Agency defends formaldehyde-free certificate

The Jakarta Post, Friday, January 13, 2006

The notion of a formaldehyde-free certificate may not have gone down too well with the health ministry, but the Jakarta Drug and Food Agency (BB-POM) says the idea is to provide a legal basis for the agency to prosecute errant producers.

BB-POM chief Atiek Harwati told The Jakarta Post on Thursday the initial idea had been for all food producers to sign a statement that their products were free from harmful substances. The statement would be kept on record at the regional administration and the local drug and food agency.

“That way, if we later tested their products and found traces of harmful substances, we would have a strong reason to revoke their business licenses,” Atiek said.

When the Drug and Food Agency (BPOM) first floated the idea of requiring food producers to apply for formaldehyde-free certificates for their products a few weeks ago, it was was heavily criticized by the health ministry.

Health minister Siti Fadilah Supari questioned the validity of the certification process, saying the certificates could be obtained illegally and would give consumers a false sense of security.

Since the uproar over formaldehyde-laced food, many food producers have approached the BPOM, requesting their products be tested and certified as free from harmful substances, Atiek said.

“We’ve had more than 30 producers bring in samples of their products to be tested,” she said, explaining that the BPOM would then test the samples in its laboratories and certify them as fit to consume.

The laboratory tests vary in cost depending on the substance tested and the kind of test run, but for a standard borax or formaldehyde test the BPOM charges approximately Rp 300,000 (about US$32), Atiek said.

“They would then post the statement on the wall of their store or workplace to declare the safety of their products,” she said.

Meanwhile, recent reports from the BPOM’s inspection and certification division showed a dramatic drop in the use of formaldehyde in fresh noodles and tofu in Jakarta.

“Only three samples from the 37 fresh noodle samples taken from Jakarta showed traces of formaldehyde, and, from 40 samples of tofu, only two tested positive for formaldehyde,” the division’s deputy Sukirman Said Kumar was quoted by Tempo Interaktif as saying on Thursday.

Responding to the report, the BPOM said it would continue to monitor the foodstuffs on the market and regularly teach food producers about the additives available to them.

“Of course we can’t do this by ourselves, so we need the help of the industry and trade agency, city administration, health agency, the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) and the consumers themselves,” Atiek said.

Separately, the YLKI said that raising consumers’ awareness was more important than pushing for a class action for the violation of trust against consumers through the discovery of harmful substances in food products.

“We believe that it is more important to educate consumers to be able to make the right choices. Consumer protection doesn’t have to be in the form of a law suit,” YLKI researcher Ida Marlinda told The Jakarta Post.

She said that since the Legal Aid for Health Foundation had already filed a class action suit at the South Jakarta District Court on Jan. 9, there was no need for the YLKI to follow suit.

The foundation filed a suit against the Minister of Health, the BPOM and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, demanding Rp 4,144 million in damages.

Ida said the foundation was working in cooperation with the BB-POM and the Office of the State Minister for Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises to educate consumers.

Both the BB-POM and the YLKI have asked consumers to report findings of dangerous substances in food products through their hot lines.

BB-POM: 021-3520219 YLKI : 021-79191255

True cost of local food gives public appetite for organic

The Jakarta Post, Thursday, January 12, 2006

A month ago, most people would have been turned off by the price of organic foods, packed their shopping basket with conventional items and patted themselves on the back for penny pinching.

But since the formaldehyde scare reared its head a few weeks ago, more people have switched to organic food in the belief that it is safer and more nutritious.

The regular customers of Healthy Choice organic food store and restaurant, for example, had previously been health-conscious celebrities and overseas graduates, as well as elderly people with special dietary needs.

How things have changed. Over the last few weeks, both premises — in Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta, and Kemang, South Jakarta — have seen new customers coming in for something different.

“We’ve been getting a lot of new customers in our stores these past two weeks, and many said they wanted to try us because they were uncertain over what was safe to eat,” Healthy Choice’s naturopath Riani Susanto told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Besides sampling the restaurant’s all-organic hot pot and fried brown rice, they can also choose from the range of 1,200 organic products available, including vegetables, rice, cookies, seeds, ramen noodles, mosquito sprays, cough syrup, soap and even tampons.

The store’s organic tofu products in particular have seen a dramatic increase in sales since it was discovered that much of the tofu sold in markets here was laced with carcinogenic formaldehyde.

Usually selling only 10 tofu squares per day, Riani said the store now goes through 30 tofu squares a day, with each square weighing approximately 200 grams and selling for Rp 26,000 (about US$2.7) each.

