China blacklists 17 food additives

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- China says it's cracking down on food additives, banning 17 and warning producers it is intent on restoring public trust in the country's food system.

Officials Monday unveiled the blacklist of banned additives, including substances from past food recalls such as melamine, used in infant milk formula, and the cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan red, used to color egg yolks.

New additives also were banned, Xinhua, the state-run Chinese news agency, reported. Those included carbon monoxide, industrial methanol, and opium poppy capsules, a plant from which opium can be extracted.

Notice of the crackdown was published after an extensive joint investigation led by the Chinese Health Ministry, the State Food and Drug Administration and seven other government departments.

The warning was aimed mostly at small food producers, Xinhua said. About 500,000 small companies, most with 10 employees or fewer, account for much of China's diet and they are often under-supervised and do not have self-discipline systems, officials say.