Tue, Feb 15, 2000 page2

• Dumplings targeted in health inspections

  PUBLIC HEALTH With the next holiday approaching, the city government's health bureau has focused its hygiene inspections on traditional Lantern Festival foods

  • By Chiu Yu-Tzu / STAFF WRITER
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  Following inspections of several Taipei restaurants yesterday, senior officials from the city's Bureau of Health (台北市衛生局) urged consumers to exercise caution when purchasing traditional sweet dumplings (湯圓,元宵) during the upcoming Lantern Festival (元宵節).

  Yesterday's visits were part of a series of random inspections for food contamination, which have been going on since Feb. 10.

  The first significant holiday following the Chinese New Year is the Lantern Festival, which begins on Feb. 19, and celebrates the first full moon of the new year.

  

  Workers at a Taipei restaurant prepare sweet dumplings in preparation for the upcoming Lantern Festival. The Department of Health has launched a series of random inspections to ensure the quality of the food.

  PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES

  On that day -- a traditional day for family reunions -- people usually eat sweet dumplings made of glutinous rice, flour and other foodstuffs such as sesame and taro root.

  Beginning at a branch of the well-known traditional restaurant, King Join (京兆尹), officials from the health bureau continued random examinations of sweet dumpling production at other restaurants and eating establishments yesterday.

  Officials said that they were focusing on the sanitary conditions in kitchens where sweet dumplings were to be made.

  "Workers have to wear proper attire, including aprons, hats and gloves, to prevent contamination," said bureau director Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川).

  Yeh said follow-up laboratory examinations would be performed on samples of randomly selected sweet dumplings in a bid to discover possible contaminants introduced at facilities during their preparation. "We will focus on pigments and preservatives," Yeh said.

  E. Coli (大腸桿菌), a common bac-terial contaminant, has been excluded from the list of potentially harmful organisms to be checked for because sweet dumplings are usually served in soup hot enough to kill them, Yeh said.

  Health officials added that it is important for consumers to check the production and expiration dates on the outside of boxes of sweet dumplings at supermarkets.

  "Buy products with the CAS or GMP certifications and store them in refrigerators before cooking," Yeh said.

  "If you are interested in buying sweet dumplings made by street vendors, take care that those preparing the food use appropriate hygiene measures," Yeh said.

  Health officials said inspection results would be announced at a news conference on Feb. 17.

  During the past two years, officials said, no sweet dumplings had been discovered that were in breach of health regulations.

  In addition to quality concerns, health officials added that consumers need to watch the amount of sweet dumplings they consume.

  "Each sweet dumpling contains at least 30kCal of energy. Generally, people should limit their intake to no more than six sweet dumplings at one sitting," said health official Yen Che-chieh (顏哲傑).

  For further information, the health bureau's Web site can be found at www.health.gov.tw
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