The food you eat every day may contain L-cysteine hydrochloride

In the food ingredient list, one can always come across the long name "L-cysteine hydrochloride", and the first reaction is unfamiliar and strange, even thinking it is some obscure harmful additive. In fact, it is hidden in many of the foods we eat in our daily lives. It is not a rare thing. Today, let's explain these common foods in plain language. After reading it, you can recognize it at a glance when you go to the supermarket and look at the ingredient list next time.

The first and most common type is various industrially produced fermented noodle products. Whether it's sliced toast and whole wheat bread sold in bags on supermarket shelves, soft European buns and croissants baked in chain bakeries on the same day, or even frozen steamed buns and frozen Mantou steamed in batches by breakfast stores, as long as the products are kneaded and produced in large quantities by factories, almost all of them will add a little L-cysteine hydrochloride to the flour. We manually knead the dough at home, and it may take more than ten minutes to knead the gluten. The factory produces tens of thousands of pieces of dough a day, and relying solely on machines for hard kneading not only consumes electricity, but also easily results in some dough being too hard and some being too soft. After adding it, it can moderately break the strong gluten structure, reduce the elasticity of the dough, shorten the kneading time by half, evenly distribute the pores inside the baked bread, make it soft and non sticky to bite, and keep it for two or three days without getting hard and falling off. It is basically involved in the industrial bread we usually eat, which has a stable taste and does not waste teeth.

The second category includes various bottled and boxed transparent fruit juices and light colored plant-based beverages. Freshly squeezed apple juice and pear juice will slowly oxidize and turn yellow brown on the surface after being stored for more than ten minutes, making it look like they have been spoiled and not fresh. Consumers who see this discolored beverage are unlikely to buy it. During production, manufacturers only need to add a few thousandths of L-cysteine hydrochloride to completely suppress this oxidation discoloration process, allowing the beverage to maintain a clear light white color throughout its shelf life without appearing dull or yellowish. More importantly, it does not destroy the vitamin C in the juice like some strong color protectants, nor does it add strange flavors to the drink. Its name can be found on the ingredient list of many white peach juice, pear juice, and coconut juice stored at room temperature.

The third category is flavored products with dark brown color and carbonated drinks. The dark colors in the braised soy sauce and aged vinegar we usually use for cooking, as well as the cola and dark beer we drink, are mostly derived from caramel coloring. In the high-temperature reaction process of producing caramel color, adding a small amount of L-cysteine hydrochloride can make the color of the color more uniform, avoiding the problem of some batches having dark colors and some batches having light colors. It can also reduce pigment precipitation and prevent soy sauce from forming a layer of black residue at the bottom of the bottle even after being stored for six months. Many people think that these dark foods only contain caramel, but in fact, L-cysteine hydrochloride is an essential auxiliary ingredient in the production process.

In addition, its presence can be seen in many other places. For example, in sports protein powder and energy drinks that focus on supplementing amino acids, it will be included as part of the nutritional strengthening ingredients to help the body replenish the necessary cysteine; Adding a little bit of it to various canned fruits can remove the slight metallic taste that precipitates from the can, making the flesh taste fresher and sweeter; Even in some semi-finished pre made vegetables, it is used to protect the color and prevent the vegetables from turning black quickly after blanching.

There is no need to be nervous at the sight of this long name. It is extracted from natural amino acids, and the country has strict regulations on its scope of use and maximum dosage. Foods produced by legitimate manufacturers are controlled within safe limits, and we can eat these foods normally in our daily lives without any additional burden on our bodies.