“Our tofu is fully organic, the soybeans are not grown with pesticide, and are U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved. We don’t use synthetic coloring, and definitely not formaldehyde,” Riani said.

She recommends the consumption of lots of fresh green and orange vegetables and fruits such as broccoli, carrots, and papaya to strengthen the body’s liver function in naturalizing poisons.

Although it is too early to determine the increase in organic consumer numbers, Ranch Market in Pondok Indah, South Jakarta, is also selling more organic foods.

“Our sales of organic products have always been good, but there does seem to be an increase lately, although we cannot yet determine the numbers,” Ranch Market’s customer service representative Roni said.

The supermarket sells a range of organic products including fresh vegetables, fruits, chicken, and eggs supplied from local producers such as Pater Agatho Elsener in Bogor and Bukit Organik in Bandung, West Java.

Roni said since the formaldehyde scare, Ranch Market had seen a drop in its tofu sales, which had now bounced back particularly after the supermarket required its suppliers to guarantee the safety of their products.

Formaldehyde-tainted food just tip of the iceberg

The Jakarta Post, Saturday, 7 January 2006

Who can resist a scrumptious bite from a fluffy magenta-colored cotton candy? Or refuse an ice-cold cordial drink on a hot day?

The current uproar over formaldehyde serves as a warning to people that behind the attractive appearances of these treats, there may lurk all manner of dangerous chemicals.

“Since the hullabaloo over formaldehyde, my wife has been extra careful about buying food with preservatives,” said Agus Haryanto, who works for the University of Indonesia’s School of Humanities.

But the lacing of foodstuffs with formaldehyde is just the tip of the iceberg. Investigations by various bodies, including the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) and the Jakarta Food and Drugs Agency (BB-POM), have persistently found dangerous dyes, prohibited synthetic sweeteners, borax, formaldehyde and dangerous levels of benzoic acid in samples of foodstuffs sold throughout the city.

“We’ve routinely warned small-scale food producers about the dangers of certain substances such as formaldehyde and borax in foodstuffs. But it seems that when the people we talk to stop using these substances, another batch of unscrupulous producers takes over,” BB-POM director Atiek Herwati said.

One only needs to visit a local state elementary school here to see the sort of chemical-choked foods that vendors sell to children.

That bright orange chili sauce smeared liberally over fried meatballs on a stick, a favorite of children, may well contain the carcinogenic dye rhodhamine-B.

“Rhodamine-B is a textile dye, but street food vendors like to use it as it is heat resistant, so when making cotton candy, the red color does not fade,” Atiek explained, adding that besides being used in chili sauce and cotton candy, the dye was also widely used as a colorant in cordial drinks, red cendol (doughy rice-flour droplets used in cold drinks of the same name), various cakes, and crackers.

And what about the meatballs themselves? If the color of the meatballs is whiter than brownish-gray, then they are likely to have been treated with borax or boric acid.

Borax is often used as a firming agent, meat rub, preservative or tenderizer, and is frequently found in minced meat, meatballs, fried fish and dried fruit. Chronic symptoms of borax consumption include exhaustion, lack of appetite, dry skin, eye inflammation, and infection of the liver and kidneys.

And the bitter-sweet tang often found in cordial drinks sold on the sidewalk is quite likely to be produced by the artificial sweetener saccharin, or worse, the carcinogenic Dulcin (4-ethoxyphenyl urea).

Although its dangers to human health are debatable, daily consumption of saccharin should not exceed 5 milligrams per body weight to avoid bladder cancer.

Meanwhile, formaldehyde-laced tofu is usually tougher than regular tofu, while formaldehyde-laced fresh noodles are more oily. It is also better to choose fish from a stall where there are flies.

“For even flies shy away from formaldehyde-treated fish,” Atiek said.

I-box

Some helpful tips on eating healthy:

* Avoid fresh foods that do not go off after several days at normal room temperature. Chances are they contain preservatives harmful to your health.

* Always run tofu, noodles, and fresh fish under lots of running water before cooking to reduce harmful substances.

* When cooking fresh noodles, make sure to discard the water the noodles were boiled in and use separate, freshly-boiled water for the soup. It does no harm to do the same thing to dried noodles to reduce harmful substances.

* Avoid brightly colored snacks.

* Formaldehyde is a strong smelling chemical, so if the food you buy has a chemical smell, it is likely to be contaminated.

* Fresh noodles laced with formaldehyde are usually more oily and less sticky.

