China is once again dealing with a food safety scare after authorities in the city of Shenyang seized 40 tonnes of bean sprouts that had been treated with a number of banned substances.
A report in the Legal Daily newspaper stated the bean sprouts had been treated with sodium nitrate and urea, as well as antibiotics and a plant hormone called 6-benzyladenine.
The haul represented about a third of the total volume of bean sprouts in the city’s markets at that time.
Police arrested 12 people in relation to the seizure over a period of three days last week, reported the Associated Press.
In recent years there have been several high profile food safety scandals in the country, including the discovery in 2008 of baby formula tainted with melamine, which caused the death of six children and sickened a further 300,000.
According to the Legal Daily the bean sprouts were bathed in the chemicals to make them grow bigger and look more attractive to consumers, to generate increased profits.
Treating bean sprouts with toxic chemicals has been an ongoing problem in the city, the newspaper reported, and was the subject of a local media report three years ago. Despite the media attention authorities failed to crack down on the problem.
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