Do you hate coke? You think it will corrode teeth, damage bones, stimulate the stomach, and all of them are additives without nutrition, and even seriously damage your health.
Have you tried to convince each other? "Coke is harmful to your health. Don't touch it! " Or "I haven't had a problem drinking coke for more than ten years. The harm you said is sensational! " , and so on?
I guess none of you can convince anyone. In this case, we might as well put aside our prejudice for a while, sit down and analyze the ingredients in cola, and see whether he is a loyal minister or a traitor. How much he drinks every day will do harm to our health.
Coke, a dark brown "mysterious drink" with bubbles, is not mysterious or complicated. It is mainly composed of water, sugar (or sweetener), carbon dioxide to provide bubbles, phosphoric acid to adjust acidity and taste, caramel color to provide color and unique flavor, and refreshing caffeine.
Why should sugar be separated from sugar? That's because not only those who support coke and those who resist it argue endlessly, but also many small factions are divided among those who support coke: sugar-free factions ridicule sugar-free factions, sugar-free factions despise sugar-free factions, don't know true happiness, and different brands and tastes are often deadlocked.
Different people have different views on brands and tastes, not to mention for the time being, but there is still a big difference between sugar and sugar-free, which directly affects whether they are bad for our health and how much we can drink at most every day.
Different brands of cola have similar ingredients. Let's take the most classic Coca-Cola as an example to see the difference between sugar and sugar-free:
As can be seen from the above figure, phosphoric acid, caramel color, caffeine, carbon dioxide and edible essence in the ingredients are essential, whether sugar is present or not. The sugary version uses high fructose corn syrup and white sugar as sweet sources, and the sugar-free version uses sweeteners, including aspartame (not used by Diet Coke), acesulfame K and sucralose. In addition to sweeteners, the sugar-free version also uses some acidity regulators and preservatives.
From this point of view, sugar cola is high in calories, but at least it uses pure natural sugar, which is healthier than sugar-free cola with many food additives.
Is that really the case? Don't worry, let's analyze it slowly.
Coke is a carbonated beverage in category 14 of China's food classification system. According to GB 2760-20 14 "Consumption of Food Additives in National Standards for Food Safety", there are about 190 kinds of food additives that can be used in cola.
Take the three cokes listed above as an example. Among them, food additives without dose limit are carbon dioxide, caramel pigment, sodium citrate, citric acid and edible essence, and other food additives have dose limits in national standards. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have also set their daily allowable intake. Details are as follows:
We take the maximum consumption of each food additive as the maximum risk assessment point, and calculate the maximum daily consumption of different food additives by taking the horizontal gradient from 10 to 100 kg body weight in combination with their respective ADI:
As can be seen from the above figure, it is actually phosphoric acid that determines the maximum daily consumption (Diet Coke should also pay attention to L(+)- tartaric acid), rather than sweeteners and preservatives that have been criticized all the time.
L(+)- tartaric acid is an acidity regulator, which has not been found to be harmful to human body. However, because ADI is formulated by the authoritative international food safety organization, and China also stipulates the use limit, we will calculate the maximum safe drinking amount according to the maximum amount that may be added. The results show that adults (taking 60 kilograms as an example) can drink 360 grams of diet coke at most every day, and children are not recommended to drink it because of their light weight.
Phosphoric acid is also an acidity regulator. Excessive intake of phosphoric acid and its salts will damage teeth, reduce calcium absorption and increase the risk of osteoporosis and heart disease. According to the EU survey, children's intake of phosphoric acid and phosphate is close to the standard value 1.7 times, which is extremely unfavorable to children's growth and development. Therefore, from the perspective of containing phosphoric acid, it is not recommended for children to drink cola, even for adults (taking 60 kilograms as an example), and it is not recommended to drink more than 840 grams of cola every day.
Of course, neither L(+)- tartaric acid nor phosphoric acid will be added to the maximum dosage because of its strong acidity, so we calculate the safest drinking limit. If someone in the industry says that "the amount we add is very small, and this upper limit can be raised", it is very welcome to provide the actually added data for risk assessment.
