Abstract: Food safety and quality are one of the most important threats to public health at present.
While seeing the problems of food safety and quality in the world, we should be soberly aware of some drawbacks and problems existing in the legal system of food safety and quality regulations and standards in China. Building a relatively independent legal system is the development trend to ensure food safety and quality. Constructing the legal system of food safety and quality is the need to ensure China's food safety and improve people's quality of life, and it is also the need to implement environmental strategy in international trade. Studying and learning from the legal system of food safety and quality in developed countries and the experience and lessons of other countries is conducive to the improvement of China's food safety and quality legal system and industrial policy and the integration with the international market.
All countries in the world regard the establishment and improvement of food safety and quality regulations and standards system as a strategic task and basic work.
In recent years, with the rapid development of China's economy and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, food safety and quality have become the focus of people's attention, and have developed into a worldwide problem: mad cow disease, avian influenza, pig encephalitis, dioxins, foot-and-mouth disease, atypical pneumonia, and genetically modified foods that have caused many controversies.
Food safety and quality is one of the most important threats to public health at present. Paying attention to food safety has become an important aspect to measure a country's people's quality of life, social management level and national legal system construction.
1 Analysis of China food safety and quality regulations and standards system
There are some temporary problems in the current situation of food safety and quality regulations and standards in China, which hinder the good food safety and quality guarantee.
The safety situation of agricultural products and poultry products is not satisfactory. Residues of harmful substances such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides in agricultural products; Harmful substances such as antibiotics and hormones remain in poultry, livestock and aquatic products. In some places, drugs such as hormones and pesticides are abused to increase production, but agricultural and livestock products are polluted; The content of heavy metals in agricultural and livestock products exceeds the standard, which seriously threatens human health.
In the process of making food, inferior raw materials and toxic substances are used from time to time. The use of inferior raw materials in processed food brings great hidden dangers to food safety; Excessive use of food additives. The relevant departments of the state have made clear the varieties of additives available for food processing and their dosage and residue limits in products, and excessive use may cause harm to human body; Abuse of non-food processing chemical additives in the process of food processing and manufacturing, illegal use and addition of chemical substances beyond the permitted application scope of food regulations.
Improper control of pathogenic microorganisms. Improper handling in food processing, manufacturing, packaging, storage and transportation will lead to the proliferation of microorganisms. Most collective food poisoning in China is caused by microorganisms. Pathogenic microorganisms that are easy to cause food poisoning mainly include pathogenic Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella and so on. Food poisoning caused by pathogenic microorganisms can occur at any time, especially in summer and autumn when the temperature is high.
The emergence of biotechnology products and the potential dangers of genetically modified foods have also brought security problems. Although there is not enough evidence that genetically modified food is harmful to human beings, people have paid great attention to the safety of genetically modified food. At present, people are worried about the harm of genetically modified food to human health, whether genetically modified products are non-toxic and have no side effects, and whether genetically modified products are "substantially equivalent" to non-genetically modified products.
At present, the legal status of food safety and quality standards in China is mainly based on Food Hygiene Law, and several separate legal standards for food safety and quality, such as Hygienic Standards for the Use of Food Additives, General Hygienic Standards for Food Enterprises, Hygienic Standards for the Use of Food Nutrition Fortifiers, Food Hygiene Supervision Procedures and Food Hygiene Administrative Punishment Law, are specific implementation standards. In addition, the relevant provisions in Consumer Protection Law, Infectious Disease Prevention Law and People's Republic of China (PRC) Criminal Law have become the legal and standard system of food safety and quality in China. The above aspects are the basic framework of China's food safety and quality regulations and standard legal system.
Food Hygiene Law should be the most comprehensive law on food hygiene, safety and product quality in China at present. However, there are still many problems in the current food hygiene law. Compared with the International Codex Alimentarius, the Food Hygiene Law has great deficiencies in the types of pesticides and the number of allowable residues of food varieties such as grain, fruits, vegetables and meat. In this way, in the process of law enforcement, some harmful substances will go unpunished, leaving room for the perpetrators and allowing some fake and shoddy food producers and operators to escape legal sanctions. It should be said that this is a major flaw in the laws regulating the food market. China's Food Hygiene Law has been implemented for many years, and it needs to be improved and strengthened according to the new development, new problems and international practices, so as to effectively guarantee the safety and quality of food in the production and circulation process.
2, China's food safety and quality regulations and standardization work needs to be strengthened.
