Formaldehyde - Contaminant in Food

Contaminant in Food

Scandals have broken in both the 2005 Indonesia food scare and 2007 Vietnam food scare regarding the addition of formaldehyde to foods to extend shelf life. After a four-year absence, in 2011 Indonesian authorities have again found some foods with formaldehyde being sold in markets in a number of regions across the country. Besides using formaldehyde, they also use borax, but not combined together. In August 2011, at least at 2 Carrefour supermarkets, the Central Jakarta Livestock and Fishery Sub-Department found a sweet glutinous rice drink (cendol) contained 10 parts per million of formaldehyde. Foods known to be contaminated include noodles, salted fish, tofu, and rumors of chicken and beer. In some places, such as China, formaldehyde is still used illegally as a preservative in foods, which exposes people to formaldehyde ingestion. In humans, the ingestion of formaldehyde has been shown to cause vomiting, abdominal pain, dizziness, and in extreme cases can cause death; in addition, there is limited evidence of a carcinogenic effect. Testing for formaldehyde is by blood and/or urine by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Other methods include infrared detection, gas detector tubes, etc., of which HPLC is the most sensitive In the early 1900s, it was frequently added by US milk plants to milk bottles as a method of pasteurization due to the lack of knowledge regarding formaldehyde's toxicity.

In 2011 in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, truckloads of rotten chicken were exposed to formaldehyde in which "a large network" including 11 slaughterhouses run by a criminal gang were implicated. In 2012, 1 billion Rupiah (almost 1 million USD) of fish were imported from Pakistan to Batam, Indonesia were found laced with formaldehyde.