Bottled water quality report featured in Consumer Report 323

The newly published issue no. 323 Consumer Report features two reports on the quality of bottled water, and nutrition facts label of chips and crisps. Consumers may check the reports on the Consumer Council’s website (www.consumer.gov.mo) or WeChat account.

Attention on bottled water quality

The Consumer Council and the Department of Food Safety of The Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) co-tested the quality of 30 different bottled water, including mineral water, distilled water and soda water. One sample of soda water is found to contain a level of 0.0462 mg/L of bromate, exceeding Macao’s GL 001 DSA 2018 “General Hygiene and Quality Guidelines on Bottled Drinking Water.

Bromate is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as Group 2B carcinogen, which means it can cause cancer in human. The Department of Food Safety of IAM has already adopted measures to safeguard consumers’ health, including requesting the vendor to stop sale of the product, the issue of food alert and follow-up on the circulation of the product on the market. The quality of other samples of bottled water are all satisfactory.

Review on nutrition facts label of chips and crisps

The Council collected 19 samples of chips and 11 samples of crisps from the market to check their nutrition facts label, reviewing their contents of calorie, protein, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sodium and sugar. Consumers will be able to use the consolidated data to calculate how much they should eat in order to avoid over intake of different kinds of fats.

Details of the above reports are now available in the latest issue of Consumer Report, consumer alert on the related food and beverage items are also included.

Risk of prepayment consumption

A consumer alert on prepayment consumption is featured in the current issue, consumers are reminded to pay attention to the involved risk and other matters.

An interview on one of the “Class A Certified Shop” of 2019, and information and details of the Council’s 4-Panel Comic Drawing Competition can also be found in the current issue.

Consumers may access the magazine on the Council’s official website and WeChat official account. Consumer Report is also available free of charge at the Council (Av. Horta e Costa, N.º 26, Edf. Clementina Ho), and the service counter of the Council at Macao SAR Government Service Centre (Rua Nova da Areia Preta, Nº52), Public Information Centre at Vicky Plaza, libraries, and bookstores.

For enquiry, please call 8988 9315.

Date:2020-07-29