Have all traditional foods been evaluated for safety?

A: Most of the foods we eat every day are natural foods and their simple processed products, such as grains, vegetables, fruits, livestock products and their primary processed products. These foods are considered to be safe through human long-term practical experience, and no special food safety evaluation has been carried out. However, these traditional foods are not absolutely safe. For example, eggs and milk, which are very nutritious for most people, are the culprit of allergies for a few allergic people. As a staple food, cereals often contain many natural toxins and anti-nutritional factors that affect digestion and absorption, such as phytic acid and trypsin inhibitor, which can only be reduced or eliminated through specific processing. Vegetables and fruits also contain many ingredients known to have adverse effects on health, such as solanine in germinated potatoes. Therefore, the safety of natural food is relative. The potential hazards and risks of these foods are determined by the accumulated experience in the long-term consumption process. With the development of science and technology, many new foods have appeared, such as irradiated foods and functional foods, as well as various chemical food additives, enzyme preparations and other food ingredients. These foods and food raw materials must pass special food safety assessment before they can be eaten by consumers. Through long-term experiments, people have established a relatively perfect animal-based food safety evaluation method for these new foods and food additives. The safety evaluation of genetically modified food is established on the basis of previous food safety evaluation combined with the characteristics of genetically modified food, and it is constantly supplemented and improved with the progress of science and technology. Its strict safety assessment process helps to minimize possible risks.