Liberty Times: Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) senior executive Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) has been detained over the latest adulterated oil scandal. Ting Hsin has said it will donate NT$3 billion (US$98 million) to help the government set up a food safety fund. Would this improve food safety in the nation?
Wu Chia-Cheng (吳家誠): I believe the announcement to donate NT$3 billion prior to Wei’s detainment is a ploy hoping to absolve him of his [alleged] crime or to significantly reduce his [alleged] crime in the eyes of the law, or due to some other special purposes.
According to Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍), the food industry will lose an estimated NT$12.4 billion in income this year due to the adulterated oil incident.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The scandal has also bred distrust of Taiwanese foods in international markets, blocked large shipments of goods at customs in other nations, tarnished the names of stores that have been in business for more than a century, as well as directly affecting public health through the distribution of adulterated oils from downstream businesses.
The damage dealt to the nation and the public is so far-reaching that confiscating all of Wei’s wealth is still not enough to cover the damages. Wei underestimates the anger of the public toward Ting Hsin if the company seeks to atone for the entire matter with a mere NT$3 billion.
Ting Hsin started out as an oil company, but what Ting Hsin specializes in now is not oil production, but rather in using its connections with politicians and other corporations to maximize benefits for the company and for the individual. Although he is currently detained, Wei should nonetheless apologize to the public for his wrongdoing and publicize the list of people who make up the protection net Ting Hsin enjoys in Taiwan.
LT: You are an expert on food security. Who do you think is most responsible for Ting Hsin’s involvement in three food scandals in less than a year?
Wu: President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration must shoulder the majority of the responsibility for such large amounts of adulterated foodstuffs appearing everywhere in the nation. There must be a reason that heartless merchants are allowed to profit by selling these products to the public for such a long time and to such an extent. It is hard to imagine that the government would not — at least — keep some distance from such greedy businesspeople, and instead is on very good terms with them. [Wei was the vice chairman of the National Business and Industrial Leaders’ Support Group for Ma during Ma’s presidential campaign and had served in the Executive Yuan’s Food and Medication Safety Committee.]
A good government should treat all of its citizens like its own children, but the Ma administration has not only failed to oversee general health conditions for the public, it has failed at implementing policies that would be able to control and track the sources of adulterated oil.
The government’s leadership is inept, its officials have proven derelict in their duties and all we see are the government and businesspeople profiting off the mess.
What is worse is that Ma is calling on the public to boycott these products. As the head of state, he should be the one to solve problems for the public; he should be the one to bring more wealth to the public in terms of economic development and creating more revenue for the state.
One has to wonder: What kind of baggage is on his shoulders that he cannot bravely enact the law, what kind of pressure is causing the government to allow Taiwan’s food security to come to such a sad state? This food safety incident caused by Ting Hsin will not only affect the upcoming local elections at the end of the month, but I believe it will also affect the presidential elections in 2016.
LT: How should food security measures be ameliorated and a food safety system be established?
Wu: I suggest that the nation pattern its system on the regulations of the EU, beginning with control and management of the source of the foodstuffs and down the entire pipeline to the finished product.
The EU learned its lessons from mad cow disease in the past and knows that what animals eat can be carried down the entire food chain and cause significant harm.
It has the strictest standards on product quality and the amount of harmful materials products can contain. It conducts very sophisticated scans — to the limits of scientific technology — of all animal feed and has multiple levels of such sophisticated scans for recycled oil. Only after they are certain that there are no harmful products left in the recycled oil do they commence the manufacture of animal feed.
We should emulate this system. The government should place oversight on every key point of the food safety system, ensuring that documentation of foodstuffs is transparent from the source, manufacture, production, packaging, transportation and the product that sits on the table.
Large food companies must set up their own laboratories to conduct tests and ensure that consumers can easily find out how the product they are considering has been grown, processed and transported by using QR codes. If the company achieved 100 percent perfection in every part of the production chain, the government can then verify that their production is up to standards and award them with a mark representing the standards level.
The process of obtaining product “resumes,” as they are called, is limited to local and regional proof of production processes. The source material arriving at the factory contains only that part of the proof and the product exiting the factory only holds the factory part of the process.
It is not possible to have consumers clearly identify so many marks from different factories; there should be only one mark — handed out by the government. As long as the product can provide full proof through its entire production process and upload it onto the Internet for review by the government, the public can then identify which are truly secure foodstuffs.
LT: The Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) had undergone six revisions in the past seven years. Are there any other loopholes in the act that must be addressed?
Wu: The only way to ensure food safety is implemented is for the government to have the determination and a systematic method of management, while providing an adequate workforce. The six amendments to the act have only increased the penalties and fines and given more authority to the units overseeing sanitation. However, if government administrators fail to ensure the amendments are implemented, it is all in vain.
The first reading of the recent amendment increased fines to NT$200 million and demanded a separation of licenses and factories between the manufacturing of food products and non-food products. However, from the many food safety incidents in recent years, including the plasticizer incident, the adulterated starch incident and the two cooking oil incidents, I regret to say that the act still has room for improvement.
The source of funding and its use for the food security foundation should also be carefully drafted; in essence, all food security laws and technological inspections should be carefully revisited to give maximal protection to consumers.
If the legislature does its job, then it will provide an adequate firewall for the public’s food security. If not, then they have provided a buffer zone for the illegal practices of merchants without scruples. If it does its job, but the laws are not implemented, then it is guaranteeing safety for illegal conduct for these businesses.
LT: What damage could eating recycled oil or animal feed-grade oil cause people? How should the public protect itself?
Wu: Recycled oil must not be ingested by humans. Recycled oil and animal feed-grade oil are all low-grade oils. Once low-grade oils have problems, they could produce oxidized fatty acids, which could then produce free-radical substances in the human body. Accumulation of free-radical substances can easily cause Alzheimer’s, Parkinson disease or degenerative joint diseases.
It could also damage the immune system, nervous system, the kidneys and liver, as well as the bloodstream.
The repeated use such oil would also produce the carcinogenic material malondialdehyde, and if there are oils pressed from beans in the recycled oil, substances such as aflatoxin and ochratoxin could also develop.
Some recycled oils could contain heavy metals, as oil packs in instant noodles have been found to be contaminated with them, and chromium — also carcinogenic — has been detected in oils fabricated by Cheng I Foods Co (正義股份). Other carcinogenic materials, such as benzopyrene and organic amines, could also be found in recycled oil.
Consumers’ health could be slowly eroded from within and [oil use] could lower the age of the onset of cancer.
As for how to deal with the matter, people should seek to let the human body do its work through changes to eating habits and maintaining good sleep hygiene. People should use vegetable oils rich in omega-3 fatty acid, avoid mixed oils and refrain from eating of large amounts of lard.
People should also eat simple foods and control serving sizes, limiting caloric intake per day to about 2,000 kilocalories; seek to use foodstuffs where you can see the original shape of the product, avoid cooking foods at high temperatures, and eat lots of vegetables — preferably red, orange yellow, green, black, white and purple vegetables.
People should also get at least six hours of sleep so the body can filter any residual toxins through metabolic processes.
Translation by Jake Chung, staff writer
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