Chefs stunned: Chinese reveal mystery omelette; eggs still intact!

[Provost Harrison]

Well we have seen just how unscrupulous some of these Chinese "businessmen" can be...look at the number of cough medicines made with ethylene glycol - nasty stuff. I think we should all be aware of what we are buying.

[Lancer]

Be fair. If you use their cough syrup you stop coughing.

[Wezil]

[Provost Harrison]

smartarse

[Lancer]

"smartarse"

We all need a purpose.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
It's less likely to kill you.

Maybe not in one serving. But diabetes, coronary disease, and obesity aren't something to cheer about.

[Winston]

As it turns out, the story may be an urban legend. Or not, it may be perfectly true. Some doubts surfaced yesterday within one of the central sources for the article, the Danish customs authority. Apparently they were very busy taking calls from people who were certain that the story was itself a fabrication.

There's a long article on this at the site I linked to - more than three times the size of the original one. I'm not going to translate that..

Link to new story (in Danish).

The essence of it is the following quote from the Customs Task Force guy, Lars Kryger Nielsen: "A lot of people called to inquire whether the story was true. I cannot be one hundred percent certain and claim that these false eggs exist. I can only tell you that we learned of them from the EU. So this is a case of second hand information, and we haven't actually seen any faked eggs ourselves. Some people claim that it's an urban legend, and at this point I can neither confirm nor deny that claim."

Will you be taking any further investigative action into the matter?

"No, I'm afraid we're not going to know for certain. We can't get to the original source for it. My information is based on newspaper articles which were provided by an official with the European Commission."

The site has been unable to get a reaction from any Chinese authorities, as all government offices are closed for the week in observance of the Chinese National Day on 1 October.

But it is noted that China is notorious for having fraud problems with basic foodstuffs. In 2004, at least 13 babies died in Anhui province after being fed for months fake condensated milk which contained no nutrition. In 2005, a food scandal hit the metropolis Chongqing, known for its spicy fondue. It turned out that several restaurants were adding the poisonous colouring Sudanese Red, which is used for painting marine vessels, into their fondues to produce the desired red hue.

---

I would personally file this under "to be determined.." At the same time, I have no doubts that the Chinese are in fact fully capable of such large scale fraud.

Meanwhile, it would appear that one customs official is left with a good amount of some undetermined, egg-like substance on his face..

[Blake]

I bet there's an easy way to test if the egg is really an egg.

While not wearing a ring, attempt to crush the egg with your hand.
If it's a real egg it will not be crushed, unless you're some kind of brute (or have ignored the part about not wearing a ring).

But the cheap Chinese imitation eggs will crush easily .

[b etor]

i've crushed an egg with my hand before. i never wear rings, they annoy me. and i'm so not a brute.

[-Jrabbit]

This is all part of China's global PR campaign to raise awareness of their exports. First it was counterfeit goods, then products with high lead content, now fake food.

Remember, any PR is good PR -- as long as they're talking about you.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Blake
I bet there's an easy way to test if the egg is really an egg.

While not wearing a ring, attempt to crush the egg with your hand.
If it's a real egg it will not be crushed, unless you're some kind of brute

Have you attempted this? I have actually heard this before and tested it and never got it to work.

[Skanky Burns]

We did this in physics. Most people couldn't crush the egg, but a few were able to.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Wezil
Have you attempted this? I have actually heard this before and tested it and never got it to work.

It depends on the egg and stuff...
As I said, anyone wearing a ring will effortlessly crack the egg, it takes no effort at all.

Eggs with thin shells or existing fractures (even invisible) will crush more easily. Eggs produced by healthy chickens will have thicker shells and be tougher. I would presume that smaller eggs would also be harder to crush.

I've tested it (with a medium sized free range egg) and did crush the egg, but I had to use both hands. It's easy to cheat mind you, instead of applying symmetrical pressure, you apply point pressure, like you could fold a finger back or something, it's not too hard to break the egg with one hand (technique applying asymmetrical pressure), but crushing it with brute force is difficult. Also when an egg is successfully crushed, it explodes, that's how you can tell someone didn't cheat... (or that it wasn't a weak ass egg).

[-Jrabbit]

I find this account oddly fascinating...

[Lancer]

What sort of people would make fake baby food? I mean come on, that's right off the chart.

Horrific.