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The story
On September 18, the Market Supervision Administration of Qingyuan City in China’s Guangdong Province announced that edible bamboo shoots had been illegally treated with sulfur for pest control and disinfection. Authorities have seized raw materials and illegally processed goods and are tracing the distribution chain while questioning those involved. On 5ch, since most menma (fermented bamboo shoot ramen topping) and boiled bamboo shoots sold in Japan come from China, many users voiced anxiety along the lines of “we’ve probably already eaten this,” while others noted that sulfur itself is used in Japan too for bleaching and removing bitterness from certain crops, arguing that the treatment itself should be judged separately from its illegal use here — leaving reactions split.
[Guangzhou — Nobuha Endo] The Market Supervision Administration of Qingyuan City in China’s Guangdong Province announced on the 18th that edible bamboo shoots had been illegally treated with sulfur for pest control and disinfection. Authorities have seized raw materials and illegally processed products and are also tracing the distribution channels. Police are questioning those involved.
Yomiuri Shimbun
Source: yomiuri.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
They're probably stricter about legal compliance than Japan is.
Well, Japan's basically a country held together by treason charges anyway, lol
Cabbage probably doesn't come in much, but bamboo shoots… man, the boiled ones come in by the truckload…
Eating out = Chinese ingredients. Using domestic stuff would jack up the price.
Shinachiku (an old-fashioned term for menma, literally "Chinese bamboo")! You eat ramen, don't you?
They'll probably just say "We checked with the manufacturer and it's fine!" There was a deli dish I liked at the supermarket, but it's got bamboo shoots in it, so I'm done buying it. Other vegetables are sketchy too, though I guess it's a bit late to worry about that now.
Bleaching and removing bitterness with sulfur is actually done on quite a few crops in Japan too, isn't it? The real issue is whether the sulfur actually gets removed afterward.
That's because they don't eat moso bamboo themselves — it's grown for export.
It's used constantly in restaurants though. Theme parks are pretty much the same.
There's Taiwanese-made stuff.
You can also make it from hachiku bamboo that's grown to about 2 meters, so a ramen shop near me used to make its own. Since farmers just cut down and toss out bamboo once it gets that big anyway, they'd buy it off hachiku bamboo farmers for next to nothing.
Yeah, they do sell hot spring eggs there.
Apparently they buy specially cultivated food (grown to stricter standards, separate from the regular supply).
Human psychology basically boils down to "as long as I'm not the one eating it, who cares."
I ate a ton of Chinese menma once and it wrecked my stomach — although apparently eating too much menma in general gives you loose stools regardless.
If you thaw it slowly and pan-fry it in sesame oil it's decent enough, but if you're going that far you might as well just make okonomiyaki from scratch.
Ah, I see. So they crushed their own growth companies and tanked the economy with overproduction at state-owned enterprises, and now they're broke. Absolutely idiotic.
That crowd cranks up the volume protesting American potato imports just to cover up the problems with Chinese products.
Sulfur itself isn't necessarily harmful in small amounts, but sulfur-containing gases such as hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) are harmful when inhaled.
Hydrogen sulfide is also given off by hot springs — fine in small amounts, but breathe in too much and it'll kill you.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Sulfur fumigation is a technique long used for bleaching and pest control in dried goods and certain crops, and Japan itself permits its use within regulated limits. The problem here isn’t the use of sulfur itself, but the fact that the product was distributed without proper desulfurization, leaving residue behind. What made this case “illegal” was that the processing happened outside proper regulatory oversight — not that sulfur treatment is inherently dangerous. At the same time, menma and boiled bamboo shoots rely overwhelmingly on Chinese-sourced raw material, so even consumers trying to avoid Chinese products are likely consuming them unknowingly through restaurant meals and processed foods. In the thread, a knee-jerk “sulfur equals dangerous” reaction mixed with the more measured view that “it’s fine as long as regulations are followed” — though the article itself never addresses the key question of just how much residue actually ends up in the body.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “China Fumigates Bamboo Shoots With Sulfur for Pest Control, Authorities Trace Distribution Routes.”
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