Is it too ‘good’ to be true? Now, I should think so.

By: Nurul Hawa Ahmad

The head news caught my eyes as I was scrolling down my laptop’s monitor to collect some literature for my presentation. I spent several minutes to understand how yogurt has anything to do with leather shoes. I answered myself when I read this:

“The shoe scare, which alleged that leather was used to make jelly and yogurt, was never proven, but plenty of very real worries rattle China's people every time they shop at a market or eat in a restaurant. The lure of even razor-thin margins has profiteers using chemicals to make everything from eggs to pig's ears” (USA Today, 2012).

This means China has a huge battle concerning food safety in which money-driven people will do anything to ‘create’ everything they want without realizing they lay consumer’s health at risk. Perhaps, consumer can be one of their family members too. So, I put my best foot forward to comprehend those figures as below:

Basically, the used leatherwear was collected and processed to extract the gelatin (cost-free I guess). This gelatin is mainly used for industrial purposes however several irresponsible manufactures chose to intentionally insert this gelatin in food products such as yogurt. I see now with a little bit intention to throw out but I sat still. I squeezed my forehead and my right eye and monologue, “How could they?” Here’s another mesmerizing input.

Industrial gelatin is made of used leatherwear and is hazardous to human health because it contains heavy metal, (Nanfang Daily, 2009).

Although it is very few incident of leatherwear-yogurt has been reported in China, the possibility of the occurrence is rather high when analyzing this formula.

Here's the math. The price of carrageenan is twice of that for gelatin. However, to  keep the same stickness of the product, jelly makers have to use double amount of gelatin compared with carrageenan (CNC, 2012).

Personal thought: Not blame the gelatin, blame the people. This can happen in China or anywhere in the world including Malaysia. Allah has provides a clear guidance to follow but human make it too complicated to understand.