Smoked food may be harmful to humans

Some of the ingredients in popular ‘smoked’ food flavourings could be harmful to humans, a report by the European Commission has said.

The EC has been investigating a number of different additives and flavourings, and of the 11 that they tested, a number have been found to have possible contaminants, especially those which take an extract from beech wood.

Smoked flavourings dangerous

The group of people responsible for the tests commented that the levels of danger to humans was ‘a concern’, and have made it clear that they will now draw up a large list of products which they feel should be excluded from general consumption. This comes as a blow to manufacturers who have been using these ingredients for some time.

The Food and Drink Federation, who represent a number of manufacturers of food and drink products, stated that they will work closely with the EC to get to the bottom of this issue, but stressed that the modern smoke flavourings used in foods were generally of a much higher safety level than that of traditional smoking methods.

This investigation is just one in a chain of food safety scandals, which reached their pinnacle when China found that large amounts of their powdered milk was tainted with poison, which caused a number of deaths in the country in 2009.