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• Food Testing/Myth 2: Require zero detection? Not detected at best

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the test results were "negative," but outsiders and lawmakers wanted the results to be "zero." Experts say that with the development of equipment, it is increasingly easy to detect trace amounts of harmful substances in some foods that are considered safe. greentest eco 6 In the world of test science, testing for "0" is very difficult.

In fact, there is no clear definition of "zero detection", which is a term created by Taiwan, and there is no corresponding expression abroad; The hope is that it will not be interpreted to mean that a certain amount of food in a particular country is zero, and that it will not become a legal term. Because theoretically the complete non-existence of a substance is not well understood and may be proved.

In recent years, from melamine, clenbuterol, maleic acid to copper chlorophyll, radioactive detection the development of food safety events will be found, which is very important reason: rapid progress in analytical technology. Compared with the traditional "liquid chromatographic UV-visible spectrometer", the sensitivity of the "liquid chromatographic serial mass spectrometer" set up in many laboratories can be increased by about a thousand times, reaching the level of one part per billion (1ppb). As a result, many foods that we used to have no problem with have been tested for other environmental hazards.

"A concentration of parts per billion should be considered very low. If the two painkillers were placed in a heated swimming pool at National Taiwan University (25 meters long, 17.5 meters wide and 1.3 meters deep), the dissolved concentration would be about 1 PPB. Part per billion is a very low concentration, but it's not zero concentration.

If future scientific testing capacity were to increase 1,000 times to parts per trillion (1 ppt), that would be closer to zero. By that time, more than 90% of the food may be found to contain trace amounts of harmful substances, radiation detectors for sale and everyone will be used to it by then.

It's almost impossible to get to zero, because the number of molecules in a mole is 6 times 10 minus 23. Taking 100 grams of a harmful substance as an example, it may take 10-21(it is now 10-9). Moreover, there are random errors in the test, and an infinite number of measurements are needed to obtain the true concentration.

He compared it to a group of people in the distance who could not be seen by the naked eye. They could see people with regular binoculars, and then with higher magnification binoculars, they could see six people. The same is true for food inspection.

As for "not detected", there is no such word abroad; It is also inappropriate that "not detected" equals "not seen". A standard value should be set, below this value is qualified, higher than this value is unqualified, so that it can be accurately distinguished.

Food inspection technology continues to improve, the future of instrument detection sensitivity will be higher and higher, then there will be more food is tested to contain extremely small amounts of harmful substances, but no matter how small, after all, it is a very need to close to zero value, not zero.