Taipei City spot inspection: 1 soy milk, 4 frozen tofu, and 1 pork chop bento failed
People who eat out should be on alert! The Taipei City Department of Health conducted spot checks in the second half of this year on three categories -- cooperative stores at agencies and schools, hot pot ingredients, and ready-to-eat cooked foods -- and released the results today (12/16). The soy milk at the Guojun Yingxiong Guan Junyou Restaurant contained a preservative, and the pork chop at Breeze Liu Fu Inn exceeded E. coli limits. In addition, four frozen tofu products contained a preservative.
Starting in October of this year, the Taipei City Department of Health spot-checked cooked foods at 40 schools and 30 agencies, and found that the soy milk at the Guojun Yingxiong Guan Junyou Restaurant contained 0.75 g/kg of the preservative benzoic acid, an ingredient that is not permitted to be added. At present, the Guojun Yingxiong Guan Junyou Restaurant has taken the soy milk off the shelves; the soy milk manufacturer is Taipei City's Jianhua Hang.
In addition, the Taipei City Department of Health spot-checked 50 hot pot ingredient items, four of which failed, all frozen tofu, each testing positive for the preservative benzoic acid, which is not permitted to be added. The four failing frozen tofu products came respectively from Dadizhu Zhongxiao Branch, Huoguo Shijia, Taoyu Xuan and Tanggong Mongolian Barbecue. Three of the frozen tofu products were made by manufacturers in New Taipei City, and the frozen tofu at Dadizhu Zhongxiao Branch contained benzoic acid as high as 1.46 g/kg.
In the ready-to-eat cooked food category, the Taipei City Department of Health sampled braised foods, noodles, sandwiches, rice balls, boxed meals, hamburgers and other foods at convenience stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, food courts and restaurants, testing 50 items in total. Eleven items failed the initial test, and after a deadline for improvement, only the pork chop boxed meal at the Breeze Liu Fu Inn store still failed, with coliform bacteria still exceeding the limit, at more than 1100 MPN/g per gram, above the health standard of a most probable number of coliform bacteria below 1000 per gram.
In this round of spot checks, the Taipei City Department of Health found one soy milk product, four frozen tofu products and one pork chop boxed meal failing, and will impose a fine of 30,000 yuan under the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, and will continue to list them for monitoring and spot checks.
Qiu Xiuyi, director of the Food and Drug Division of the Taipei City Department of Health, explained that eating foods containing the preservative benzoic acid affects the stomach, intestines and liver. She suggested adding water to hot pot ingredients and steaming them without a lid, so that the preservative evaporates with the steam, and when buying soy milk, she suggested buying from reputable manufacturers. As for the coliform bacteria exceeding the limit in the pork chop boxed meal, she said the sanitary conditions during the manufacturing process were poor and the production process should be improved.
