食品添加物の摂取量(mg/日・人)に関する考察 : そのI 炭酸ガス

抄録

CO₂ is a food additive that has been listed in "THE JAPANESE STANDARDS FOR FOOD ADDITIVES" since its first edition. According to the questionnaire research conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare regarding domestic and imported CO₂, a total of 120,000 tons of food grade CO₂ from 25 companies was shipped in Japan during 1993. Based on this figure, I think it is necessary to examine how muchCO₂ is currently used and to calculate the per capita and per diem Japanese intake, as one of the basic food additives. The atmosphere is composed of 0.035% CO₂. Also, various alcohlic beverages such as beer and foamy liqueurs contain CO₂, which is produced during the fermentation and manufacturing process. It is a basic component of food and drink. Therefore, we must inspect the various aspects of CO₂ when we examine its daily intake. In studying the use of additives which are regarded as company confidential know-how, it is a general procedure to conduct a hearing to determine the production statistics of the food in question. From these studies, we obtained the following estimated breakdown of CO₂ that was shipped as food additive: 70,000 to 75,000 tons for airtight rooms and pouches to prevent the oxidation of foods. In the aforementioned types of use, CO₂ dissipates immediately after it serves its purpose and is irrelevant to human intake. Also, the quality of food grade CO₂ is high and it is often used in other fields such as medicine, research, and foam plastics. The total for these uses is estimated to be approximately 10,000 tons. The human intake of CO₂ is mainly attributed to carbonated drinks. According to a industry source, 18,115 tons of CO₂ is used in carbonated drinks and 20% of the gas dissipates when the containers are opened. In order to estimate the accumulated amount of CO₂ in food, we assumed the following figures for the calculation purpose: 1,200 tons for the CO₂ content of beer; 876 tons of CO₂ content of canned "chuhai" (Japanese distilled spirit) and foamy liqueurs; and the 20% CO₂ loss when the containers are opened. Based on the above assumption, we estimated the per capita and per diem intake of CO₂ as food additive in Japan to be 373mg based on Japan's 1993 population. We used only those 20 years of age and older because of prohibition of minors from drinking. As for CO₂ as a food component, beer is the largest contribution. Based on the amount of beer and the shipped CO₂ content, we estimated the per diem and per capita figure of 943mg. The daily consumption of CO₂ is 12,040mg, which is more than ten times larger than the aforementioned intake from foods. This is because we ihnale air that contains 0.035% CO₂. As for the respiratory amount, we assumed the per diem and per capita figure of 17.5m³ as an average of man and woman. From this viewpoint, we found that the per capita and per diem CO₂ intake of a Japanese is 13,356mg in total. However, this figure is extremely small in comparison to approximately 900g of CO₂ that is contained in human expiration. For your reference, 456 tons of sodium dicarbonate, 88.5 tons of magnesium carbonate, and 38.6 tons of calcium carbonate were shipped in 1990 in Japan as medical and pharmaceutical products. They are used as antacid and produce CO₂ in human bodies. The produced amounts of CO₂ are 238, 22.3, and 17 tons respectively with the total of 277 tons. If we assume that about 70% of the prescribed doses are taken, it amounts to 194 tons and we can obtain the per capita and per diem figure of 4.3mg.