Food professionals begin safety check on mooncakes ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival

SINGAPORE: Food professionals recently launched a special operation before the start of the Mid-Autumn Festival to check local mooncake vendors and ensure that these foods are safe to eat through sampling products and testing them, as reported by Lianhe Zaobao. 

During the inspection, production facilities of the mooncakes are going to be checked to see if they are compliant with food laws and safety, whether the foods are properly created, handled, and stored, and if the manufacturers are following safety procedures. These inspections are said to help detect and correct potential food hazards. 

How will experts test these mooncakes?

Several mooncake samples are collected from food manufacturers in the country, and a team of experts test them for chemical and microbiological hazards. 

In the testing process, the food scientists will place the mooncake samples in a sterile bag, perform the necessary procedures before testing samples on a petri dish and observe the growth of bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli at a specific temperature. Professionals will also conduct specific tests to confirm the presence of specific bacteria. 

What type of bacteria were present in recent tests?

On the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, excessive levels of Bacillus cereus were found in a D24 durian snow skin mooncake. This kind of bacteria is commonly found in the environment and in the intestines of insects and mammals. Moreover, this bacterium is a common cause of food poisoning with symptoms such as dizziness, vomiting, and diarrhoea. 

These experts admitted that food safety is important not just to the government, but most especially to food businesses and the consumers. They stated that food can be easily contaminated when not handled properly at any stage of its production, transportation, sales, and consumption. 

In the topic on consumption, a doctor from the Lifescan Healthcare Center explained that low-sugar mooncakes indeed have lower sugar content, and these are more suitable for people who are diabetic or have poor blood sugar control. However, low sugar content does not necessarily mean that they will be low in calories, fat, and sodium, and can still cause health issues when not consumed properly. 

With this, it is encouraged for everyone to control the portion size as they eat mooncakes, whether from the low-sugar classification or the traditional ones. Moreover, it is better to cut the mooncake into quarters or eighths and share it with family or friends. Read more here.