The Consumers Council on Monday warned shoppers to choose cooking oils carefully, after finding contaminants or carcinogens in some popular supermarket and department store products.
The watchdog tested 50 samples of cooking oil and found that all but three contained one or more harmful contaminants, while around 60 percent contained carcinogenic substances.
In two samples, he said, levels of genotoxic carcinogens exceeded European Union safety standards.
Vice chairman of the council’s research and testing committee, Lui Wing-cheong, said consumers should pay attention to nutrition labels and switch products from time to time.
“When selecting cooking oil, in addition to paying attention to the information on the packaging and selecting products with high nutritional value, consumers are also urged to change their oil products regularly to ensure a balanced intake of nutrients. Louis said.
He advised people to reduce the use of high-temperature cooking methods that require a large amount of oil, to avoid health risks.
Separately, the council said it had received 522 complaints about food delivery platforms in the first half of this year, 30 per cent more than in the same period last year.
In particular, complaints about monthly subscription plans or membership schemes saw an increase.
The council said that in one case, a consumer had unknowingly been paying a monthly subscription fee for eight months, spending around HK$800 in total.
The council’s chief executive, Gilly Wong, urged food delivery platforms to improve transparency.
“It is very important that you have done them [customers] Get really clear terms and conditions before they hit the sign up button for their trial month subscription or confirm their subscription. If it’s too hidden in the terms and conditions in the fine print on your website, it may not be very desirable from a business practices standpoint,” he said.
Wong also reminded users of the service to carefully read the terms and conditions before committing to any monthly subscription plan.
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