Peter,
FDA's March 10, 2000 letter on the subject to Hawaii International Seafood's
petition to make "tasteless smoke" GRAS can be found at:
http://seafood.ucdavis.edu/guidelines/grn000015.htm
My read on it is that it applies only to filtered wood smoke applied to fish
that is to be frozen, must contain an ingredient declaration, and can not be
label as "fresh" or use the word "smoke" on the label. And it seems to me
that the FDA has left themselves lots of room to reverse their initial
determination. They mention the problems of masking spoilage and adding the
perception of value where it does not exist.
But now I hear that pure bottled CO is being used by some producers. Perhaps
someone can bring us up to date on the latest FDA position on this issue.
Ken Hilderbrand
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-seafood@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-seafood@ucdavis.edu]On
Behalf Of Howgate
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 2:21 PM
To: jerry@anresco.com; seafood@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Measurement of carbon monoxide
Dear Jerry
There was a discussion on use of carbon monoxide, (flavourless smoke), for
brightening the colour of tuna on the Listserve starting in February of
1999; you can access it from the archives. Appended is an abstract I have of
a paper on measurement of CO in tuna. Also refs to two papers from the same
group on effect of CO on quality and colour of tuna which include data on CO
contents in the samples. The papers are in Chinese. If anyone has a
translation of these into English I would be grateful for a copy.
Let me pose a question prompted by your comments on toxicants in smoke:
If smoking were not traditional and was newly proposed as a method for
preserving fish, or other foods, do you think it would be permitted by the
FDA?
Peter Howgate
*********************************************
Chau-Jen Chow; Ping-Ping Hsieh. Min-Shou Hwang (1998). Quantitative
determination of carbon monoxide residue in tuna flesh. Journal of Food and
Drug Analysis 6 ( I ) 439--145[9 ref. Ch, en] [Nat. Kaohsiung Inst. of
Marine Tech., Kaohsiung, Taiwan]
CO residues were measured in tuna flesh following treatment with CO gas, by
a GC-FID approach in which CO was converted to methane by reduction before
analysis. Sensitivity limit of the method was approx. 20 mg/kg flesh and a
high correlation was observed between response peak area and amount of CO
gas injected. Several samples of tuna, differing in flesh red coloration,
were treated with CO gas for 5 days. Higher CO residues were detected in
flesh containing higher levels of myoglobin, molar ratio of C0:myoglobin
being 11-13%.
Chow, C.-J., Hsieh, P.-P., Tsai, M.-L. & Chu, Y.-J (1998). Quality changes
during iced and frozen storage of tuna flesh treated with carbon monoxide
gas. Journal of Food and Drug Analysis, 6, 615-623.
Hsieh, P.-P., Chow, C.-J., Chu, Y.-J. & Chen, W.-L. (1998). Change in color
and quality of tuna during treatment with carbon monoxide gas. Journal of
Food and Drug Analysis, 6, 605-613.
----- Original Message -----
From: E. Jerry Oliveras, President & Lab Director <jerry@anresco.com>
To: 'Tyre Lanier' <tyre@unity.ncsu.edu>; <seafood@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 2:15 PM
Subject: RE: The Emperor's 'New' Smoke
> Wonderful.
> I wondered when I first became aware of this "process" if we were going to
> ever tell
> the general public - Oh by the way were used one of the toxic components
in
> auto exhaust to
> prepare this fish. Smoking is a process that dates from the caveman,
> people recognize it as
> a flavoring process and somehow accept that while they would not want to
be
> in the smoking room, eating the food from it is OK. They would feel
> differently about that and their BBQ if you listed the carcinogens they
were
> ingesting on the ingredients. Unfortunately I am torn about whether
this
> is really a concern or not. We have been eating the stuff since the first
> man found the charred remains of a deer from a forest fire and sampled it
> (and I am sure it was a man because a woman is smarter than to just eat
any
> old dead animal in the forest).
> I too am concerned the only thing we have done allowing this is to be
> sanctioned by the FDA is to make it easy to mask poor quality.
>
> My big question is "Does anyone have an idea for an analytical method to
> detect this treatment?"
>
> Thanks
>
> Jerry Oliveras
> Laboratory Director
> ANRESCO, Inc.
> San Francisco, CA
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