It's No Yoke!

This week-end has seen yet another shock-horror health story caused by contaminated eggs. These highly nutritious globes seem to get into trouble on a regular basis. Was it not the suggestion, some years ago, that almost all eggs were contaminated with salmonella that resulted in the then Health Minster, Edwina Currie, having to resign? This time the problem is seen as dioxins. These are very nasty chemicals present in small quantities almost everywhere but which should be kept out of the food chain. Dioxins are produced mainly from combustion processes and are poly-cyclic compounds made up of carbon/oxygen rings generally with chlorinated aromatic hydro-carbons attached. More and more research indicates that these are nasty compounds capable of causing cancer - most compounds with aromatic benzine rings in them will do this. It is thought also that they can cause diabetes skin diseases and reduce sperm counts. Their worst characteristic is that the compounds can accumulate in animal tissues - particularly in fat layers - and remain there for many years.

So, how did we get dioxins in eggs, specifically? The problem is associated with a range of processed foods - mainly sponge cakes and biscuits - sold by all the major supermarkets in this country. The manufacturers were Kensey Foods in Launceston, Cornwall and Memory Lane Cakes in Cardiff. Both make own brand products for Tesco, Sainsbury's et al. They have all made their products using liquid eggs supplied to them pasteurised by a company in Holland. They got the eggs from Germany where they had been produced from hens fed with foodstuff from North Germany - Schleswig-Holstein. Apart from the tortured route followed by the contaminant, why do we have to buy Germano-Dutch eggs from hens in South Germany. Can't we produce liquid eggs in the UK - preferably somewhere in the West Country so that they don't have to be carted half-way across Europe just to make sponge cakes. Although at this stage no one seems to know how much dioxin was in the liquid eggs, "an expert" was prepared to say that the amount did not constitute a risk to human health. Nevertheless, the supermarkets have withdrawn all the contaminated products from sale - at least those that have not already been purchased, taken home and eaten.

This saga has the ring of Bernard Matthews and the contaminated turkey meat from somewhere in Europe. Why does the Food Standards Agency let this sort of thing happen? We may need to import some food stuffs but surely we can produce enough poultry in the UK?

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