It’s disappointing that we live in a time where we still have to be vigilant of what we put into our mouths.  More than ever, this is not the time to put your guard down.  Seriously, becareful of what you eat, it might just kill you, give you explosive diarrhea, or vomit until you dry heave.  Food recall news no longer come as a surprise and our faith in food safety regulation is waning, so will we ever regain our confidence in the food safety regulation industry?
 
The melamine contamination in China-based infant milk powders has spread to other milk-based products and has even been found in chicken eggs from China.  Surely, this seems odd, after all, it seems unlikely that anyone would put such a chemical in the eggs.  The eggs were discovered in Hong Kong and they contained almost twice the legal amount of 2.5 parts per million of melamine allowed in food.  The culprit seems to be the melamine levels in the chicken feed.  Since it is evident that the melamine can pass from the feed, to the chicken, and to the egg, Hong Kong has expanded their testing of melamine to meat products imported from China.  I’ve already booked my ticket to go to Hong Kong next year, and while the country is heralded to be home of some of the tastiest cuisine, I can’t help but think of all the recent food scandals.
 
There was another food recall that happened last week that didn’t garner as much exposure and this time, it was in Japan.  The Nissin Food Products Company has recalled 500,000 cups of instant noodles due to an insecticide contamination.  The health office had discovered the chemical paradichlorobenzene in the cup noodle, yet remains dumbfounded on how it got into the food.  From the article, it looks like the recall is localized to Tokyo and it’s neighboring area, so unless you live in that region, your cup noodles are ok.  The contamination was discovered after a 67 year old woman fell ill after eating the product.  In a related incident, Myojo Foods Company of Tokyo also discovered paradichlorobenzene and another bug repellant, naphthol in their instant noodles.

Sources

~ Kin