The Ministry of Health and Welfare should take consumer habits into account when relaxing the legal standard on the amount of sulfur dioxide allowed in food products, due to the potential health hazards associated with bleaching agents that produce the chemical compound as a by-product, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus said yesterday.
The ministry has drafted an amendment to food additive standards that would include sulfur dioxide on a list of allowed additives.
The amendment would also raise the legal limit of the acidic gas in a range of food products — such as pickles — as a by-product of bleaching agents used in processing the food.
The ministry has 60 days to gather public opinion on the draft amendment after it last week uploaded the proposal online for public viewing.
Speaking at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, KMT caucus secretary-general Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) highlighted other foods that could be affected by the proposed rule change, including orange day-lilies, raisins, dried shrimp konjac and potato starch.
She criticized the ministry’s comments at a hearing last week that relaxing the rule would only bring Taiwan in line with other nations in terms of limiting sulfur dioxide in food, saying that eating habits in Taiwan are different from those in other nations.
KMT caucus deputy secretary-general Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) echoed Lee’s comments, calling the draft amendment “absurd.”
The caucus asked whether the ministry proposed the amendment due to pressure from food sellers.
Sulfur dioxide is permitted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission and several nations as a food additive, Food and Drug Administration Food Safety Division Director Pan Chih-kuan (潘志寬) said, adding that it has been used as the basis for determining the legal standard for other food additives, such as sodium sulfite.
Selling food containing sulfur dioxide is not against the law, as long as the amount in a given type of food does not exceed the safety standard to which it must conform, Pan said.
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