Chinese Farmers Spraying Wolfberries With Industrial Sulfur: State Media - Business Insider
Chinese Farmers Spraying Wolfberries With Industrial Sulfur: State Media - Business Insider
The broadcaster CCTV aired clips of workers soaking the berries in vats of sodium metabisulfite and smoking them in place of sun-drying their crop.
The “industrial sulfur” is actually sodium metabisulfite or E223 (preservative). According to the article, the farmers aren’t supposed to use this preservative at all, so there may be some restrictions with this specific berry.
According to this article E223 is GRAS and approved by several food authorities. Obviously, there are restrictions, so you can’t do whatever you want.
3I thought the word sulfur and dried fruit were already connected in my head, and went and checked my bag of apricots, which says they are treated with "sulfur dioxide (sulfites)". I can't read the whole article, but a Wikipedia search doesn't seem to imply sodium metabisulfite is much worse than Sulphur dioxide. Both are talked about as if they are in active use all over the world. Do you have any extra detail on why this is a notable enough case to warrant an article? The paywall got me before I could find that out
3It looked like it was a combination with that and the chemical they washed it with. Also, for this particular product, it isn't healthy to use the sulfur treatment, it seems. The producers said something to the effect of, "we know this will cause problems for people, but the fruit is prettier and we get better prices for them".
The news company said that they tested them as well and found them to be toxic.
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