If you’re fond of buying peanuts from street vendors, then you better make sure your suki isn’t selling you bad nuts.
“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning the public against peanut products, including those sold by street vendors, after samples were found with a cancer-causing fungal contaminant,” reports Tina G. Santos in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
According to an FDA advisory, “the agency had also tested some brands of prepackaged peanuts (both local and imported) and found them positive for Aflatoxin B1, a naturally occurring carcinogenic mycotoxin produced by certain species of fungi.”
Unfortunately, the FDA said they can’t disclose the brand names of the said products. They still have to do more tests.
FDA Acting Director General Kenneth Hartigan Go explained, “There is also a possibility that peanuts usually sold boiled or adobo-style by street vendors contain harmful levels of aflatoxin, especially if the peanuts were not properly dried after being harvested and had developed molds.”
Go also added that “although aflatoxin makes peanuts taste bitter, some unscrupulous food processors or peanut vendors simply mix these bad peanuts with the good ones rather than throw them out.”
Photo from MorgueFile
