Talk about the 'Chinese plastic eggs' have surfaced in Bengaluru recently. A concerned mother from Whitefield area in the city sent TNM pictures of what looked like plastic eggs.
The egg shells looked brittle and the white and yolk seemed to be like plastic.
A similar scare had prevailed in Kerala last month when people floated the theory that Chinese plastic eggs were being sold in supermarkets.
Many videos surfaced on social media of the ‘fake’ eggs and the rubbery omelets that were prepared with it.
In October, media reports about people across the state complaining that the eggs they bought tasted different, and were also of unusual texture surfaced in Kerala. It was believed that these eggs had been “artificially made in China”.
But later it was proven that the eggs were real and had been imported from Namakkal in Tamil Nadu and not China, The Hindu reported.
The Meat Technology Unit and the Department of Livestock Product Technology under the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Science University in Mannuthy has validated its earlier finding that rumours about Chinese eggs were merely Chinese whispers and that the eggs were indeed real.
What the testing did find however, was that the samples collected were of eggs that were old and rotten.
Former head of the meat technology unit and the department of livestock product technology at veterinary university in Mannuthy, George T Oommen had told TOI that eggs that are stored at 10-12 degree Celsius for a period of two-three weeks start rotting when they are moved to room temperature.
The International Business Times had translated a post by Muralee Thummarukudy, the chief of Disaster Risk Reduction in the UN Environment Programme. In it, he had said that the theory of fake Chinese plastic eggs broke out 10 years ago in China and later reached Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and now India. The theory of using maida and chemicals to make artificial eggs that made people sick and die, has a problem he said.
“He explained that merchants buy eggs at Rs 4 per egg and sell it for Rs 5 and thereby make a profit of Re 1. These merchants will be willing to but artificial eggs only if the dealers offer them for a lesser price. Fake eggs have to be imported after a series of procedures. It will cost at least Rs 5,000 to take a 3D print of an egg.
China does not have a business model of spending Rs 5,000 on one egg and selling it for Rs 5. Also, mass production of artificial eggs is expensive and factories require licenses to operate and have to pay professionals,” IB Times translated his post.