Are ‘surfactants‘ harmful?
Food detergent, also known as dishwashing detergent, has become one of the most commonly used household products in people’s daily lives, but there are always rumors that “detergent residue is toxic, and the culprit is the ‘surfactant’ contained in the detergent”. Before we can figure this out, we need to understand one thing first:
What are surfactants?
Surfactant is a general term for a large group of chemicals with hydrophilic and lipophilic groups in their structure that allow water and oil to mix together. Simply put, water and oil are incompatible because their chemical structures repel each other, just like two enemy soldiers who meet and fight each other. Surfactants, on the other hand, have a hydrophilic chemical organization and a lipophilic chemical structure, respectively, which allows water and oil to mix and come together for life.
Are surfactants common?
Surfactants are very common. There are tens of thousands of natural and synthetic substances that can be used as “surfactants”. For example, in the past, people used to wash their clothes in water made from the fruit of the soap pod tree (also known as the saponaria tree), which utilized the surfactant saponin contained therein. There are also handmade soaps that have become popular over the years, which saponify fats and oils to form stearates, which are also surfactants.
Are there surfactants that can be eaten?
There are many more to eat, such as soy milk and milk, and it is because of substances such as phospholipids as surfactants that many of these nutrients can be stabilized without precipitation. There are also many foods that require additional surfactants, such as cakes, where some additional surfactants are added during the production process in order to allow substances such as shortening to be evenly dispersed into the cake. Even our human body is able to metabolize properly without the help of surfactants. The body’s bile then emulsifies the fat into smaller fat particles that are absorbed through the small intestine.
What is the surfactant principle?
So, surfactants are not an unmitigated evil, they are in nature, in our food and in our bodies. In household detergents, surfactant is the most abundant ingredient besides water, usually more than 15%, and it is also the ingredient that performs the function of removing oil. Because it is both hydrophilic and lipophilic, it “pulls” grease off the dishes and allows the stains to dissolve into the water in the form of particles.
What are the regulations on surfactants?
According to GB14930.1-2015 “National Safety Standard for Detergents”, surfactants in food detergents are non-toxic or low-toxic substances, and even a few sips of them will not pose a serious danger, not to mention the little residue.
This is not something we say casually, most of the surfactants used in detergents, LD50 (half lethal dose) are in the order of 1g/kg, that is, for a 60kg adult, almost have to drink a whole bottle of detergent, will be life-threatening. Of course, this is not to say that the accidental ingestion of nothing, medical treatment is indispensable, but there is still a long way to go before “death by poisoning”.
