How safe is the food we eat??

missmaggs

The past few weeks I've been literally feedingon mung bean noodles, another words cellophane noodles, aka 'glass noodles'. You can get these in just about any Chinese shop in Dub. They taste great, are a splendid substitute for regular pasta, and are a lot healthier...or are they.

I checked them out on wikipedia, turns out that not too long ago a company in China was ordered to shut down because they were using poisonous chemicals in the production process. Basically these guys were using some type of lead component to discolour the spurious corn-starch noodles they were producing (corns cheaper) and selling them as mung been noodles (aka 'vermicelli'). Lead, as perhaps you know, is an incredibly noxious element, causing many lethal illnesses! These noodles were being sold all around China,and exported overseas. It was actually the Chinese government that caught whiff of the scam!! So they directed the company to clean up its act, and what happens? Voila, a few months later another deadly chemical was found to be in samples of the noodles(one that is supposedly on a list of banned chemicals in chinese food production). and this company, I think it's still operating cause I seen their website up and running the other day..not that I could understand much of what it said.

SO! my question is: are there any laws, regulations, statues that would regulate the quality of the food that is imported into Ireland. I know that there is HACCP and ISO9001- but these are preventative measures, to my best knowledge. These standards don't entail sample testing of imported goods,at least not as far as I know...

Del2005

There are food safety inspectors and they do regulart checks on premises. If you think you are eating dodgy food give them a call and they can check out the premises in question.

As for Chinese imports, I'd be wary of any food stuff out of there. C4 did a program about how much fake food they produce and it's crazy. China has food safety regulations but there is so much corruption they are rarely enforced, just look at the recent milk scandal.

dudara

Better suited to Food & Drink I think

dudara