Formaldehyde-laced noodles and rat meatballs have tainted Indonesian breakfast bowls in recent weeks, shocking consumers already wary of the prospect of eating avian flu-infected poultry or poisoned seafood.

“We’re confused -- what to eat, what to choose?” complained 30-year-old housewife Winanda as she shopped at an air-conditioned supermarket, her trolley filled only with fruit and vegetables and imported milk.

The food scares have rattled Winanda, who now shops here for some items she used to pick up at traditional -- and cheaper -- Indonesian wet markets still dotting the capital.

“Before I often ate noodles but now I’m afraid. I don’t buy fish from the markets anymore and I’m afraid to eat chicken. And tofu -- I don’t want to eat it again, even though I really like it. Now I just eat vegetables,” she said.

In the scandal that has most outraged consumers, Indonesia’s Food and Drug Agency (BPOM) revealed last month that nearly 60 percent of noodles, salty fish, tofu and meatballs sold in Jakarta contained high levels of formaldehyde.

Even tiny amounts of the preservative used to embalm dead bodies can cause breathing difficulties, vomiting, headaches and itchiness. Long-term exposure can cause heart, liver, brain, pancreas and nervous system damage.

The Indonesian media reacted furiously, with the English-language Jakarta Post calling on the government to take swift action.

“Otherwise, Indonesians will not need formaldehyde when they reach the mortuary. They will have already ingested enough through their food,” the paper quipped in an editorial.

A week after BPOM dropped its bombshell, Jakartans were also frightened off eating their staple meatball soup, or bakso, when a local TV station aired a story interviewing a vendor openly admitting to making his balls from rat meat.

Workers at the undisclosed location invited the TV crew to go rat hunting in the gutters with them, and the show’s footage included people tucking into steaming bowls of soup, oblivious to what they were enthusiastically chewing.

“My sales have gone down. It’s really tough now,” moaned bakso vendor Didik as he wheeled his mobile cart through Benhill market in central Jakarta, adding that his earnings had plunged since the show aired.

A bowl typically sells for around 2,000 rupiah (around 20 cents).

Thousands of indignant food peddlers have protested over the scandals hurting their hip pockets, demonstrating outside local parliaments over the formaldehyde accusations and at the TV station, which aired the rat meat expose.

Meanwhile, chicken and duck have also been scratched from the menu, with outbreaks of the potentially deadly bird flu virus centring largely on teeming Jakarta and its surrounds.

Though well-cooked chicken is safe to eat, many Jakartans typically buy poultry at live markets, selecting birds to be slaughtered in front of them.

And seafood is another no-no for the cautious, with the European Union complaining last November that contaminated fish products exported from Indonesia had led to several people being hospitalised in its member states.

“We have had recurrent problems regarding Indonesia’s exports of some food products to the EU markets, and especially fishery products,” EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou admonished at the time.

“These products are short of meeting our standards in terms of public health.”

The formaldehyde scandal has at least galvanised action among police and health officials, who have assembled a joint crack squad to target backyard noodle and tofu producers, said Atiek Herwati, head of the Jakarta BPOM office.

Three backyard noodle-makers have so far been nabbed while a man suspected of using formaldehyde to preserve chicken in Bogor, on the outskirts of Jakarta, was detained by police last week.

If found guilty, they face up to five years’ imprisonment and a two-million-rupiah fine.

Herwati admitted to AFP that Jakarta’s noodles, preserved salty fish, tofu and meatballs have been laced with dangerously high levels of formaldehyde for around five years -- but consumers were left none the wiser.

“Before we used to just warn food producers that using formaldehyde was forbidden. But this process was not effective, so now we not only tell producers but also consumers,” she said.

They face an uphill battle, however, with fishermen who are smarting from hefty fuel price hikes implemented last year pointing out that the chemical is cheaper than ice.

The Indonesian Consumers Foundation has called on authorities to jail offenders and warned that formaldehyde may be just one danger Indonesians are confronting in their food supply.

“This could be the tip of the iceberg,” warned spokeswoman Huzna Zahir, noting for instance that a recent survey by the foundation had found colourful textile dyes in children’s drinks and snacks sold near Jakarta schools.

“Perhaps we’ll find many other cases of banned preservatives and other dangerous substances being used.”