Bambi Eloriaga-Amago
People go gaga over shrimp cocktails, but care to have a round of shrimp jell-o?
A buyer, identified by media as Ms. Zheng, innocently purchased some shrimps from a market in Wenzhou, China. As she was preparing to cook them at home, she noticed a jelly-like substance dripping off of the heads and bodies of the shrimps. Worried about the edibility of the substance, she dared not cook it. Instead, she took the questionable crustaceans to the media. Consequently, the case caught the attention of authorities who promptly launched an investigation.
The vendor, however, denied any knowledge in the seafood scandal, saying he only sources his goods from another retailer. He also claimed to not know what the gooey substance is. A number of vigilant netizens have perused through the shrimp photos, and their opinion on what the substance could be vary, ranging from those thinking it could be adhesive plastic glass to stating that it could just be harmless gelatin.
Some seafood vendors confess that there indeed is a practice of injecting gelatin inside raw shrimp to improve appearance and to increase weight.
