People are making and selling counterfeit jellyfish in China
There are all sorts of food scams perpetrated every day here in America. The whole farm-to-table trend, for example — a lot of that is probably just marketing bullshit, according to a recent excellent investigation published by the Tampa Bay Times. But here's a fun new twist on food scams: police in Huzhou, China, recently arrested three people accused of making and selling artificial jellyfish, including a "master" jellyfish counterfeiter. AsPeople's Daily reports:
The three suspects started making the fake delicacy with sodium alginate, calcium chloride and aluminum sulfate in June of 2015. Since then, they have made more than 70,000 yuan in profits. Yuan was aware that the fake jellyfish could be unhealthy or even dangerous.
However, the production cost of the artificial jellyfish was less than half the cost of processing real jellyfish. In addition, less time is required to produce artificial jellyfish than is needed to process real ones.
The article goes on to state that police recovered over a ton of the artificial sea creature. The thing is, I could see this whole scheme maybe succeeding legally in the U.S. if it were marketed as a "vegan" alternative to real jellies.
See photos of real jellyfish below:
