A shipment of apple juice from Turkey was recently seized at the border after being found to contain excessive levels of mycotoxins, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Tuesday.
Sample testing carried out on Nov. 30 last year found that the apple juice supplied by Tunay Gida San ve Tic AS contained 62 micrograms per kilogram of patulin, exceeding the legal amount of 50, the FDA said.
It added that the batch, totaling 4kg, is either to be returned to its country of origin or destroyed.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
Patulin comes from molds and can be found in overripe apples, FDA Deputy Director Lin Chin-fu (林金富) said on Tuesday.
The impact of patulin on animals includes fetal malformation and cancer, while its effect on humans is unclear as it is classified as a Category 3 agent by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, meaning its carcinogenicity to humans is unknown.
Yen Tsung-hai (顏宗海), an attending physician at the Department of Nephrology at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Linkou, New Taipei City, said large consumption of palutin in a short time period could cause nausea and vomiting.
Patulin can be found in fruit including apples, cherries, blueberries, strawberries and bananas, with contamination most commonly seen in apples, he added.
He also warned people not to drink apple juice if they see a change in color, the juice smells off, the expiry date has passed or the packaging is damaged.
In addition to Turkish apple juice, another 20 goods made the list of imported items that recently failed safety inspections, issued by the FDA on Tuesday. These included Indonesian coconut sugar and fresh pineapples from the Philippines, and strawberries from Japan and South Korea.
Lin said both the Japanese and South Korean strawberries were found to contain excessive amounts of pesticides.
Since November last year, 21 of 1,145 batches of strawberries imported from Japan have failed border inspections, he said.
Due to Taiwan and Japan having different regulations on pesticides such as flonicamid and acequinocyl, Japanese strawberries often fail inspections, Lin said, adding that all strawberries imported from Japan have been subjected to batch-by-batch inspections from June 1 last year to April 30.
This is the first time in two years South Korean strawberries failed border inspections, Lin said, adding that the number of imports has been relatively small.
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