Two-Year-Old Medicinal Wine Yields 'Plastic Seahorse'
"When Lit with a Lighter, It Smelled Like Burning Plastic"
A Chinese man has sparked controversy after discovering that the seahorse used as an ingredient in medicinal liquor (alcohol fermented with various medicinal herbs) he brewed two years ago for health purposes was actually made of plastic.
According to reports from major foreign media on the 12th (local time), Mr. Wang, who lives in Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, recently tried to drink the "seahorse medicinal liquor" he brewed at home two years ago. The medicinal liquor was made by putting several seahorses, purchased for 30 yuan per pair from an acquaintance, along with various medicinal herbs.
However, Mr. Wang felt something was wrong when he cleaned the liquor jar after drinking the medicinal liquor. Unlike the other medicinal herbs, the seahorse did not break down.
He immediately took out the seahorse and pulled it, and it stretched long enough that it did not look like it had been fermented for a long time. When Mr. Wang lit the seahorse with a lighter, it emitted the smell of burning plastic.
Realizing he had been scammed, Mr. Wang posted this fact on Weibo, the Chinese version of X (formerly Twitter), warning others to "be careful when buying medicinal herbs."
Netizens who saw this reacted with comments such as "Is there any food made with real ingredients?", "Those who tamper with food will be punished," and "This is real technology. Amazing."
Meanwhile, the Chinese food industry has been repeatedly embroiled in hygiene controversies. In September, a worker at the third Qingdao Brewery factory in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, was filmed urinating in the malt storage area, causing an uproar. This controversy caused the company to lose a market capitalization of 6.7 billion yuan (about 1.2 trillion won).
Last month, a thick iron wire about 1.5 cm long was found in the student cafeteria of Jiaotong University, a prestigious university in Shanghai, and on the 4th, a rat was found in a sauce container served at the cafeteria of a vocational technical college in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, sparking further controversy.
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