Imported Jelly Cups could pose choking hazard

The Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA) today issued a warning that an imported jelly product known as 'jelly cups' should not be given to Australian children under the age of three.

This advice follows a report that a 21/2 year old girl from Queensland required immediate first aid after choking on half a jelly cup.

ANZFA has also received information from overseas revealing that two children from Taiwan and one from Canada died after choking on these jelly products.

Jelly cup style products are a popular food mainly sold through Asian food stores. The jelly cups are known as 'konnyaku' which are manufactured from a taro-like tuber from the konnyaku plant. This type of product is imported from many Asian countries.

They are not inherently unsafe to most people, only to young children where the products may become lodged in their throats and may prove difficult to remove because of the consistency of the jelly.

Many packages currently being imported carry statements to the effect that the food may be a choking hazard to young children.

Parents should be alert to the dangers of jelly cups to children under approximately four years of age and should exercise control over the distribution of this food product within their families.

Individual jelly cups are about the size of an individual serving of airline or motel milk, with a tear-back foil or plastic top.

Jelly cups usually contain pieces of fruit enclosed in a shell of jelly.