THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Food safety authorities are groping in the dark on the ‘Chinese eggs’ scare, and they are yet to get any customer complaints. A few months ago when the news broke that ‘Chinese eggs’ have invaded the market, scientists at meat technology unit and department of livestock products technology attached to College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Mannuthy, had a hard time testing and analysing it. Dr George T. Oommen, retired professor and head of the LPT department, feels it was just a scare unleashed by the social media.
Syed Ibrahim, a resident of Ambalathara here, bought 15 duck eggs from Chalai market two days ago. When he took it out to cook, his wife found it very odd as the shell was very hard. Though he approached the nearby police stations, Poonthura and Fort, they refused to help him. His family member told DC that due to hartal, they could not lodge a complaint to the food safety officials. But K. Anil Kumar, joint food safety commissioner, told DC that they were yet to receive any complaint.
“We don’t have much knowledge on this issue, and we know only about what the media have reported. The imported poultry products are screened at Chennai port, and it will be difficult to surpass it,” he said. He recalled that a few months ago several duck eggs were sent to the LPT department from Kazhakootam here claiming to be Chinese which was not edible. But Dr Oommen told DC that the ‘duck eggs’ turned out to be ‘chicken eggs’ upon examination which he and his team of scientists ate ‘merrily’ as it was edible.
He said eggs made synthetically will be in uniform size and would have to get the import license from the director general of foreign trade which is a cakewalk. “Whatever being circulated is all false news by the social media. If the egg merchants keep them in a freezer, its yolk tends to get frozen, and its consistency would change forever. Even if you thaw the egg, the actual consistency will not be retained. Eggs come in different sizes and would have a different chemical composition,” he said.
