Some Soy Sauces you may want to discontinue using

[Jenise]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1399042.stm

And dang, Pearl River Bridge is one of them.

We've use the Kikkoman soy sauce all our married life......like it very much. Now I use the lo- sodium.

[Robin Garr]

Eeeuuuwww! I've sometimes bought Pearl River Bridge over the years, but usually, like Karen, default to Kikkoman. It may be mass-market, but it's the Japanese standard, and perhaps less likely to be made with less-than-first-world standards.

On the other hand, I love Louisville's own Bluegrass Soy Sauce, made from local ingredients and fermented and aged in used bourbon barrels (!) but it's expensive, subtle, and best used as a flavoring rather than for everyday stir-fry stuff.
http://bourbonbarrelfoods.com/shop/soy- ... ce-5-fl-oz

We use the Kikkoman low sodium sauce as well. I didn't realize these compounds had been such a problem.

I'm not giving up my Pearl River Bridge soy sauce until I hear more about this alleged problem.

-Paul W.

The compounds are both Chloropropanols, and I can believe that they are dangerous.

1, 3 DCP: -> Cl - C - C(OH) - C - Cl (dichloro-propanol)

3 MCPD: -> HO - C - C(OH) - C - Cl (monochloro-propanediol)

Evidently these are sometimes generated in food products -- when you are breaking larger molecules into small molecules like this the results can be unpredictable and it's hard to control what the products will be.

After googling around for "Pearl River Bridge soy sauce", cancer, and cholropropanol, I discovered that is is old, and very probably obsolete, news.

Jenise's BBC news article is from June 2001. The UK (and other countries) did indeed ban a number of brands of soy sauce, including Pearl River Bridge, for a while. In fact I dimly recall a span of time some years ago when I couldn't find it in the shops in the US. The soy sauce manufacturers (at least some of them) changed their practices and the bans on the brands that comply with WHO regulations regarding cholropropanols have been lifted.

I found an English-language web page on http://www.china.org.ch that says the four Pearl River Bridge products that the British tested and found non-compliant were counterfeits. They would say that, of course. But on the other hand, I have seen fake PRB in oriental grocery stores, with a label that is almost identical to genuine PRB.

Chloropropanols get into soy products (oyster sauce and hoisin sauce can also be affected) when chlorine is used to hydrolyze soy protein--a less expensive short cut than the traditional method. PRB allegedly doesn't use those short cuts.

Bottom line is, this is old news and the brands mentioned in the 2001 BBC article very likely are safe today. The problem is, while there's a lot of articles that list what was banned in 2001, it's hard to find out which brands corrected the problem and had the bans lifted.

Is there anyone out there in the UK, the EU, Australia, or New Zealand who can tell us whether Pearl River Bridge is for sale in shops in their countries? It is for sale in the USA.

-Paul W.

Is there anyone out there in the UK, the EU, Australia, or New Zealand who can tell us whether Pearl River Bridge is for sale in shops in their countries? Is is for sale in the USA.

Not what you asked, but it is for sale in Canada. It's my soy sauce of choice.

Thanks, Ted. I asked about UK, EU, Australia, and New Zealand because they all took it off the shelves back in 2001. If it's back on the shelves there, it would mean that the manufacturer corrected the problem.

For what it's worth, Pearl River Bridge soy sauce says on the label that it is naturally brewed, and the ingredients list is the traditional soy beans, wheat flour, salt, and water (plus sugar for the dark soy sauce). The light soy sauce also has one of the standard food preservatives (BHA or BHT or one of that lot--don't remember the specific one). The label says "refrigerate after opening" but I haven't found that to be necessary.

-Paul W.

Thanks, Ted. I asked about UK, EU, Australia, and New Zealand because they all took it off the shelves back in 2001. If it's back on the shelves there, it would mean that the manufacturer corrected the problem.
.

I looked in my larder and found two bottles of Pearl River Bridge Soy sauce

One - unopened Superior Soy Sauce
Ingredients - Water, extract of soya beans, wheat flour, salt

Second - third used Superior Dark Soy Sauce
Naturally Brewed
Ingredients: Water, soya beans, salt, sugar, wheat flour

to my surprise No. 1 is 'Best Before Dec 1995', No. 2 is 'Best Before 31/08/2004