Viewpoints The Soy Sauce Scare | The Soy Sauce Scare |
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26 Jun 2001David Suen The Guardian's story covering the issue of cancer-causing Soy Sauce brands gives a balanced view on the latest food scare. David Suen summarises the main points. 1) In 1980 research was done on 3-MCPD & it is only now that 22 brands of soy sauce are named as harmful by the FSA. 2) Lots of confusing & contradictory advice about what is harmful and helpful in diet, that it is tempting to ignore all. 3) a few soy sauce manufacturers at the cheap end of the market worked out that they didn't have to go through the long, costly process of termentation to make soy sauce the traditional way. They could cut the brewing short, and add other ingredients, including HVP, to make the sauce taste right. 4) Aware that some soy sauces contained HVP made the old way (most manufacturers have now eliminated the 3-MCPD), the European Union finally set a maximum limit for the amount of 3-MCPD they could carry - 0.02 milligrams per kilogram. 5) The FSA never condemned soy sauce as a foodstuff - only a few manufacturers. The clear message is that soy sauce made the traditional way is safe. The Japanese, who consume it in large quantities, are the longest-lived people in the world. 6) has anyone actually died or fallen ill as a clear result of eating the food - or only rats and mice? Rodents are similar to humans in many ways, but they are much smaller, live much shorter lives, and do not eat noodles. Or soy sauce, for that matter - the 3-MCPD that gave them cancer was given to them in pure form. 7) is the danger confined to that particular food? This is one of the trickiest areas of food scares - and none more tricky than in the case of soy sauce. 8) The FSA made it clear in its soy sauce announcement that other foods also contain 3-MCPD. They contain quite a bit less, gram for gram. But there was one thing that the FSA didn't go out of its way to point out. There's an overlap between the "danger" sauces and certain foods, because we eat much more of those foods than we would normally eat soy sauce. 9) "The bottom line is that, at the moment, both internationally and in the UK, there are no limits for any food other than soy sauce. The agency is working as hard as it can to speed the process up." |
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