THE Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will update the country’s vinegar standards, in place for nearly 50 years, in the wake of the controversy sparked by the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute’s (PNRI) revelation that most commercial vinegar brands use synthetic acetic acid, which is harmful to the body.
Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Standards Executive Director Vivencio R. Mamaril told reporters in a news briefing on Monday that PNRI’s findings will be reviewed by the FDA and will be used to update the country’s existing vinegar standards.
Standards for producing commercial vinegar were encapsulated in Administrative Order 134 issued by the Department of Health in 1970. AO 134 prohibited the use of “any artificial matter such as synthetic acetic acid.”
“Moving forward, the PNRI data will have to be studied. Nonetheless, it will not hinder the FDA [from examining] the country’s standards, how it can still be enhanced. The existing administrative order was issued in 1970. So we see here an [opportunity] for us to improve it,” Mamaril said.
Improving the standards, Mamaril said, could mean looking at international limitations when it comes to vinegar production.
However, Mamaril said currently there are no known international standards for vinegar, particularly in the Codex Alimentarius, or the “Food Code” of the Food and Drug Administration-World Health Organization.
He said the government will also look at the possibility of including provisions on whether vinegar should only come from biogenic sources. This can have an implication on the standards for vinegar, which currently prohibit synthetic ascetic acid.
Flerida A. Cariño, former head of the University of the Philippines’s Department of Chemistry, said just because something came from non-biogenic sources does not mean that it should automatically be deemed illegal or harmful to human health.
Cariño explained that in fact, the toxicity or any adverse effects of biogenic or naturally fermented ascetic acid is exactly the same as the synthetic or nonbiogenic kind.
What could possibly threaten human health are the other contents of, in this case, vinegar. These contaminants as well as their effects on human health were not included in the PNRI study.
No market recall—yet
This is also why, Cariño said, there is no basis yet for the government to order a market recall of the commercial vinegar brands, or caution the public against consuming these products.
“We don’t have data yet to say that; there is nothing published nor was there a contaminant found that would have adverse health complications. Right now, what we know is there are vinegar brands that probably have nonbiogenic sources and there are vinegar brands that perhaps came from petroleum products,” Cariño said.
“But as I said, the chemistry is the same, its just depends on where the carbon came from. So I really think we just got carried away. It can be a basis for further assessment of our present standards, maybe for labeling purposes or for consumer preference,” she added.
Researchers from the PNRI used isotope-based analytical techniques to determine that from more than 360 samples of vinegar in the Philippines, 8 out of 10 are made from synthetic acetic acid. The PNRI is an attached agency of the Department of Science and Technology.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes