超「英」趕「世」- 香港食安「標準」太安全?!
Does the “standard” of food safety
in Hong Kong exceed those of UK and WTO!?
Three guidelines
that explain the standard for food safety in different parts of the world.
1.
Hong Kong
standard– Five keys for Food Safety,
The document was developed making reference
to the Five keys to Safer Food Manual developed by the World Health Organisation
(WHO). In the Hong Kong standard, for the temperature for cooking, it is stated
as “Ideally, use a food thermometer to check that the core temperature reaches
at least 75°C.” But the key information “time” for cooking at this temperature is
not specified. Furthermore, there is no mentioning of cooking at a lower
temperature.
2.
WTO standard
– Five keys to Safer Food Manual (This
was published in 2006 and is still the latest version available as in June,
2019) Some key figures about cooking thoroughly are presented as follows:-
“Food must reach a temperature of 70o C in order to ensure it
is safe to eat. A temperature of 70o C kills even high
concentrations of microorganisms within 30 seconds.
Lower cooking temperatures can be used to kill microorganisms in certain
foods. With lower temperatures, more cooking time is required.”
3.
UK standard
– https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/cooking-your-food, it states that “Standard advice is to cook
food until it has reached 70°C and stayed at that temperature for 2 minutes.
The
other time and temperature combinations are:
60°C
for 45 minutes
65°C
for 10 minutes
70°C
for 2 minutes
75°C
for 30 seconds
80°C
for 6 seconds”
Observation
In a Trade
Consultation Forum, food safety was discussed.
·
For
choosing just the temperature of 75o C, it was explained as “…hoped
to convey to consumers food safety information that
was plain and easy to understand.” (i.e. in Chinese “希望傳達簡單及能夠容易理解食物安全訊息給消費者”). This was the only explanation how 75o C was picked. This figure is not used by
other major international organisations and is not
justified from a scientific point of view from the information provided.
·
I raised
that in two Michelin-Starred restaurants in five star hotels in Central, the
chefs ignore such safety guidelines as scientist
and chef have found that this temperature had overcooked the eggs. There is
comprehensive research by scientist that the best egg is cooked at 65o
C for sufficient time. Because of some variations in eggs, the more recent
practice is to use 63o C. I have never heard of any incident brought up
because of this. The Chairman of the Forum said that he did not see the
difference among eggs that were cooked in a difference of a few degrees Celsius.
Maybe these are so “raw” that he has never tried. In a subsequent meeting, for
the discussion in the of Notes of the previous meeting, the Chairman did not
mention the term “scientist” and was
amended by me. Why?
·
The
definitions for “raw”, “cooked”, “under-cooked”, “cooked thoroughly” have not
been defined. There is difference on the interpretation of the term “cooking”
and subject to interpretation by individual person. An interesting definition
or collection of definitions are available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking
and in https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/%E7%83%B9%E9%A5%AA.
Analysis
·
Comparing
the Hong Kong standard with others (in UK and in WHO), for unknown reason, the
cooking temperature is 5o C higher.
Does it mean that it is safer? Killing the pathogens need not only in an
environment at a particular temperature but time. This saying that “higher
temperature is safer” is too simplistic and not true.
·
On the
other hand, there was a total ignorance of using a lower temperature. For WHO,
it has suggested that “Lower cooking temperatures can be used to
kill microorganisms in certain foods. With lower temperatures, more cooking
time is required.” The key is that for killing pathogens, it is the combination
of temperature and time that matters.
·
The
superficial reason is being so-call “safer”. There are impacts to the texture
and the nutrition of food such as killing the Vitamins.
·
The presentation
of information that was plain and easy to understand by just one number “75”.
Is it difficult to say that the temperature and time are both important? The
British have a good example. Why can’t Hong Kong people understand this?
Incapability of Hong Kong people or incapability of somebody else?