Carcinogens have been detected in well-known ice cream

Top News Dahe Health News reporter Yang Lu

Recently, the Food Safety Centre of the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department issued a communiqué saying that the public is advised not to eat 6 types of "GODIVIA" (Godiva) ice cream imported from France because the stabilizer used in the relevant products was found to contain ethylene oxide, a pesticide banned by the Eu. Why is ethylene oxide detected in food? What harm does it do to the human body?

Ethylene oxide has been detected in a number of well-known foods

Information on the 6 products involved released by the Hong Kong Food Safety Centre. Photo/communiqué screenshot

Commenting on the contents of the communiqué, a spokesman for the Centre for Food Safety of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department of Hong Kong said: "The CFS has received a notification from the European Commission's Food and Feed Rapid Warning System that the stabilizers used in the above products have been found to contain ethylene oxide, a pesticide banned by the EU. According to the early warning system, the affected products were imported into Hong Kong. Upon learning of the incident, the CFS immediately contacted the relevant importers in the local area to follow up, and the preliminary investigation found that the importers had imported the affected batches of the relevant products. ”

As ethylene oxide has been banned in the European Union, for the sake of prudence, the importer of this ice cream has removed the affected batch from shelves and suspended the sale of the affected batch as instructed by the Food Safety Centre of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department of Hong Kong and started to recycle it.

The spokesman also urged members of the public to stop eating the affected batch of products if they purchase them. If the trade holds the relevant product, it should also stop using or selling it immediately.

In fact, it is not the first time that ethylene oxide has been detected in food. In August this year, the metabolite of ethylene oxide, 2-chloroethanol, was detected in a well-known instant noodle in South Korea. In July, according to Spanish media sources, at least 46 types of ice cream under brands such as Nestlé, produced by Froneri, were recalled for containing ethylene oxide, which can cause cancer.

Long-term exposure to ethylene oxide can cause acute poisoning

Ethylene oxide is widely used for sterilization, and the sterilization of medical devices is widely used by ethylene oxide fumigation, but it is not suitable for food sterilization because there are usually residues in the sterilized product. On October 27, 2017, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer published a preliminary list of carcinogens, and ethylene oxide is in the list of carcinogens.

Wang Wen, a nutritionist in the Nutrition Department of Henan Provincial People's Hospital, said that long-term exposure to ethylene oxide will cause acute poisoning, mild symptoms are manifested as headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, etc., more serious cases are manifested as hand and foot weakness and muscle tremors throughout the body, and severe cases will have symptoms of coma.

Why is ethylene oxide detected in food? Raw material contamination is one of the main causes of excessive ethylene oxide in foods. Food packaging materials are another important source of contamination. Packaging materials such as stripping bags, Tyvek, polyethylene-polyester film, paper/polyethylene-polyester film, paper/polypropylene-polyester film, and polyethylene plastic bags are sterilized using ethylene oxide, and if food comes into contact with such substandard packaging materials, it may be contaminated.

To this end, China has specially formulated the "GB31604.27-2016 Food Safety National Standard for the Determination of Ethylene Oxide and Propylene Oxide in Plastics" to regulate the content of ethylene oxide in packaging materials, as long as the packaging materials meet the standard, there is no need to worry about food being contaminated with ethylene oxide.