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May 7, 2018

 

Bizarre banned foods Bizarre banned foods: ketchup is banned from French schools most days of the week.

From chewing gum to tomato ketchup, the list of bizarre banned foods from around the world makes for compelling reading.

It's Bank Holiday Monday which means that many of us will be wishing that the government had already taken action and banned badly cooked sausages, insufficiently cooked chicken thighs and other great British barbeque crimes.

In different countries around the world, other governments have put rather more curious foods on the banned list.

Kitchen retailer Magnet have compiled a list of bizarre banned foods.

One of the most unusual examples of a bizarre banned food is just over the English Channel. In October 2011, it was widely reported that French lawmakers agreed to ban ketchup and mayonnaise in primary schools on all but one day each week.

Even then, the story goes, it can only be served when there are chips on the plate. Apparently, the ban was caused by concerns that French youngsters were losing touch with traditional French cuisine. The great fear was that they were using the red stuff to mask the taste of proper French food. Sacre bleu!

Bizarre banned foods: chewing gum

Famously, Singapore banned chewing gum in 1992. This had nothing to do with the government cracking down on the sight and sound of people actually chewing the gum and everything to do with the clear up costs associated with removing used gum from the pavements.

Apparently, the laws have been relaxed recently to allow medicinal gums sold by dentists. Even so, you won't catch us masticating a mouthful of Hubba Bubba in Singapore anytime soon.

Much of North America takes a dim view of importing offal. This means that haggis banned. This is bad news for Scottish haggis manufacturers looking to crack potentially lucrative American markets.

On the other hand, it is great news for journalists with lots of empty pages to fill. Sensationalised stories of haggis-smuggling rings are a sure fire page-filler round about Burns Night every year.

Bizarre banned foods: salt and pepper

Of course, lots of countries ban foods or ingredients for health concerns. Genetically modified foods are banned in much of Europe. Meanwhile, in Australia and New Zealand, the authorities won't allow the import of farmed fish on the grounds that, in many parts of the world, they are fed synthetic astaxanthin which gives the meat its bright pink colour.

Our favourite food ban is out of this world. Literally. In space, the absence of gravity means that salt and pepper would hang around in the air once spilled from the shaker.

This would raise the possibility of the seasoning clogging up air vents or even getting into astronaut’s eyes. As a result, astronauts can't sprinkle salt and pepper on their food. Instead, they're able to get their daily dose of salt and pepper through infused liquids.

Enjoy the rest of your Bank Holiday and look out for those undercooked bangers.