Hoax Buster: The Sugarcane Juice 'Warning'
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by: Guest
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The Hoax
"A friend whose father works for the government health inspection passed on his info. Their job is to inspect all hawkers, their cooked food, their store hygiene, etc. They found sugar cane juice has the highest content of bacteria among all food. In fact, it has exceeded the set limit. Hence, these guys had to find out why. They went round all sugar cane stores and watched the way the hawkers handled their sugar cane, wash their glasses, their entire procedure. But they couldn't find the problem.
One day, they stayed till closing time and discovered some shocking facts!
Whenever, the hawkers closed their stores, they would wash the floor with detergent. As we know, the remaining sugar canes will be placed at the back of the store, vertically standing and as sugar canes are very porous, they tend to absorb whatever liquid around them. Besides the soapy water, the dirt on hawkers' boots, cats' urine, etc, will all be absorbed??
Now, whenever I eat at a hawker centre, I would warn all my friends about this and of course I stopped drinking my favourite sugar cane juice.
A friend, who loved sugar cane juice, was pregnant. She was always drinking sugar cane juice. Anyway, one day she miscarried and the fetus was already like 6 or 7 months old, I think.
When the doctors did an autopsy to find out why all of a sudden the fetus had died inside her, they found traces of some chemical substance, which was found in cat urine. Large traces of it. While it would not be able to harm adults, it was extremely toxic to babies, what more a fetus? So they tried to determine how this cat urine thing could have ended up in the fetus. This meant that it had to be digested by the mother, right?
And the only logical conclusion they could come up with was that since these sugar cane juice stall holders just leave the canes lying around on the wet and dirty floor, it would not be impossible to think that stray cats could have peed on those sugar canes or near those sugar canes. So think carefully the next time you order that favourite sugar cane juice!
Please pass this on to everyone you know in S'pore & M'sia. Let us take action to make this world a better & safer place for all of us & the generations to come."
The Analysis
This email spam message has all the hallmarks of a hoax. First of all, it does not state any authority to support its allegations. Secondly, it has 2 sources - the pregnant friend who has a miscarriage and the colleague whose father is an environment department worker - which have been affected by the same specific issue - sugarcane juice. It is too coincidental a possibility for a single person to have come across these 2 sources. Thirdly, the way in which the source of the problem was derived is dubious - doctors able to link chemicals in cat urine to sugarcane juice and environment officers who waited until the hawkers closed shop. The storage shortcomings of the sugarcanes would have been identified at the outset rather than only at the end.
Although it is true that there are bacteria (and not 'chemicals' as stated) called Toxoplasma Gondii which can be spread from cat feces to humans, it is understood that 50% of the world's population has already been exposed to the bacteria and is immune to it. Similarly, cats are only infected once in their lifetime, after which they build antibodies against the bacteria. Also, the spreading of the bacteria can only take place for the 2 weeks or so during the initial infection of the cat. It is true that these bacteria can lead to miscarriage but instances of such occurrence are rare with abnormalities and development problems being more likely to occur.
In all likelihood, this email originates from Malaysia, where food preparation control is more difficult and poor hygiene methods are prevalent enough for such things to happen. The earliest version on the internet seems to be from 2003. In Singapore, due to our strict controls, if such an issue had been identified - where the levels of bacteria had 'exceeded the set limit' the hawker would have been closed down immediately. Furthermore, here, the sugarcanes are cut into smaller lengths and kept in baskets or in freezers, rather than directly on the floor.
Although the general thrust of being careful when purchasing food and beverages is beneficial, the actual events are over-dramatized and unlikely to be prevalent in Malaysia and less so in Singapore. There is no need to stop drinking sugarcane juice completely but, rather, to exercise discretion in general when purchasing food and beverages.
References:
Definition of Toxoplasma Gondii
Related: Hoax Buster: The Sugarcane Juice 'Warning'
Additional information:
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