Nuclear institute to detect fake vinegar

MANILA, Philippines — Recent tests have shown, that about 70 percent of vinegar sold in the market is adulterated or “fake.”

The Department of Science and Technology will be tapping its agency the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) in the fight against “fake vinegar.”

Raymond Sucgang, PNRI senior science research specialist and convenor of the consultative working group on vinegar, said a policy paper will be sent to the Food and Drug Administration to persuade the FDA to change the testing process to identify vinegar adulterated with industrial grade acetic acid.

Sucgang said the current testing being done by the FDA has been unable to identify adulterated vinegar. The PNRI has developed a nuclear-based testing technique that does the work.

Sucgang said their testing of more than 300 brands in the market showed that seven out of 10 brands were adulterated with industrial grade acetic acid.

The coordination with the FDA is being pursued even as the working group comes up with a product standard.

“Due to the lack of a vinegar standard prescribing quality and safety parameters for the manufacture and sale of vinegar, industrial or technical grade acetic acid intended for synthesis of vinyl acetate and other synthetic materials has been used to make aqueous solutions which are sold as vinegar,” Sucgang said.

“The prices of the synthetic blends can be so low that they do not allow any price competition with the available authentic vinegars,” he said.