Here’s how ethylene oxide got into your instant noodles

Most of y’all would’ve heard by now that the Taipei Department of Health has found ethylene oxide in a batch of the Malaysian-made Ah Lai White Curry Noodle alongside a batch of the Indonesian Indomie: Special Chicken flavor. Today, our Ministry of Health has announced that Mi Sedaap contains the same substance – 11 samples out of 36 products have been found with ethylene oxide after testing began last year.

Ethylene oxide, for the non-chemistry students out there, is a substance that can cause certain types of cancer, specifically lymphoma and leukemia. But how did this cancer-causing agent end up in these instant noodles?

Ethylene oxide is used to sterilize foods in some countries

Prior to the 1990s, ethylene oxide has been used in the food industry as a fumigant – a gas that disinfects a thing or a place. It used to be the bees knees, cuz it was a simple way to kill bacteria, fungi and insects without affecting the food in a major way, unlike for example, using heat to sterilize the food. It’s also been used to fumigate containers on ships.

But just because it doesn’t affect the food itself doesn’t it there’s no effects whatsoever. The European Union and the UK have banned the use of ethylene oxide for its cancer-causing properties. Unfortunately, it’s still being used in some parts of the world, including Canada, the United States, and India.

At this point, you might’ve connected the dots…

The grains used to make instant noodles might be contaminated by ethylene oxide

Ethylene oxide is known to have been used to fumigate cereals, like wheat, rice, barley and oats. And wouldn’t you know it, wheat flour and rice are ingredients in the three brands of instant noodles we mentioned earlier. So, yeah, the contamination might have come from that, but honestly, this is just our theory.

And despite the fact that the Ministry of Health has ordered the company behind the Ah Lai White Curry Noodle to recall all of their products, no such announcement has been made for Mi Sedaap… which is worrying.

More worryingly, this might mean that the ethylene oxide issue might be more widespread than we initially thought, and if y’all wanna be safe, just wash your produce and rice before you eat/cook them.