When does food fear end and common sense begin?
The suspect ‘beverage’ itself isn’t a bad carbohydrate boost after my weekly run that leaves me puffing like a steam train, although in recent days I have wondered whether I am simply imagining a curious aftertaste …
Heinz recently revealed that it was expanding its infant formula site in Kendal to service the Chinese market, with confidence amongst native consumers there badly shaken when four babies died after consuming melamine-laced milk and 56,000 children fell ill in 2008.
Pine nut mouth
A recent UK-based food safety incident relates to ‘pine nut mouth’ (which Sainsbury’s recently blamed on Chinese suppliers mixing pine nuts with another nut variety, Pinus arnandii, which the EU states is unfit for human consumption) after consumers reported a foul, metallic aftertaste that lasts for weeks.
A third Chinese-related case last September saw a firm there lie about high carcinogen levels in cooking oil, before native media pressure forced it to admit that it "did not inform the public about the sub-standard products in time and did not inform people thoroughly about the recall process".
Such a rash of incidents stemming from one country suggests a culture where suppliers are not paid enough or regulated sufficiently, and as Tony Hines from Leatherhead Food Research said apropos the global food chain last week: “Someone, somewhere is always looking for the next opportunity to add value to food illegally. In my opinion, it is this type of incident where we are most at risk.”
From illegal drugs cut with baking soda, to cut-and-shut cars, such ‘product’ doctoring is nothing new or exclusive to food, although Chinese scare stories inevitably make people more suspicious about what they eat.
Halcyon days
But let’s imbibe a healthy dose of realism with that Jamie Oliver pine nut salad …
Some people hark back to the supposed halcyon days of food production, but the reason why Sir John Franklin’s handsomely equipped expedition came to grief in its 1840s search for the Northwest passage was poisoning from tin cans soldered with lead, while Victorian bakers coloured bread white by added chalk and alum. Spam sandwich anyone?
With abundant choice in the nation’s stores and a well-policed UK food chain, life is more appetising nowadays. That said, there should always be scope to live a little and take risks.
To quote Nietzsche, “What does not kill me, makes me stronger”, which is why there is obvious scope for a sensible approach to eating food just past its ‘best before’ date, or trimming that bit of mould off the cheddar before the in-laws rock up on a Sunday.
Moreover, despite lengthening supply chains that are hard to police, fears of Bisphenol A or mineral oil contamination in food packaging, worries about potential dangers from misapplied nanotechnology, or cloned beef, the UK food chain is one of the safest.
Naming and shaming
Food factory mds know that environmental health officers can drop in at any time, that the media can name and shame them if they endanger public safety through avarice or laziness, while tough government safety guidelines cover food production from field to fork.
But one disquieting thought is that, in the pursuit of profit, unscrupulous suppliers the world over – the Food Standards Agency last week issued a health alert on counterfeit Spar Imperial Vodka – will still succeed in ‘adding value’ to food by removing it and endangering public health.
All of which, a week after the British Retail Consortium began a consultation on its new Global Standard for Food Safety, makes endless customer audits for food firms suddenly seem worthwhile, despite the fact that retailers increasingly use them to gain purchase in price negotiations with suppliers.
In sum though, to quote French writer Maurice Blanchot: “The instant of decision is madness.” However thoroughly you can prepare for any event in advance – take the after-effects of that next cup of Hawthorn ‘tea’ – you never know quite how it will turn out.
By extension, life without (food) risk wouldn’t be something we would enjoy, since we would never appreciate the surprise (positive) tastes it throws up, putting the negatives firmly to one side.
Ben Bouckley is deputy online editor of FoodManufacture.co.uk
