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September 6, 2017

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Fresh food isn’t necessarily the safest

PEOPLE tend to choose fresh food to eat, but fresh food doesn’t necessarily mean safe food. Sometimes the freshest food can also incur health issues because some food must be processed before eating, according to Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

To promote food knowledge, Shanghai CDC teamed up with Shanghai Food and Drug Administration to launch lecture and give free consultation to the residents during the Food Safety Week recently.

The center also promoted the knowledge in its public WeChat account, suggesting that milk, jellyfish and fungus are among foodstuffs that are not safe to eat before being processed.

For example, milk that is sold on the market needs to be disinfected to avoid germs that may incur contagious diseases.

Pasteurization is a common disinfection method for milk processing. It preserves milk’s nutrition despite producing milk that has a short shelf life.

Drinking milk directly from cow can be dangerous, because cows carry bacteria and endanger people’s health, experts warned.

Fresh lily contains a substance that can also incur food poisoning symptoms.

It is suggested that you boil, soak and wash it before cooking for safe consumption.

Fresh jellyfish is also poisonous to eat. Consumers are advised to put it in water with salt and alum baking powder for three or four times until it turns to a pale red or yellow color with little water in it.

Fresh black and white fungus are also on the list of unprocessed foods that are not safe to eat.

Fresh black fungus has a light-sensitive substance that can cause skin irritation.

On the other hand, dried black fungus is safe to eat after soaking it in warm or cold water for a few hours.

Moreover, fresh and canned white fungus is a deadly fresh produce for consumers.

Its increased production in 1980s and 1990s has caused multiple food poisoning incidents.

The germs in it can produce poisonous substances that can cause liver and kidney damages or, in the worst case, death. Therefore, white fungus is only safe to eat after it has been dried.




 

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