DANGER OF USING TRANSFORMER OIL FOR DEEP FRYING FOOD

THE December 29th 2006 edition of the daily Bangladesh News carried a headline titled “Toxic Transformer oil used for frying food.” According to the edition, the presence of poisonous oil was found in deep fried food items sold in road side shops in the capital. Traces of PCBs; a chemical used to make transformer oil were also found in blood samples.

According to experts, transformer oil containing PCBs can cause terrible nausea, eye and respiratory tract irritation, dehydration, weight loss, cyanosis and altered function of the neuromuscular system, liver, kidneys and pancreas. It is estimated that PCBs can remain in fatty cells of a human body up to 120 years with a possibility of altering the DNA structure of an affected person and traces of it can be transferred to offspring. Before I go any further, let me make some general comments about transformer oil.

Transformer oil, which is also called Insulating Oil is specifically blended to provide an electrical insulation in a transformer. Further, it also helps to cool a transformer otherwise transformers would get extremely hot and explode. Transformer oil is transparent, colourless, and odourless. In appearance, its looks like baby oil. Water contamination in transformer oil can lead to tragic consequences as water is a good conductor of electricity. In order to perform its function, transformer oil possesses excellent properties and must remain stable even at high temperatures. PCBs seemed to be the perfect and suitable choice and were widely used. Worried by devastating consequences of PCBs, pressure mounted to find an alternative base oil to use in transformers.

Serious concerns about the toxicity of PCBs have led to their banning in many countries. In Zambia, transformers containing these toxic and dangerous compounds have been decommissioned and access to them seriously restricted. The Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) in conjunction with ZESCO did a fantastic job on this issue. The discovered alternative to the use of PCBs is a naphthenic crude oil derivative which has outstanding properties to use in transformer oil.

Although, most countries no longer use PCBs, the alternative oil which is crude oil derivative is also not edible oil. With a liberalised market and imports flooding African markets, one can only hope that unscrupulous traders do not knowing or unknowingly import transformer oil containing PCBs. Although transformer oil comes in drums, it can also be imported in smaller packs to suit smaller applications such as capacitors. This can be a night mare control at borders.

In a number of African countries including Zambia, transformers have been vandalised so as to drain transformer oil. It is believed that drained transformer oil is used to deep fry food stuffs or mixed with edible cooking oil and sold to unsuspecting consumers as cooking oil. At a special Kenol-Kobil sponsored lubricants training held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2004, I learnt that vandalising transformers with a view to draining oil was not only happening in Zambia but was happening in several African countries. Weeks after this training, a friend of mine from a different African country hinted on this horrific vice in his home country too.

He hinted on this while having dinner with me at a hotel in Jerusalem, Israel. This is criminal and very dangerous. While transformer oil has the purity and excellent properties of stability; meaning it can be reused to deep fry for several months without disintegrating, it still remains a derivative of crude oil. Crude oil is not edible oil! Not only does transformer vandalisation cost electricity companies millions of US dollars, but it also puts lives of people at peril. It cannot be over emphasised deeper than this. Transformer oil is not edible. In fact, if oil containing PCBs was to be eaten, catastrophic effects, on health could result. If you are involved in this treacherous vice, you are also endangering your own life and that of your own loved ones.

Deep fried food stuffs can be sold almost anywhere and you can unknowingly buy these food stuffs for your own consumption. In fact, if this transformer oil that you unscrupulously supply was to find itself with unethical edible oil companies, they would unscrupulously mix it with edible oil; thereby enhancing chances of anyone consuming it including your own family. They unethically mix transformer oil to cooking oil in order to increase profits and the stability of cooking oil at high temperatures. This vice, as a matter of fact transcends African borders.

As a matter of fact, all leading Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have produced what are called Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). These sheets clearly spell out First-Aid measures of what should be done when this oil comes in contact with your eyes, skin, or is inhaled, ingested etc. They instruct to wash the skin thoroughly with soap and water as soon as reasonably practicable and to remove heavily contaminated clothing and to wash the underlying skin.

The same Sheets state that if contamination of the mouth occurs, wash out thoroughly with water, and seek medical attention if ingestion takes place. These Data Sheets do not rule out toxic fumes evolving when transformer oil is combusted or heated. They further state that; “avoid, as far as reasonably practicable, inhalation of vapour, mist or fumes generated during oil combustion. Contact with the skin can cause a condition called dermatitis. Dermatitis is a term covering inflammation of the skin e.g. rashes. No one want rashes in the mouth or in their intestines.

From the above, it can be deduced that transformer oil is not meant for human consumption. This horrendous and criminal activity has had devastating effects on electricity companies and national GDP everywhere it has occurred often time costing millions of US dollars. Even if you are a hard core criminal, you can spare the nation, your own life and the life of your own relatives, friends and work mates. Those transformer oil deep fried chips, chicken and flitters among other foods can be eaten by any unsuspecting consumers including yourself.

Just like the Department of Environment in Bangladesh rose to the occasion to test some randomly selected food stuffs for traces of PCBs, I believe environmentalists elsewhere are capable of doing the same. Probably the Scientific Council can in future help with coming up with a way of testing randomly selected food stuffs for traces of both PCB and ordinary transformer oil. The fact that we have banned the use of PCB based transformer oil in Zambia, that does not mean that unscrupulous traders cannot import it in Zambia. If someone is found selling food stuffs containing traces of transformer oil, they must disclose where they bought the oil from and together with culprits sent to prison. Random testing of deep fried food stuffs is paramount.