Updates:
http://www.theborneopost.com/?p=27264
Crispy
recipe vs plastic truth
By Irene C & Zora
Chan
IS there any truth to all the talks about some stall operators
using plastic materials to prepare banana fritters, yu ca kui,
salad chicken rice and chicken meat to make them crisper and more
attractive to consumers?
To find out, thesundaypost team turned ‘myth busters’ in an
endeavour to shed light on this food (and health) issue after being
told that a hawker had poured half a plastic bag of cooking oil
into a hot wok at a local eatery sometime ago.
In their fact-finding assignment, the team first obtained
samples of the foods in question and then contacted two local
chemist companies to find out whether they could do some tests.
Both said they were not equipped to do so.
Even the State Health Department, the State Chemistry Department
and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) were unable to help.
But State Chemistry Department director Sim Hang Thiew said he
had also heard of such rumours but doubted they were true.
“We had never done any test before — we don’t have the
equipment,” he added.
According to him, the department’s lab could do certain tests on
foods such as determining whether they were contaminated with
bacteria or contained banned ingredients.
Sim believed hawkers had their own secret recipes to make banana
and prawn fritters and chicken meat crisper but not with
plastic.
“It could be other things like the right mixture of flour.
Different types of flour such as wheat and rice produce different
results.”
Besides, he noted, not all plastic materials like straws, bags
and raffia strings melted in boiling oil at the same
temperature.
“There’s no logic to it (deep-frying foods with plastic to make
them crisper),” he said.
Asked whether the department would carry out tests to set the
record straight, Sim replied: “No, unless there’s a public outcry,
prompting the Health Department to investigate and send the samples
to us for analysis.”
He said if necessary, the samples would be sent to Kuala Lumpur
as the lab here was not adequately equipped.
Presently, he added, the department carried out lab tests for
the Health Department on permitted colourings, preservatives, heavy
metal and any prohibited food addictives.
“We also test the quality of water for drinking and the
environment.”
According to an Internet source
(wywahoos.org/wahoos/cookbook/tools.htm) it is hard to measure the
boiling point of oil because well before it reaches its boiling
point, oil will start to smoke and this is called the smoke
point.
The smoke points for some common cooking oils are 266 degrees C
for safflower, 257 degrees C for soybean, 246 degree C for corn,
227 deg-rees C for peanut, 216 degree C for sesame and , 191 degree
C for olive. The exact tempe-rature will depend on how pure the oil
is.
A State Health Depart-ment spokesman said its food section had
never received any public complaint or come across allegations of
foods being deep-fried in oil mixed with plastic.
He said the department’s lab only carried out tests to detect
food poisoning caused by bacteria or virus, not plastic products,
adding that melted plastic could be difficult to detect.
“One way is to catch the hawkers on the spot but to do this, we
need public cooperation.
“The public who know of such things should let us know so that
we can investigate,” he added.
To date, the department has yet to conduct any study on the
effects of plastic-contami-nated foods on human health.
To satisfy their curosity (with public health in mind),
thesundaypost team carried out their own experiment.
Two samples — A and B — were bought from a shop at a commercial
centre and a market respectively while another three were
home-cooked with some culinary tips from housewives.
Samples A and B were left at thesundaypost office desk for half
a day. Both lost their crunchiness with B turning soft faster.
Meanwhile, a nip down to a grocery proved useful as the team
were able to pick up some useful tips from experienced cooks
there.
One suggested the best way to fry banana fritters was to mix
some rice flour with plain or wheat flour.
“The wheat flour should be more than the rice flour. If the
mixture is right, your banana fritters will be nice and remain
crispy for more than an hour,” she said.
Some of the banana fritter sellers she knew used plain, wheat
and rice flour together.
Concurring with the cook, a housewife, shopping for grocery,
suggested a little bit of tapioca flour could also do the
trick.
“That’s how I prepare mine,” she said.
Another shopper suggested lime or kapur (white substance or
calcium oxide normally taken with sirih or bettlenuts) mixed with
wheat flour.
Following these tips, the team created the following
samples:
The samples were cooked in a controlled environment — with the
same wok, oil and ingredients used for some of the batter from the
same packet. The oil was smoking before the banana slices were put
in.
Samples C to F were edible with slight variations in taste while
Sample G was a ‘no no’ with bits of melted plastic stuck on its
outer skin.
A piece of Sample G was then broken in two and a plastic odour
immediately became apparent. Of course, no one was dumb enough to
want to eat it!
All the samples were tested for their crispiness and only C and
E were still crunchy.
After a half a day on the office table, all the samples had gone
soggy. Sample G (with plastic) also did not pass the crunchy test
and its outer layer was hard to pull off and very tough.
thesundaypost team passed round the edible samples to the
newsroom “guinea pigs” to get their comments.
The team also interviewed several people, including hawkers and
a manager of a Samples A and B were left at thesundaypost office
desk for half a day. Both lost their crunchiness with B turning
soft faster.
Meanwhile, a nip down to a grocery proved useful as the team
were able to pick up some useful tips from experienced cooks there.
One suggested the best way to fry banana fritters was to mix some
rice flour with plain or wheat flour.
“The wheat flour should be more than the rice flour. If the
mixture is right, your banana fritters will be nice and remain
crispy for more than an hour,” she said.
Some of the banana fritter sellers she knew used plain, wheat
and rice flour together.
