Identify fish marinated with urea and borax

Borax and urea are banned chemicals in food, but in fact, sellers use these two substances to preserve seafood quite commonly. So how to distinguish fish marinated in urea or borax?

Borax and urea fish are 'beautiful' and 'fresh' for a long time

The 'protein coating' technology is very simple, fish brought from the sea are dipped in a bucket of ice mixed with urea, then scooped out and sold to customers. Fish transported to distant provinces must have urea sprinkled into the ice, thanks to that, the fish will stay fresh for 4-5 days, or even a week.

Not only fish, shrimp, squid... after going through the marinating stage with chemicals such as bleach, borax, urea will have a white color, fresh, delicious, very eye-catching to customers.

Fish stays fresh longer thanks to borax (Illustration: Internet)

Dangers of using borax and urea to marinate fish

Borax, also known as borax, is the sodium salt of boric acid. It is an antiseptic used in healthcare to kill bacteria and fungi. Urea is an agricultural chemical fertilizer that inhibits the growth of bacteria.

Because of the low price, many fresh seafood traders have used urea and borax to keep food fresh for a long time without spoiling. However, both urea and borax are on the list of chemical additives not permitted by the Ministry of Health for use in food preservation and processing, so if abused, they will be harmful to the health of consumers.

Dr. Tran Van Ky - Vietnam Association for Food Safety Science and Technology (Southern Office) said that when eating fish, squid, meat... with high levels of urea and borax residue, people can suffer from acute poisoning with symptoms of abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness... and can even lead to death.

Even with small amounts, urea and borax when entering the body will accumulate over time, causing chronic poisoning, often manifested as unexplained headaches, insomnia, memory loss, effects on the liver, kidneys, anorexia, physical weakness...

In terms of the nervous system, borax also causes irritation leading to depression or meningitis, changes in body temperature. In the urinary tract, it causes damage especially to the kidneys and the whole body, dysfunction, weakness, impotence, menstrual disorders, hair loss...

How to identify fish marinated with borax and urea

Gill

With the naked eye, when choosing to buy, you look at the gills of the fish to see if there is blood on them, the fish is fresh. On the contrary, if the gills are not red but the fish still looks very fresh, it has definitely been marinated with borax.

Black foam appears when cooking fish

Fish marinated with borax when cooked will have black foam on the surface of the water, and the fish bones will also be black. With fresh fish, when cooked, black foam will not appear on the surface of the water, and the bones will be white.

How to ice

If the fish is fresh, the seller usually displays it with a lot of ice to keep it fresh for a long time; but fish marinated with borax usually does not need to be marinated with much ice.

The fish meat is soft and flakes easily.

If we look closely with the naked eye, we can distinguish fresh fish from chemically treated fish. Fish marinated with borax and urea looks very fresh, but when pressing on the fish body, it feels soft, the fish body is concave due to low elasticity, the fish smells strange, not the typical fishy smell of fish.

Fish scales easily flake off, meat is flabby and eyes are sunken in... similarly, looks fresh but when cooked will not have natural sweetness and aroma but meat will be soft, mushy, smelly...

According to khoahoc.tv