Mysuru: The city has been hit by artificial eggs, allegedly made of plastic. The case of fake eggs came into light after a resident of Hootagalli KHB Colony purchased eggs from a shop yesterday noon.
Nagaraju, a security guard at IT major Infosys, purchased two eggs from a shop to prepare egg fried rice. According to Nagaraju, the moment he broke the egg to mix it with rice, an oil-like substance came out. He said that though the eggs had a yolk-like substance, it did not smell like egg.
As he mixed the eggs to the rice, the usual flavour and texture was missing with the oil-like substance remaining in that state. Nagaraju then came back to the shop and complained to the shopkeeper who gave him another two eggs which were fine.
The World Wide Web (WWW) and the social media term these eggs as ‘Chinese’ eggs and some reports suggest that they are coming in from Tamil Nadu. Both the real and fake eggs look similar. However, on closely observing, one can find that the shell of the fake egg is slightly harder and rougher than that of a real one and there is a rubbery lining inside the shell.
Fake eggs do not have the typical smell and do not attract ants or flies and when you fry a fake egg, the yolk spreads without being touched unlike a real egg.
These fake eggs are made by mixing sodium alginate to warm water, and then adding gelatin, alum and benzoic acid to the mixture. The same mixture is used to make both the yolk and white, by adding a yellow colouring agent. To make the fake egg membrane calcium chloride is added to it. The shell is made from calcium carbonate, paraffin wax and gypsum powder.
This post was published on May 30, 2017 6:39 pm