Chemical in McDonald's McNuggets
2010/07/16
The State Food and Drug Administration said in a statement it had tested samples of McNuggets and the cooking oil from 22 McDonald's restaurants in four provinces and municipalities including Beijing and Shanghai. -- PHOTO: AFP
BEIJING: China said Friday the amount of a chemical used in US fast food giant McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets was within official limits, after reports said they contained risky additives. Media reports have said an anti-foaming agent and a petroleum-based chemical were used in the chicken pieces and that they could cause nausea, vomiting and even suffocation if taken in excessive amounts.
The State Food and Drug Administration said in a statement it had tested samples of McNuggets and the cooking oil from 22 McDonald’s restaurants in four provinces and municipalities including Beijing and Shanghai. The agency said it “did not find the content of tertiary butylhydroquinone in the McNuggets and its cooking oil exceeded the maximum amount” set by a national food additive standard.
As for the other chemical, dimethylpolysiloxane, authorities are working to come up with a set of testing measures due to a lack of a state standard, according to the statement, which was posted on the SFDA’s website. Vivian Zhang, spokeswoman for McDonald’s China, said last week that the food was safe and the additives were “common and fully-approved ingredients that are completely safe”.
China is regularly hit by product safety scandals despite government pledges to clean up the food industry. In 2008, the industrial chemical melamine was found in the products of 22 Chinese dairy companies in a massive scandal blamed for the deaths of at least six infants and for making 300,000 others sick in China. State media reported on Friday that 76 tonnes of melamine-tainted milk powder had been seized in northwestern China in the latest such case to emerge. -- AFP