To regulate and standardize food safety and quality is to build a reasonable and efficient legal system of food safety and quality. First of all, the standard system of food safety and quality regulations should be multi-level and classified, including a comprehensive system of legislation, law enforcement, legal supervision, administrative punishment and punishment. Secondly, the function of law and quality system should be realized through the structure of law and standard system, which itself embodies the function of law and quality system. Therefore, to build a legal quality system, we must first give the system a scientific and reasonable structure. As far as the current situation of food safety and quality regulations and standards system is concerned, there is still a big gap between China's food safety and quality regulations and standardized management and the international level, and the framework of China's food law and quality system still needs to be further scientific and reasonable.
The definition of China food safety and quality system regulations and standards is a problem. "Unclear role" in food safety and quality system. Functional departments should not only formulate and interpret regulations and standards, but also exercise law enforcement power, which will inevitably lead to problems and make it difficult to truly implement food safety. "Unclear authority" in food safety and quality management. The definition of some functions and powers of "Ministry, General Administration and Bureau" is not clear. Foods with different safety and quality grades are "unclear", such as health food, natural food, organic food, ecological food, pollution-free food, pollution-free agricultural products and green food (grade A and AA). There are many nouns and overlapping contents, which increases the difficulty for consumers to identify the food safety quality grade and the opacity of the market.
There are limitations in the food safety category in China. In China, food safety and quality management are often replaced by food hygiene management, and insufficient attention is paid to "the influence of safe operation and production on food safety and suitability in the process of food primary production". The food safety management of enterprises in China has always followed the Good Practice (GMP) management system, that is, the government has formulated mandatory food production and storage hygiene regulations to ensure food hygiene and harmlessness. However, there is still a big gap between them and the HACCP system recommended by FAO/ WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission, that is, the system to ensure food safety by systematically determining specific hazards and their control measures.
China's food safety and quality laws are not systematic. Because China's food safety and quality management is not based on the whole food industry chain, the breadth of food safety and quality legal system is not enough; The formulation of specific standards and regulations is not coordinated and systematic enough.
(1) The safety situation of agricultural products and poultry products is worrying, and harmful substances such as fertilizers and pesticides remain in agricultural products; Harmful substances such as antibiotics and hormones remain in poultry, livestock and aquatic products. In some places, hormone pesticides are abused in planting to ensure a bumper harvest, and hormones and other drugs are used indiscriminately in breeding to increase production, but agricultural products and livestock and poultry products are polluted; Heavy metal pollution, that is, agricultural products and livestock and poultry products contain excessive heavy metal substances that seriously endanger human health.
(two) the use of inferior raw materials in the process of making food.
The use of inferior raw materials in processed food brings great hidden dangers to food safety. Such as: processing cooked meat products with dead livestock and poultry; Processing fried food with "waste oil"
Excessive use of food additives. The relevant state departments have determined the varieties, dosage and residue limits of additives that can be used in food processing. Excessive use may cause harm to human body. After testing by the quality and technical supervision department, the whitening agent "benzoyl peroxide" was excessively added to the flour; Benzoic acid is used many times in kimchi; The amount of chemically synthesized sweeteners used in beverages is several times that of the standard.
Abuse of chemical additives for non-food processing. In the process of food processing and manufacturing, illegal use and addition of chemicals beyond the scope permitted by food laws and regulations. For example, sulfur dioxide is used to whiten steamed bread and steamed buns; Mineral oil used for bright rice and biscuits; Soaking seafood with formaldehyde toughens, brightens, prolongs the shelf life and so on.
(3) Improper control of pathogenic microorganisms
The raw materials and processing degree of food determine that it has certain microbial growth conditions. A little carelessness in the process of food processing, manufacturing, packaging, storage and transportation will lead to a large number of microorganisms. For example, some dairy products have poor production, processing and packaging conditions, which often cause food deterioration; For another example, a large part of collective food poisoning in China is caused by microorganisms. In China, pathogenic microorganisms that are easy to cause food poisoning mainly include pathogenic Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella and so on. Food poisoning caused by pathogenic microorganisms occurs every year, especially in summer and autumn when the temperature is high.
(4) Genetically modified food and its safety.
The emergence of biotechnology products and the potential dangers of genetically modified foods have also brought security problems. Now genetically modified foods have been put on people's dining tables, such as tomatoes, sweet peppers, bean powder, soybean oil and other foods that people eat in large quantities, some of which are produced using genetically modified food raw materials. Although there is not enough evidence to prove that genetically modified food is harmful to human beings, people have paid great attention to the safety of genetically modified food. At present, people are worried about the harm of genetically modified food to human health, whether genetically modified products are non-toxic and have no side effects, and whether genetically modified products and non-genetically modified products are "substantially equivalent" is not significantly different. According to the research on genetically modified organisms at home and abroad, genetically modified foods have the following potential dangers: they may damage the human immune system (marker genes); May produce allergic syndrome; May be toxic to humans; Harmful to the environment and ecosystem; It has unknown harm to human beings and the human body.