JAPAN yesterday ordered retailers to pull frozen beans from China off the shelves after a woman fell ill eating a product that had 34,500 times the legal limit of pesticide.
The woman's mouth went numb on Sunday after eating the beans, which she had bought at a Tokyo supermarket, Health Ministry officials said.
She went to hospital and was released with no apparent health problems after an overnight stay.
It is the latest scare surrounding food from China, where four children died recently after consuming milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government conducted tests on the beans yesterday and found they had 34,500 times the pesticide residue level permitted by the Japanese Government.
The importer, Tokyo-based Nichirei Foods, said it sourced the beans from the Yantai Beihai Foodstuff company in eastern Shandong province.
The vegetables were grown in Heilongjiang province in north eastern China where there was no record of any use of pesticides, the importer said.
Food safety is a major issue in Japan, which imports 60 per cent of its food — the highest rate of any rich country.
Agence France-Presse