The public should not consume butterfly pea flowers until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed a safety assessment, the Taipei Department of Health warned on Friday.
People in parts of Southeast Asia like to consume the luminous, indigo-colored flowers as an infusion or a cooking ingredient because of the health properties they believe the flowers contain.
The trend is catching on in Taiwan, the department said.
Photo: Lin Yu-tze, Taipei Times
However, according to the FDA, butterfly pea flowers are only approved as a coloring agent, and should not be added to food or beverages, the city’s Food and Drug Division director Wang Ming-li (王明理) said.
The butterfly pea flower contains flavonoids known to cause uterine contractions, so pregnant women should avoid consuming it, he added.
Despite the increasing popularity of the plant, the public should avoid consuming food or beverages in which it is used as more than just a coloring agent until the FDA finishes its assessment, Wang said.
Four beverage stores in Taipei use the flower as a coloring agent, Wang said, but no company has applied for FDA approval to use the plant as a food or beverage ingredient.
Anyone caught selling the plant as a food or beverage could be fined NT$60,000 to NT$200 million (US$1,938 to US$6,46 million) under the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), Wang said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
RSS