Soy sauce safety improves
in the UK appears to have improved. The UK Food Standards Agency
(FSA) recently carried out a survey and found fewer samples
containing unacceptable levels of the chemical 3-MCPD compared with
a retail survey published by the FSA last year.
One year on and the quality of soy sauce used in catering outlets in the UK appears to have improved. The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) recently carried out a survey and found fewer samples containing unacceptable levels of the chemical 3-MCPD compared with a retail survey published by the FSA last year.
Only 2 per cent of samples surveyed - 6 out of 273 - contained levels of 3-MCPD above the recently introduced European legal limit. This compares with 22 per cent of soy sauces - 22 out of 100 - sold directly to the public, which were tested by the Agency last year.
Three-MCPD is a chemical contaminant found at low levels in a variety of foods as a result of processing. It appears to cause cancer in laboratory animals when fed to them at high levels over their lifetime. The FSA reports that 3-MCPD could cause harm to people who consume products containing high levels of it in most of their meals over a long period of time.
Steven Wearne, head of chemical contaminants at the Food Standards Agency, said the Agency was pleased to see that the 3-MCPD levels were generally much lower than in last year's survey. "This is positive news, but there is still a very small number of unacceptable findings. The Agency is taking immediate action to ensure that the contaminated products are removed from use."
"There is no need for people to be wary of Chinese food or Chinese restaurants and takeaways as a result of these findings. Not only is the number of unacceptable samples very low, but you would need to be regularly eating soy sauce with very high levels of 3-MCPD over a long period of time for it to have an adverse affect on your health," he added.
Of the six unacceptable samples of soy sauce from catering outlets, three had levels of 3-MCPD only slightly over the legal limit, but the other three had levels over 1000 times greater than the limit. Further assistance in identifying the products can be obtained both on the FSA website and on the LACORS website where label photographs are available.
