Check Your Worcestershire Sauce Bottles

[Fantine<br><br><br><br>Susie]

You may have seen yesterday's news item on English TV regarding the use of the Sudan1 colouring in over 350 food items. This colouring has caused cancer in animals in the labs. There has been mass de-stocking of these products from supermarket shelves. Most of them are 'ready meals' and so would not apply to us living in France, however there are a few storecupboard items you may have.

Check the full list, and the batches affected on this website:

http://www.food.gov.uk/safereating/sudani/sudanlist

The Worcestershire Sauce affected has use by dates of 2008/2009/2010.

I've done a Google search and can find no reference to any food products in France that may affected.

[Baz]

Before anyone panics Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce is NOT Effected. The effected Worcestshire sauce was made up by Premier Foods and is only for used in their products. A full report can be seen here: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=612528

Baz

[Mazan]

I think that this story is rather silly. The dye in question is, as I understand it, part of the chilli content. It makes the chilli powder red. Just how much chilli powder can there be in one bottle of Worcester sauce? Not a lot. And how much sauce goes into one meal? Just a few drops.

I am far more worried about the huge quantities of noxious chemicals used directly on fresh food, many of which are also known to be cancer causing but are "tolerated" because there is no alternative apart from organic farming. The amounts of these that are ingested daily must be thousands of times greater than the amount of dye in a drop of hot sauce.