Adding propylene glycol, is toxic milk coming again?

Recently, the Market Supervision Bureau of Qingyuan County, Zhejiang Province announced the results of the fourth round of food sampling and inspection in 2022. Two batches of pure milk labeled as produced by Maiqiu'er Group Co., Ltd. were found to be unqualified in this period, and the unqualified item was propylene glycol.

Two batches of pure milk from Maiqiu'er were found to contain propylene glycol, a low-toxic additive, which was found to be substandard. Whether this is another "melamine" incident or not, we still have to wait for further sampling results. If this really happens on a large scale, it will be another blow to domestic milk. Let's talk about it today!

01. What is Propylene Glycol?

Propylene glycol is a low-toxic additive. Long-term excessive consumption may cause kidney problems. Some experts say that after people eat propylene glycol, about 45% will be excreted intact through the kidneys, and the rest will be metabolized into lactic acid in the body. If the amount consumed is too large, the lactic acid produced cannot be excreted in time, and it will accumulate in the blood and kidneys, leading to poisoning. It mainly affects the nervous system, causing slow breathing, lower heart rate, loss of consciousness, etc.

02. Another unconventional move

I remember there was a popular question on the Internet before, which was why Chinese milk is expensive and tastes bad? This question basically turned into a milk recommendation conference, and many people recommended some well-received niche milks. Of course, the characteristics of these niche milks are, without exception: fragrant, rich, sweet, etc. Many netizens also bought them and found them to be refreshing.

But what if these milks are problematic? That would be disappointing. In fact, the sensory enjoyment of fragrance, richness, and sweetness is not a problem at all in the modern food industry.

Want fragrance? So easy. Nowadays, there are so many food additives and flavors to choose from, even Moutai flavors. So, wouldn’t it be great to have Moutai milk?

Want thicker? Just as easy, with lots of thickeners to choose from.

As for sweetening? It's easy, we have a lot of sweeteners. The simplest ones are sucrose or saccharin. Adding these things can make milk sweet.

If things go on like this, why would we compare milk? We can just compare the additives.

Because of this, our requirement for pure milk has always been: pure!

03. Pure milk must be pure

Taking the common GB_25190-2010 national food safety standard sterilized milk as an example, the requirements for milk are very clear, and raw materials must be raw cow and sheep milk.

If you make any improvements, it is no longer pure milk, but other milk, such as GB25191 formula milk.

04. How much milk is added?

When I saw this news, the first thing that came to my mind was, how many types of milk were sampled? I checked and found that there were a total of 4 types of milk.

2 unqualified

There are two other qualified milk

I hope this is just an isolated problem, and that many manufacturers don’t add it, otherwise it will really break.

05. Industry standards rely on self-discipline

In fact, industry standards have always been about regulating good people, and it is difficult to prevent bad people.

We usually test milk according to standard indicators, and we don't test for substances that theoretically shouldn't exist in milk. For example, you won't test for poisons in milk because they shouldn't be there. Otherwise, it would be a waste of time. After all, there are countless substances in nature, and it is impossible to test them all.

However, if someone really violates the rules and adds certain ingredients that are not on the inspection list, then they can really bypass the inspection. So all of this must rely on industry self-discipline.

The detection of propylene glycol this time was really accidental, because milk is not tested for this substance. If it was really added, it could have obtained the certificate safely.

This means that sweeteners like saccharin, thickeners like gelatin, and hundreds of other additives will have to be tested.