Potassium ferrocyanide is a legitimate food additive as salt anti-caking agent. Potassium ferrocyanide will not cause harm to human body. It has stable chemical properties and does not release toxic cyanide during cooking.
Recently, an article entitled“Potassium Ferrocyanide in Salt”was circulated on the Internet. It was said that an old professor had suffered serious kidney damage after he had eaten the salt with potassium ferrocyanide as an anti-caking agent. The rumor that "potassium ferrocyanide added to salt is harmful to human body" has been an old topic of hype for many times. Previous articles also said that "when cooking food, eating salt at high temperature may decompose potassium ferrocyanide into potassium cyanide, a highly toxic substance, which can make people lose their will in 10 seconds and poison them to death in a few minutes."
So what is potassium ferrocyanide? Is potassium ferrocyanide added to salt? Is potassium ferrocyanide toxic?
Potassium ferrocyanide, nickname is Potassium hexacyanoferrate(II) trihydrate, Potassium hexacyanoferrate(II), is a light yellow monoclinic crystal or powder. There are five kinds of food additives allowed to be added in salt as anti-crystallizer in China, namely potassium ferrocyanide, sodium ferrocyanide, ammonium ferric citrate, silicon dioxide and calcium silicate. Potassium ferrocyanide is added to salt as an anti-caking agent to prevent caking of salt.
Is potassium ferrocyanide toxic? Zhong Kai, deputy director of Kexin Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center, said that potassium ferrocyanide, as a salt anti-caking agent, is a legitimate food additive. Potassium ferrocyanide will not cause harm to human body.
Before approving the use of each additive in our country, we have to go through a lot of scientific research and data support, including acute toxicity, chronic toxicity, whether there are teratogenic, carcinogenic and other toxicity tests, no problem will be approved for use.
According to the assessment data of WHO and FAO Committee of Experts, adults consume at least 1.5 mg of potassium ferrocyanide every day to damage their health. According to the national standard of our country, the content of potassium ferrocyanide in salt should not exceed 10 mg per kilogram. According to this standard, it is estimated that the intake of potassium ferrocyanide will exceed 1.5 mg only if 150 g of salt is eaten every day. Normal people eat 20 grams of salt a day is very salty, so normal eating salt, will not cause harm to the human body.
Is it possible for edible salt to decompose potassium ferrocyanide into potassium cyanide at high temperature? Zhong Kai said that potassium cyanide is indeed a highly toxic substance, but it is completely different from potassium ferrocyanide in salt. The chemical properties of potassium ferrocyanide are very stable. To decompose potassium ferrocyanide, it needs to be completed at 400 degrees Celsius. "We usually cook at home, and when the temperature reaches 200 degrees Celsius, the dishes are burnt. So you don't have to worry about the safety of daily salt.
