Last week, a man posted a video claiming he found long strands of plastic that resembled noodles in a bag of Rice Stick Noodles (banh pho tuoi) produced by Lucky K.T. Co., Inc., a 29-year-old company located in El Monte, California.
Banh Pho Tuoi Rice Stick Noodles are commonly used in Asian cuisine.
(source)
To make his case, the man in the video demonstrated how uncooked noodles burn similar to a candle wick when lit with a lighter, but the plastic noodles from the package the man displayed, which look exactly like real noodles, melted and did not burn when he exposed them to a lighter flame.
“For people out there eating this brand, be very, very careful,” admonished the man in the video who claimed he would be writing the company a letter.
The video quickly went viral with well over three million hits, and garnering over 7,000 comments. According to Real Farmacy.com, health officials attacked the noodle company in 2009 due to traditional methods which require non-refrigeration.
“Ethnic foods are not treated differently from other foods,” said a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health.
According to Lucky K.T.’s agent, Tom A. Thong, they’ve been produced and eaten “[T]his way for thousands of years and we’ve never had a problem. If you put the noodles in the refrigerator it would be ruined.”
Real Farmacy.com suggests the health department’s interactions with Lucky K.T. would be better spent on testing and product screening.
We don’t doubt the video’s validity, because in 2011, The Weekly Hong Kong reported that plastic rice was being distributed in China.
The faux rice was made by combining potatoes and sweet potatoes into the shape of rice grains, then adding industrial synthetic resins as a binding agent.
A Chinese Restaurant Association official said that eating three bowls of this fake rice would be like eating one plastic bag, and added there would be an investigation to determine who is producing the rice.
That industrial resins are toxic when eaten doesn’t stop unprincipled businessmen from making huge profits by wholesaling this rice in China’s food market.
When we reported on this plastic rice in 2011, I suggested then it was only a matter of time before plastic rice — or a variation — made its way into the global market and the U.S., because much of the food the U.S. imports from Asia, which is then sold by U.S. merchants, is not properly inspected.
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