Health authority seeks opinions on adding gold to Chinese liquor

A bottle of liquor with gold flakes. (File photo)

The National Health and Family Planning Commission, which is responsible for drafting laws and regulations for health and family planning as well as the development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, has published a statement soliciting opinions about the proposal to add gold as a food additive to baijiu, a popular Chinese liquor, according to the Beijing Times on Tuesday on its website.

Only gold leaf with a purity of 99.99 percent can be added to strong Chinese spirits, with a maximum amount of 0.02 grams, the proposal says.

Liquor with gold flakes is hardly a new phenomenon, but it has raised concerns among experts.

Mr Zhao, a liquor lover, says "the price of liquor with gold leaf is around 300 yuan ($47.90) in some regions, while ordinary liquor sells for just dozens of yuan."

"Buying gold leaf liquor is seen as a prestigious thing, but it tastes the same," he says.

Ma Yong, vice president and general secretary of the China Food Industry Association and Liquor Professional Committee, says it doesn't make any sense to add gold leaf to liquor.

Fan Zhihong, an associate professor at the Nutrition and Food Safety department of China Agricultural University, says there are more than 20 elements essential to the human body, but gold is not one of them.

The actual amount of gold contained in a 500 gram bottle of liquor is less than 0.01 gram, which equates to little more than two yuan ($0.3), experts say.