Yuck! Formaldehyde and borax found in food at Bali Arts Festival

The ongoing Bali Arts Festival in Denpasar has people gathering to witness some of the best of Bali’s culture like its traditional dances and ceremonies. 

However, some festival-goers have unfortunately also got a rotten taste in their mouths after the Indonesian Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BBPOM) Denpasar discovered food from a number of different vendors there that tested positive for the chemicals formaldehyde and borax. 

Head of BBPOM Denpasar Endang Widowati said Tuesday on the sidelines of the 38th annual festival to Antara Bali that the results came after the agency tested 32 different food samples from 11 vendors participating in the festival’s culinary set up. 

“It turns out that there were four samples containing dangerous materials, two positive samples of kerupuk that were positive for borax and sate lillit and other fish sate skewers that contained formaldehyde,” Widowati said. 

The kerupuk apparently came from two different vendors, while the sate skewers came from one vendor. 

“The results of these tests will be re-examined in the laboratory because this is the initial test, or initial identification,” Widowati explained. 

He added that the agency will also try to trace the dicey fish back to the vendor’s supplier—the fish sate vendor apparently said they didn’t add anything to the fish and that’s how it came. 

Widowati says BBPOM will go back to provide additional training to vendors about the long term impact of consuming food with such hazardous chemicals.

“The free radicals that enter into the human body can trigger cancer. They can progressively accumulate” and you can see problems five to ten years into the future, he explained. So take that and chew on it. 

Meanwhile, Bali Head of Marine Life and Fisheries I Made Gunaja said vendors found out selling food containing hazardous chemicals will be reprimanded and if they are found to repeat the offense, their culinary stand will be removed from the festival. 

“We will be intensifying our sample testing of food solve by involving BBPOM and the Health Department, to prevent people from being harmed,” Gunaja said.