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It’s another potential food scandal in China. It comes after melamine-tainted milk and toxic cooking oil have made people worry about whether their food is safe. This time it’s ginger: Media in Xi’an report that traders are smoking fresh ginger root with sulfur to make it look better, and fetch higher prices. Local media in the Chinese city of Xi’an call it an unwritten rule—food salespeople are smoking ginger with sulfur to give the root a moister and brighter appearance. This product can then be sold for more money. Recently, authorities inspecting a market in Xi’an seized 440 pounds of this sulfur-smoked ginger. A market insider told local media that he believed sixty percent of the ginger on the market in Xi’an had been smoked with sulfur. Sulfur is not toxic, but it can affect liver and kidney function if consumed over a long period of time. NTD News spoke with Dr. Lin Jieliang at Chang Gung Hospital in Linkou, Taiwan about the effects sulfur can have and how to avoid them. [Dr. Lin Jialiang, Chang Gung Hospital, Linkou, Taiwan]: “[Sulfur] will probably strengthen the symptoms of allergies like eczema and cause people to be short of breath. But actually, for these foods that have been contaminated with sulfur, we can just soak them in water before we consume them. Soak them for about 45 to 60 minutes in cold water or 30 minutes if the water is hot.” Dr. Lin says that it is not appropriate to use sulfur in the preparation of food and consumers should smell ginger …
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