 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Beijing (AFP) March 19, 2010 China's food safety watchdog has ordered inspections of cooking oil nationwide as reports Friday said up to one-tenth of Chinese supplies were illegally made and contained cancer-causing agents. The State Food and Drug Administration on Thursday ordered stepped-up inspections of all food service providers and vowed to punish manufacturers producing "drainage oil", cooking oil refined from discarded kitchen waste. "If food service providers are found to be using cooking oil from an unclear source, or if they have bought 'drainage oil', their operations will be immediately halted and they will be dealt with in accordance with the law," said the order posted on the administration's website. The China Daily said as much as one-tenth of cooking oil used in China could be made from recycled kitchen or restaurant waste oil, which contains a highly toxic, carcinogenic substance called "aflatoxin." "People in China consume about two to three million tons of illegal cooking oil every year," the China Youth Daily cited He Dongping, a food science expert at the Wuhan Polytechnic University, as saying. China annually consumes about 22.5 million tons of cooking oil, he added. According to He, the illegal cooking oil business is extremely profitable because the cost of buying food waste and refining it is low, while edible oil prices were rising. China's food industry is notoriously prone to food safety scares. On Friday, the administration issued a 2010 plan to ensure food safety, calling on all levels of government to step up inspections at every link in the food production chain, including the edible oil and dairy industries. China has launched high-profile crackdowns in the past, but product-quality scandals continue to emerge. In 2008, the nation's dairy sector was rocked by a tainted milk scandal that the government said resulted in the deaths of six babies and sickened 300,000 others. Reports have said recently that some of the tainted dairy products, which were contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, had re-emerged on the market. The government has said the problem has been contained. In 2007, the former head of the nation's food and drug administration Zheng Xiaoyu was executed after being convicted of taking bribes to approve untested medicines.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Farming Today - Suppliers and Technology
China agrees to resume US pork importsWashington (AFP) March 18, 2010 The United States and China agreed Thursday to reopen the Chinese market to American pork after imports were halted last year during a swine flu scare, US officials said. US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made the announcement a day after indicating Russia would also reopen its market. "This agreement is a win for America's pork producers, whose safe ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook