One in three instant-coffee products sold in Hong Kong contains toxic substances, test results by a biotech company showed. Vitargent (International) Biotechnology collected 30 instant-coffee products in 11 brands from supermarkets and online shopping platforms and tested their toxicity in May.
It found that there were toxic substances in 33% of the products, and noted that products of Southeast Asian brands had noticeable worse quality, Sing Tao Daily reported.
The company analyzed the products for acute toxicity, chronic toxicity and banned ingredients, and the samples were categorized as “green fish”, “yellow fish” or “red fish”, which meant, respectively, “excellence”, “basic” and “sub-optimal” in safety. The “red fish” category indicated that the product was below standard in one or more criteria, and consumers were recommended to use extra caution in purchasing it.
According to the results, 13 of the 30 samples were green fish. There were seven yellow fish and 10 red fish.
For most instant-coffee products, actual coffee accounts for only 5-9% of the ingredients, with the rest made up of various additives such as creamer, emulsifier and stabilizer. Only a few products contain 100% real coffee.
The results also showed that instant cappuccino products use significantly more additives than other coffee products.
Vitargent chief executive Jimmy Tao said he believed that additives were the source of toxic substances found in the “sub-optimal” products. He advised consumers to pay extra attention to food labels, which should alert them to high additive content, Apple Daily reported.
How are we to be warned if they didn’t name which product brand?we are no experts when it comes to reading product labels
This is very typical Chinese attitude, why is there a need to post the photo when he alreadg confronted the maid and the latter explained her side of the story already???he really wanted sensationalize it duh!
Name those products so we could avoid it..
Starbucks business is falling so the need for a fear campaign against instant coffee. They do not name any product nor the toxic substances for fear of being sued. Nestle is one of the largest manufacturer of instant coffee. Furthermore you can argue that all processed food and even tap water contain toxic substances.