Concurring with the cook, a housewife, shopping for grocery,
suggested a little bit of tapioca flour could also do the
trick.
“That’s how I prepare mine,” she said.
Another shopper suggested lime or kapur (white substance or
calcium oxide normally taken with sirih or bettlenuts) mixed with
wheat flour.
Following these tips, the team created the following
samples:
The samples were cooked in a controlled environment — with the
same wok, oil and ingredients used for the batter from the same
packet. The oil was smoking before the banana slices were put
in.
Samples C to F were edible with slight variations in taste while
Sample G was a ‘no no’ with bits of melted plastic stuck on its
outer skin.
A piece of Sample G was then broken in two and a plastic odour
immediately became apparent. Of course, no one was dumb enough to
want to eat it!
All the samples were tested for their crispness and only C and E
were still crunchy.
After half a day on the office table, all the samples had gone
soggy. Sample G (with plastic) also did not pass the crunchy test
and its outer layer was hard to pull off and very tough.
thesundaypost team passed round the edible samples to the
newsroom “guinea pigs” to get their comments.
The team also interviewed several people, including hawkers and
a manager of a fast food franchise outlet for more insight into the
matter.
A stall operator in town claimed she saw a seller of prawn
fritters and fried bean curds putting a plastic oil container into
boiling oil.
The operator said instead of using a knife or a pair of scissors
to cut open the plastic, the seller just dipped the whole bag
in.
“I saw the bag melt in the boiling oil in front of my eyes. The
seller was next to my stall.”
A coffeeshop owner said after learning about the seller’s
action, she advised him to cease what he was doing.
“After I told him off, he stopped. But I think the business was
not very good after that because the fritters were not so crispy
anymore. He closed shop a few months later,” the coffeeshop owner
revealed.
A hawker selling kuih (local delicacy for breakfast and tea)
said claims that plastic could make deep-fried food crisper was
plain rubbish.
“I’ve been frying and selling kuih, including banana fritters,
for years. One secret to crisper banana fritters is using young
bananas as ripe or overly ripe fruits tend to be soft and less
crunchy when fried. Another secret is the right amount of wheat and
rice flour for the batter.
“Add some sugar to make the fritters tastier and eggs to have
that nice golden look. Some hawkers use food colouring for their
batter instead of eggs because it is cheaper,” he said.
Had any hawkers been caught putting plastics into their batter
or cooking oil, they surely would have lost their li-cence by now,
he pointed out.
Some hawkers added a small amount of lime but this method might
be less popular, he reckoned.
A consumer felt the State Health Department should carry out a
thorough investiga-tion to put the public at ease.
“I have heard about it several times but have yet to see it
done,” admitted the consumer.
He pointed out that the public had the right to know whether or
not all these talks were true, and hoped the health department
would investigate and inform the public of the outcome.
“The results should be interesting,” he said.
A member of the public, who wished to be known as Elizabeth,
said she saw her favourite fried chicken stall in Kuala Lumpur
using raffia strings.
“One time, I saw a raffia string floating in the wok. I didn’t
think much about it at that time because I thought it might have
accidentally fallen in.”
“On my next trip to the stall, I again saw the same thing. This
time, I also noticed a few unused raffia strings on the stall’s
shelf. This made me think as I remembered my mum telling me about
people using plastic to make fried foods crisper,” she added.
It was only then it dawned on her that her favourite stall could
have been using raffia strings to make drumsticks super
crunchy.
“I asked the operator why she was keeping the raffia strings.
She said ‘nothing.’ After that, I stopped going there, and ate less
fried food outside. Come to think of it, I should have listened to
my mother long ago,” Elizabeth said.
A part-time banana fritter seller said she too had heard about
the rumours from her customers.
“I was surprised when some customers asked if we used plastic
because they too had heard of such claims. One said a relative died
of cancer after eating too many banana fritters over the years.
“That customer suspected her relative might have died after
eating banana fritters cooked with plastic-contaminated oil,” she
said.
The part-time seller disclosed she only used wheat and rice
flour and normally, the crispness of her fritters lasted about one
hour.
“Banana fritters are usually crispy when they are still warm,
but once cold, they will go soft or lose their crispness.”
She said nowadays, consumers were more health-conscious and
would only buy food from people they knew.
Meanwhile, KFC Sarawak marketing manager Kenneth Lim said his
company had very strict quality control and used special
ingredients to prepare its foods, particularly crispy fried
chicken.
“No, we don’t do it (putting plastic in oil). We have very high
quality assurance (QA) to maintain our products.
“I believe this is all speculation but hopefully, it is not
practised here.”
He pointed out that the secret to the quality of KFC products
lay with seven special herbs and spices.
“Our products are pressure-fried in boiling hot oil and we use
special equipment. Our products have crispy skin and before
breaking them into smaller pieces, you can smell the aroma of the
nice herbs.”
Lim added that to maintain QA, KFC had its own internal control
for all cooked foods.
“Different cooked foods have different holding time. Once the
holding time is surpassed, we will discard the foods. We don’t
allow our staff to take foods home after the holding time — neither
do we give them to a second party to resell.”
With most hawkers tight-lipped about their recipes and the
authorities sitting tight, there is no way to know whether all the
“plastic in food” allegations are fact or myth.
So to eat or not to eat? The choice is yours.
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