King's College London, Department of Nutritional Sciences, Franklin Wilkins Building, London, SE1 9NH, UK.
Public Health Nutr. 2023 Nov;26(11):2256-2270. doi: 10.1017/S1368980023002021. Epub 2023 Sep 21.
Ultra-processed foods (UPF), including those containing food additive emulsifiers, have received research attention due to evidence implicating them in the pathogenesis of certain diseases. The aims of this research were to develop a large-scale, brand-level database of UPF in the UK food supply and to characterise the occurrence and co-occurrence of food additive emulsifiers.
A database was compiled sampling all products from the food categories contributing to energy intake from UPF in the UK from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (2008-2014). Every food in these categories were identified from online supermarket provision from the 'big four' supermarkets that dominate the market share in the UK, comprising Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons.
Major supermarkets in the UK.
A total of 32 719 food products in the UK supermarket food supply were returned in searches. Of these, 12 844 products were eligible and manually reviewed for the presence of emulsifiers. Emulsifiers were present in 6642 (51·7 %) food products. Emulsifiers were contained in 95·0 % of 'Pastries, buns and cakes', 81·9 % of 'Milk-based drinks', 81·0 % of 'Industrial desserts' and 77·5 % of 'Confectionary'. Fifty-one per cent of all emulsifier-containing foods contained multiple emulsifiers. Across emulsifier-containing foods, there were a median of two emulsifiers (IQR 2) per product. The five most common emulsifiers were lecithin (23·4 % of all products), mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids (14·5 %), diphosphates (11·6 %), and xanthan gum and pectin (8·0 %).
Findings from this study are the first to demonstrate the widespread occurrence and co-occurrence of emulsifiers in UPF in the UK food supply.
超加工食品（UPF），包括含有食品添加剂乳化剂的食品，由于有证据表明它们与某些疾病的发病机制有关，因此受到了研究关注。本研究的目的是开发一个英国食品供应中超加工食品的大规模、品牌级别的数据库，并描述食品添加剂乳化剂的出现和共同出现情况。
从英国国家饮食与营养调查（2008-2014 年）中 UPF 能量摄入的所有食品类别中抽取样本，编制了一个数据库。从英国市场份额最大的四大超市（Tesco、Sainsbury's、Asda 和 Morrisons）的在线超市供应中确定了这些类别中的每一种食品。
英国的主要超市。
在英国超市食品供应中搜索到 32719 种食品。其中，有 12844 种产品符合条件，并进行了人工审查以确定是否含有乳化剂。乳化剂存在于 6642 种（51.7%）食品中。乳化剂存在于“糕点、面包和蛋糕”（95.0%）、“乳基饮料”（81.9%）、“工业甜点”（81.0%）和“糖果”（77.5%）中。51%的含乳化剂食品含有多种乳化剂。在含乳化剂的食品中，每种产品的乳化剂中位数为 2 种（IQR 2）。最常见的五种乳化剂是卵磷脂（占所有产品的 23.4%）、脂肪酸的单和二甘油酯（14.5%）、磷酸二氢盐（11.6%）、黄原胶和果胶（8.0%）。
本研究的结果首次证明了乳化剂在英国食品供应中超加工食品中的广泛存在和共同出现。
