Ahead of the Dragon Boat Festival, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is urging the public to shun sticky rice dumplings containing picked vegetables, seafood and soybeans after a high percentage of them were found to be substandard in the agency’s tests.
As of Tuesday, the FDA and local government health authorities had tested 628 festival foods and ingredients for preservatives, bleaching agents and other banned substances, in addition to examining whether they conformed to food hygiene standards. Of those 56, or 8.9 percent, failed the tests, mainly due to the excessive presence of sulfur dioxide, benzoic acid, formaldehyde and borax.
They included dried sea shrimps sold at a store on the outlying island county of Penghu, which contained formaldehyde at a level of 196.1 parts per million (ppm) and 0.904g/kg of sulfur dioxide, much higher than the maximum permissible level of 0.1g/kg, the agency said.
Three dumplings purchased from traditional markets in New Taipei City also tested positive for borax, a prohibited substance in foods as it causes abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal distension.
Dried bamboo shoots sold by a company in Nantou County were discovered to have residues of sulfur dioxide at a level of 0.737g/kg, nearly 25 times the maximum allowable amount of 0.03g/kg.
All the tainted products have been pulled from the shelves and recalled.
The FDA said the manufacturers are to be subjected to a fine ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$200 million (US$965.81 to US$6.44 million) depending on the nature and severity of the violation.
Food and Drug Administration Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said the agency tested just 262 festival products last year, of which 23 failed, a substandard rate of 8.8 percent.
“In this year’s tests, pickled vegetables had the highest substandard rate of 16.17 percent, followed by seafood with 14.2 percent and soybean products with 10.53 percent,” Chiang said, urging people not to purchase rice dumplings of unknown origin or from unsanitary stores.
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