* Avoid buying tofu that is tough on the outside but brittle on the inside.

* Meatballs laced with formaldehyde are usually more rubbery, and those treated with borax are lighter in color.

Collated from various sources

‘Formaldehyde-treated food saves money’

The Jakarta Post, Thursday, January 5, 2006

Aside from the almost imperceptible stringiness and perhaps a whiff of chemicals, most customers would probably not know the difference between a fresh bowl of regular noodles and those that had been treated with formaldehyde.

But because formaldehyde-treated noodles are more durable, for vendors it can mean a big difference in their earnings.

“All I know is that the fresh noodles I used to buy from my regular seller don’t go off easily. Whenever I don’t manage to sell all my stock today, I can still sell it tomorrow. That way I don’t need to restock every single day and can save money,” said the fried noodle vendor.

He said that left-over noodles can be washed, dried in the sun, then used in a fresh batch of noodle soup the next day.

But the recent uproar over the dangers of formaldehyde in food products had caused the vendor to change his supply of raw noodles to avoid losing customers.

“I was told by a customer that the noodles I used were dangerous, and he wouldn’t buy from me. That’s why I changed,” he said, explaining that he now uses a more expensive dried egg noodles sold in packets in grocery stores.

Unlike formaldehyde-treated noodles, once immersed in water the dried egg noodles could not be reused the next day.

“When I try to dry my leftover egg noodles, they immediately go bad and smelly,” he said. (JP/Tantri Yuliandini)

Formaldehyde noodles? No thanks

The Jakarta Post, Friday Dec. 30, 2005

Jakartans have not taken kindly to the news from the Jakarta Food and Drug Office (BB-POM) that formaldehyde is being poured into foods, such as tofu, noodles and salted fish, to keep it fresher, longer.

Days after the announcement of the high content of the mortuary preservative in certain foods, tofu vendors saw a drop in sales and sidewalk eateries found customers were avoiding fried tofu and noodles.

“At first I didn’t know why people weren’t buying my tofu anymore … Really, I don’t sell tofu with formaldehyde,” a tofu vendor at Kebayoran Lama traditional market in South Jakarta told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Despite the BB-POM’s assurance that the warning did not apply to all tofu, noodles and salted fish sold at traditional markets and supermarkets, its report on the high content of formaldehyde in more than half of the samples taken from 50 markets in Greater Jakarta and Banten between November and December, has made people go to great lengths to avoid the chemicalized foods.

“Almost all traders in Bogor’s traditional markets sell salted fish treated with formaldehyde,” the Bogor Agribusiness Agency’s fishery division head Robert Hasibuan said, noting that at least 20 samples of salted fish from the markets tested positive for formaldehyde.

He has ordered traders to stop selling formaldehyde-treated fish and refuse produce from suppliers that use formaldehyde.

Huzna Zahir, an executive of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) — which exposed the same issue a decade ago — blamed the BB-POM for causing confusion by not providing clearer information

“They say tofu, but which kind? There is Chinese tofu, Sumedang tofu and Bandung tofu, and I know from producers that the last two kinds aren’t usually treated with formaldehyde,” she said.

The Association of Indonesian Food and Beverages Industries (GAPMMI) said small-scale industries were suffering due to the non-specific news reports.

“I’m certain that only a few of them use formaldehyde, yet all 950,000 small- and medium-scale food producers, who supply 70 percent of the country’s processed food needs, are taking the blame,” GAPMMI chairman Thomas Darmawan was quoted by Detik.com as saying on Wednesday.

Formaldehyde is a chemical widely used in fertilizer, plywood, industrial fungicide, and as a preservative in mortuaries and medical laboratories. Its use here to delay the decay and molding of food is due to its low price and availability.

Formaldehyde can have enormously neurodegenerative effects, including seizures, headaches, nausea, depression, convulsions and loss of vision.

Without laboratory testing, Huzna said, it was difficult to say offhand which products were formaldehyde-treated and which were safe to eat.

Separately, PD Pasar Jaya president director Prabowo Soenirman told the directors of traditional markets across the city to look out for foods containing formaldehyde in their markets.

“Currently, we await the help of officers from the BB-POM so we can ’spot the difference’,” he said.

French-based Carrefour Indonesia’s corporate affairs director Irawan D. Kadarman said that, as one of the largest retail chains in the city, it would not hesitate to cut off business contracts with suppliers who provided formaldehyde-treated foods.

“We have asked all of our suppliers to give in writing a guarantee that their products are free from illegal substances, if we find that they are not, we will of course stop dealing with them.”