Sudan 1: What every parent should know

Our essential survival guide to the UK's convenience food crisis

by our processed food correspondent

The shock news that more than 350 tasty convenience food products — representing 98.7 per cent of the average Briton's diet — have been contaminated with the killer Sudan 1 dye has caused a wave of panic to sweep the UK in which terrified customers have fought with bare fists to secure the last packet of non-carcinogenic low-fat, fun-sized oven chips before the entire nation is reduced to an Ethiopian-style diet in which nothing at all is prepared in a microwave oven.

Sudan 1 is commonly used to colour petrol for the novelty gasoline market. It does not represent a health risk as long as it is mixed with petrochemical products and burnt in internal combustion engines. However, exposure to as little as 0.001 micrograms in an otherwise nourishing bottle of Worcester sauce increases the consumer's chances of developing cancer by an estimated 0.548 per cent. Chillingly, this risk rises to 0.561 per cent in children who are particularly sensitive to food additives.

However, we at The Rockall Times would like to assure parents that there remain many delightful alternatives to Worcester Sauce Flavoured Spicy Pot Noodle and Healthy Eating Beef and Ale Casserole Featuring Worcester Sauce of Olde England. Below, our nutritional experts have prepared a handy Q&A which will arm parents with all the facts essential to ensure their kiddies' survival at this time of national crisis:

My boy loves his Thin & Crispy Pizza with Pepperoni and Worcester Sauce. Now they tell me it could kill him. What the hell am I supposed to do?

Stay calm. There are literally dozens of alternatives to pre-cooked meals which will help your son through the temporary withdrawal of processed-meat-product-topped dough discs.

Oh yeah? Name one.

Fruit.

I've heard of that. How many minutes in the microwave?

No, you can eat it raw. Apples are good.

You must be joking. I'm not letting my child eat something which just fell off a tree. God alone knows what he might catch.

Well, they can be washed under the tap.

Forget it. My hectic lifestyle doesn't allow for washing raw fruit under the tap. The way we live today demands delicious, convenient packaged ready meals.

Ok. Try potatoes. They come in their own packaging which can be removed using a knife facilitating subsequent cooking.

Don't take the piss. Everyone knows that potatoes grow on low-fat chip trees and are harvested already in handy, family-sized bags ready to pop in the oven.

Sorry, you're right.

Exactly. And don't start giving it some of that "if you're on a tight budget, pasta is a great way filling hungry tummies". Do you have any idea how much a tin of sea urchin flavoured cook-in pasta sauce with sun-dried tomato and extra virgin mozzarella costs? That's before you factor in the impact on your electricity bill of heating the whole thing up in the microwave.

A fair point. Of course, there are many nutritious products which can be eaten cold...

Right. How do you think my lot would survive a school day without vitamin-packed cheesy lucheables featuring ham-substitute diskettes, washed down with lashings and lashings of Sunny D?

Sunny D?

You're not going to tell me that Sunny D causes cancer?

No — only the Worcester sauce variety.

Don't like that. I prefer the strawberry one. It's really delicious and one glass contains 93 per cent of your child's daily requirement of E-numbers, sugar and artificial sweeteners.

Yes, and it's such good value, too.

Exactly. My tight budget, coupled to the hectic lifestyle which modern mums lead doesn't allow much time for informed choice. It's all very well the government waffling on about a nation of fat 11-year-olds suffering heart attacks and strokes, but when I need to get the week's shopping in it's much easier for me to grab those products which have dedicated substantial resources to television advertising. After all, if they've got the money to shoot these commercials then someone must be buying the stuff — and not all their kids can be fat, can they? And anyway, you'd think that any obesity would be nicely balanced by the wasting effect of cancer provoked by eating too many American-style BBQ Ribs with an authentic Worcester sauce flame-grilled Flavor.

So, you're suggesting that childhood cancer may be a solution to the burgeoning obesity question?

In moderation, yes, although I think it should be up to parents if they want their kids to have cancer or not. Who the bloody hell allowed killer Worcester sauce to get into the processed food chain anyway?

A company called Premier Foods used chilli powder which contained Sudan 1 to make a batch of contaminated Worcester sauce.

So they're to blame, then?

No. Premier Foods had been assured that the powder did not contain Sudan 1.

Ah, that's ok then. I'd hate the wrong people to get their 'nads served up on a plate for a simple mistake. Could happen to anyone.

Indeed. It's sad that in the hectic, litigious way we live today, some people may seek legal redress against Premier Foods.

That's bloody ridiculous. Anyway, I've got to pop something in the microwave for the kids. Any suggestions?

Why not try Old Capt'n Rockall's Haddock and Stormy Petrel Bake? It's prepared using only the finest ingredients.

I see — it doesn't actually contain any haddock or stormy petrel at all, then?

Correct. Just condensed essence of haddock (one per cent), allusion of stormy petrel breast (two per cent), rehydrogenated bread substitute (95 per cent), colourants E101, E102, E103, E107-438 and industrial seafood preservative E666.

Terrific. Want chips with that?

Only if they're low-fat. I'm trying to lose a couple of stone.

Tell me about it. I just wish I had more time in my hectic, modern lifestyle to shift some of this lard off my arse. Ketchup?

No thanks, just pass me the Worcester sauce.

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