This should prompt the National Health and Family Planning Commission, as the country's top health watchdog, to exercise prudence when it comes to approving the use of new food additives.

Also, some people's claim that powdered gold will not harm human health is open to debate. Fan Zhihong, an associate professor of nutrition and food safety at China Agricultural University, said more than 20 metals have been confirmed as being essential to human body, but they surely do not include gold.

And talking with a media outlet, Cai Xiaozhen, a nutritionist at a hospital in Jiangsu province, said a large intake of powdered gold is surely detrimental to human health.

The European Union has approved the use of gold foil but only as decorations and external coatings for chocolates and confectionery. In Australia and New Zealand, too, it is used as inedible ornamentation.

Given that the Ministry of Public Health, the predecessor of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, explicitly said in 2011 that powdered gold (or gold foil) is neither a new material for liquors nor can it be used as a food additive in response to an application, the health commission owes the public a convincing explanation for its sudden U-turn.

The author is a senior writer with China Daily. wuyixue@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 02/07/2015 page5)