"I Will Never Eat It" Growing Local Anxiety Over Chinese Napa Cabbages: How Dangerous Are They?

[Anchor]

As napa cabbages soaked in formaldehyde, a Group 1 carcinogen, have been distributed in China, anxiety among domestic consumers regarding Chinese kimchi is also growing.

Reporter Park Ha-jeong investigated how dangerous this is and what the current situation is in South Korea.

[Reporter]

At a supermarket in Seoul, kimchi is being sold at a special ultra-low price; this kimchi was manufactured in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China.

It is difficult to know where the napa cabbages used as ingredients were cultivated.

[Importer Representative: It is indeed Chinese kimchi. It is manufactured in a HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) certified factory.]

Of the 194,400 tons of kimchi imported this year, 99.9% came from China.

As it was belatedly revealed that napa cabbages in Hebei Province, China, were distributed after being soaked in a formaldehyde solution for the purpose of maintaining freshness, the anxiety has spread to South Korea as well.

[Kim Tae-young: I am going to absolutely avoid eating kimchi when going to restaurants. You can basically assume that restaurants use Chinese kimchi.]

[Lee Eun-young: I think I will avoid purchasing kimchi if the country of origin is labeled as Chinese napa cabbage, at least for the time being.]

Formaldehyde exists as a colorless and transparent gas at room temperature, and when dissolved in water, it becomes a formalin solution.

It is used in the manufacture of adhesives and preservatives, and was designated as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer under the World Health Organization in 2004.

A causal relationship between human exposure and carcinogenesis has been confirmed when formaldehyde is "inhaled" in a gaseous state.

[Kwon Soon-chan / Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Soonchunhyang University Cheonan Hospital: The evidence for carcinogenicity is based on occupational inhalation exposure. This includes nasopharyngeal cancer and leukemia, particularly myeloid leukemia.]

While the carcinogenicity of ingesting formaldehyde has not yet been established, that does not mean it is safe.

Consuming a high concentration of formalin all at once can cause burns to the mucous membranes in the mouth or esophagus, or lead to shock.

There are also reports that ingesting 30 ml of a 37% formalin solution can be fatal to an adult.

[Choi Yoon-ju / Senior Researcher at the Cancer Prevention Division, National Cancer Center: (Adding it to food) itself is a problem, I would say. However, as it goes through processes such as removing the roots of the napa cabbage, washing it in water, or boiling it, some of it may evaporate, which could alter the health impacts.]

Unless it is ascertained how much formaldehyde was used in the problematic Chinese napa cabbages and whether they were exported to South Korea, anxiety among domestic consumers is unlikely to subside easily.

(Video Editing: Jung Yong-hwa, Design: Kim Han-gil, VJ: Shin So-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.