards.

Secondly, the national standard also has strict regulations on "4-methylimidazole". According to my country's food safety standards, the content of 4-methylimidazole in caramel color produced by the ammonia addition method and the ammonium sulfite method shall not exceed 200 mg/kg.

The Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization also pointed out that normal consumption does not cause health problems to the human body. In other words, normal consumption of soy sauce is safe.

03 It’s best not to buy soy sauce marked with these four words?

As we all know, soy sauce has been brewed since ancient times. my country has a history of more than 3,000 years since the Zhou Dynasty. In the early days, meat was fermented and later soybeans were used.

The raw materials of traditional soy sauce are very simple, only soybeans, wheat bran, rice koji, salt and water. According to the seasonal production process, it can be summarized as spring koji, summer sauce and autumn oil. But the ingredients list of the soy sauce we eat now does not seem to be just these ingredients...

This brings us to the topic of preparing soy sauce. What is preparing soy sauce?

Prepared soy sauce is a liquid condiment made from brewed soy sauce, acid hydrolyzed vegetable protein seasoning liquid, food additives, etc. One bottle of brewed soy sauce can be used as the raw material for 2, 10, or even 100 bottles of prepared soy sauce. If the flavor is not good enough, additives will be added, such as sodium glutamate to enhance the flavor, caramel color to enhance the color, and sodium benzoate for preservation.

The 2021 "Notice on Strengthening the Supervision and Management of Soy Sauce and Vinegar Quality Safety" states that soy sauce and vinegar manufacturers are no longer allowed to produce and sell products labeled as "prepared soy sauce" or "prepared vinegar." In other words, if the soy sauce you buy has the words "prepared soy sauce," it is not "soy sauce" in the strict sense.

Check if the soy sauce you buy is infected? If the soy sauce stored or used at home is "prepared soy sauce", it is recommended not to continue to consume it. When buying soy sauce, do not buy and consume "fake soy sauce" that does not meet the relevant standards just because you are greedy for cheapness . When buying soy sauce, choose brewed soy sauce.

04 How to choose a good bottle of soy sauce?

When buying soy sauce, the more expensive the better! Keep these 3 tips in mind when choosing:

1. When purchasing, try to choose "brewed soy sauce" instead of "prepared soy sauce". The reasons are as mentioned above.

Some people may also find that "brewed soy sauce" is also labeled "high-salt dilute fermentation". Generally speaking, they both represent better production technology, quality and taste.

2. Look at the ingredient list. The soy sauce with a high content of "amino acid nitrogen" is better.

The content of "amino acid nitrogen" in special-grade soy sauce should not be less than 0.8g per 100 ml, first-grade soy sauce should not be less than 0.7, second-grade soy sauce should not be less than 0.55, and third-grade soy sauce should be around 0.4g!

You can also shake the bottle of soy sauce and observe the foam. Soy sauce with small, uniform foam that does not easily disperse is relatively good.

3. Choose "low salt" and "low sodium" soy sauce first!

Soy sauce is a "high-salt consumer." 10 milliliters of soy sauce is equivalent to about 1.6 to 1.7 grams of salt, which is close to 1/3 of the daily recommended intake. So when buying soy sauce, you might as well compare the soy sauces on the shelf and choose the one with a relatively lower sodium content.