Vendors use formalin to keep seafood and vegetables looking fresh, and avoiding consuming it isn't as easy as some say.

It is really incredible that the Department of Medical Sciences at the Ministry of Public Health has stated that fresh food treated with formalin can be made safe for consumption by washing and cooking. One high-ranking department official explained in detail that formalin is water-soluble, and that when it is present in fresh foods such as seafood, pork, chicken, or vegetables, repeated washing can reduce the quantity, and since most of these foods will be cooked, the heat will make whatever remains safe to eat.

Cheap eats: seafood at a stall in Klong Toey Market, where many vendors are said to use formalin.

A scientist at Chulalongkorn University disputes this claim, saying that formalin is very difficult to wash out. Certain chemicals would have to be used together with water to remove it, and if the substance has penetrated the food, the degree of heat used in cooking food would not be sufficient to neutralise it. The temperature would have to be much higher to have an effect, and it would have to be applied for a much longer period of time.

By making such a statement, it is as if the Department of Medical Sciences was handing criminals a New Year’s present, because a law that has been on the books since 1993 requires imprisonment as punishment for putting formalin into any kind of food.

In the time since that law came into effect I have almost never heard of the department arresting any violators of this law and pursuing a case against them through to its conclusion. Checking various premises is as far as it has gone. Ten years ago, for example, the Department of Medical Sciences found a fish stall at Sam Yan that was selling fresh fish that has been soaked in a formalin solution. They located that stall and that was the end of it. Nothing else happened. Today the stand is still selling their fish as usual.

In the fishing industry, formalin is used to preserve fish right from the start. Big deep-sea fishing boats can stay out at sea for months. Even though they carry large quantities of ice in the hold to keep the catch fresh, this still isn’t enough for such long periods of time, so the fish are stored in both ice and formalin. Once the fish have been brought back to shore, there are traders who sell the catch on to retail shops and market vendors. They have to consider the transport time required to get the produce to the vendors. They need to keep the fish in good condition until they reach these shops, so there is no way to avoid the use of formalin. Once they have reached the market, the fish that are not sold immediately quickly go back into the formalin. By the time they are bought by consumers, the chemical has saturated right through to the bone.

For this reason, the best way to buy seafood is to purchase it directly from a fishing boat as it pulls in to the shore. But probably not even 5% of consumers looking for seafood are able to do that.

Market vendors are also serious offenders when it comes to exposing consumers to formalin, as well as many inexpensive food shops who selfishly cut as many corners as possible. The people who take the hit from all of this behaviour are the customers who eat the food, especially less affluent people who have to economise when eating out.

Cheap restaurants often feature tom yam or tom saep dishes (sour and hot soups and salads made with chilli and lime juice) on the menu, made with “mixed seafood”. This mixed seafood usually consists of fish, squid, shrimp, and shellfish that did not sell at the market and were chopped up and mixed together, then preserved in formalin before being sold on. One market that sells large quantities of this product to cheap restaurants is the one at Klong Toey.

Nowadays the use of formalin has also spread to sellers of vegetables that spoil or wilt quickly, or those that that are chopped or sliced prior to sale, like ginger and the aromatic root called krachaai. This pre-slicing and chopping is done for customers who make inexpensive food for sale, as well as for less than fastidious cooks who are lazy and unwilling to do the cutting for themselves. Klong Toey market is also the place to go for these products.

The announcement by the Department of Medical Sciences that formalin can be removed from food products by washing, and that this washing makes them safe, is a boon for seafood and vegetable vendors, a way out for them that allows them to tell customers that they need not be alarmed by the old belief that formalin causes cancer.

It might be compared with the easy out that has been provided for those who destroy forests. It is illegal to damage natural forest land, with its streams and water sources, but if the violator plants crops that will be sent to animal feed factories, it’s permitted. Like the formalin claim, it offers a loophole for criminals.

The Department of Medical Sciences may have meant that customers who buy different kinds of fresh food that they suspect may contain formalin should wash the produce thoroughly several times, but the truth is that many of them will be using it to make food for sale. Most won’t bother to wash the food, or at best give it a quick rinse to save time and labour and keep the water costs down.

Some examples of things to watch out for are shops that sell joke muu (rice porridge with seasoned minced pork) or plaa nueng sii iew (steamed fish with soy sauce). Both are served with shredded fresh ginger, and one thing that is certain is that very few food shop that buy pre-shredded ginger will bother to wash it before use.

All of this goes to show that the Department of Medical Sciences have no time for blocking the use of formalin in the food industry at any point. All they suggest is that end consumers wash the food.

So this New Year the department will have no gift to present to the general public. They are saving the bounty to present as a lavish present for the criminals who soak in formalin the food that will be eaten by trusting consumers who have no awareness of the danger to which they are being exposed.