Caffeine, as one of the important ingredients of cola, can not only refresh the mind, but also has many health care effects, but this does not mean that we can take caffeine unscrupulously. Because it is indeed a central nervous system stimulant, it will be addictive and harmful to health if used in large quantities.
At present, there is no uniform regulation on caffeine intake in various countries. The European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) believes that healthy adults can consume 400 mg of caffeine every day, but pregnant women can't consume more than 200 mg, which is consistent with the view of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Health Canada put forward specific suggestions on the limit of caffeine intake for children. Children aged 4-6 should not exceed 45 mg per day, children aged 7-9 should not exceed 62.5 mg per day, children aged 65,438+00-65,438+02 should not exceed 85 mg per day, and adolescents aged 65,438+03 and above should not exceed 2.5 mg/kg per day (60 kg is 60 mg)
According to the above data, combined with the maximum caffeine content in cola (0. 1.5g/kg), we can calculate the maximum daily coffee intake of different people. We can find that if the potential harm of caffeine is considered, children are still not advised to drink cola, and teenagers and pregnant women drink 1000 grams and 1333 grams at most every day.
In addition to food additives, there are actually two major factors that affect how much cola we can drink every day. One is the residue of pollutants, including lead and tin in carbonated drinks.
The limit of lead in carbonated drinks is 0.3 mg/L, and the weekly allowable intake (PTWI) of lead in Joint Committee of Food Additives (JECFA) is 25 μ g/kg body weight (set at 1999).
Since I haven't found tinned cola yet (if anyone finds it, please let me know), we won't discuss tin slag here, so we will use lead as a pollutant alone to calculate the maximum amount of cola that people who weigh 10 ~ 100kg can drink every day. We can see that if the lead residue reaches the maximum limit (generally not reached), adults drinking 700 ml a day will cause health risks, and the risk of low-weight children is higher.
Besides pollutants, the last and most important factor is sugar content. WHO, FDA and Dietary Guidelines for China Residents (20 16) all recommend that the daily intake of free sugar should not exceed 50g, and it is better to control it at around 25g.
Here, we take a loose 50 grams as the upper limit of daily free sugar intake for adults and a strict 25 grams as the upper limit of daily free sugar intake for teenagers and children to calculate how much cola we drink every day will lead to excessive sugar intake (all the sugar in cola is free sugar).
Take the label of Coca-Cola as an example. Every 100 ml contains 10.6 g of sugar. Adults who drink 472 ml a day will reach the upper limit of 50 grams of sugar intake, while children can only drink 236 ml of cola at most.
And after drinking these cokes, you can't eat other sweets, otherwise you will know the harm caused by eating too much sugar, not only obesity, but also hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, tooth decay, skin problems, bone problems and so on.
From the above calculation, it can be seen that acidity regulator is the main factor affecting the maximum consumption of diet coke, and sugar content is the main factor affecting the maximum consumption of diet coke.
For adults (60 kg), considering the safety of phosphoric acid, you can drink up to 840 grams of cola every day, and if L(+)- tartaric acid is added, you can drink up to 360 grams. Of course, if a variety of acidity regulators are used at the same time (in fact, citric acid is added), the added amount will be much lower, and it is safe to raise the upper limit of the actual drinkable amount.
However, if you drink sugary cola, adults can drink up to 450 ~ 500ml a day (depending on the sugar content of different brands of cola). If you consider the inevitable intake of other free sugars in your daily diet, the upper limit of this drinking amount should actually be lowered to be safe.
For children, teeth, bones and nervous system are all in the development stage. Sugar, phosphoric acid and caffeine in cola may have adverse effects on children's growth and development, and even lead pollution may affect children's intellectual development. Therefore, it is not recommended for children to drink coke. If they drink it occasionally, don't exceed 250 ml.
The best drink is water!
[1] Jia, Liu Wei, Present situation of caffeine intake at home and abroad, consumption suggestions and regulatory requirements [J]. Health research, 2018,47 (05): 853-857+861.
[2] National Health and Family Planning Commission. GB 2760-20 14 national standard for food safety-standard for the use of food additives [S].
[3] Color, smell and trap: the harm of food additives. Hans-ulrich Green.