© 2022 Copyright France 24 - All rights reserved.France 24 is not responsible for content from external websites.Attendance certified by the ACPM/OJD.Published on: 06/09/2017 - 12:08 Modified on: 06/09/2017 - 18:54Since the beginning of May, a psychosis has taken hold of many African Internet users: photos and videos in support, many try to demonstrate that plastic food, such as rice or eggs, would be sold in their country.It is a conspiracy theory that originated in Asia and whose repercussions in Africa stem from a protectionist reflex and a claim to identity.This article is the first of a two-part investigation, we decipher three popular videos, and show why they are hijacked or seek to manipulate their audience.Find the second part of this survey at the end of our article.Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gambia… for about a month, several videos have been circulating on Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, each time showing the same thing: rice that would contain plastic.Sometimes this is proven from videos showing the supposed manufacture of these foods for consumption.Other times, it is the consumers themselves who, through tests, try to show the presence of plastic in the rice.The Observers team has identified at least 16 different videos on this topic that have surfaced over the past five weeks.Some of them are quite easily identifiable as being intox.We explain how with three cases deciphered by our teams:1. Evidence of plastic rice production?No, industrial pelletsOne of the most popular and widely circulated videos recently shows the production of alleged "plastic rice" in a factory.We see a man filming a production process, first showing employees putting plastic in a machine, then this plastic then transformed into a kind of long and thin granule resembling, according to the people who relay these videos, rice .URGENT URGENT... when we talk to you about plastic rice made by the Chinese, it's not a jokeHowever, a detail in the first video gives a clue to what this production line is: at the 49th second, we can see a bag, on which is written "Eva".Some research on the Internet allows us to identify that it is the name of the product of a Chinese company, Sinopec, which manufactures polyethylene.The mini particles are therefore in fact most likely plastic granules intended to protect fragile objects, such as glass for example, once put in boxes.On the left, the video showing a supposed production of plastic rice, with a bag placed on the ground.This bag can be found on an online sales site.We can read Ethylene Vinyl Acetate, a product used to fill cardboard boxes with plastic granules to protect fragile objects.Moreover, it is quite easy to find similar videos on the Internet, showing the same process: by typing "pellet filling" on Youtube (in French, "particules de calage"), we find exactly the same type of machines which produce the same products intended for the packaging of objects.2. Burning rice?Yes it's possibleOther widely circulated videos relate to the cooking of rice, and claim to prove the "plastic" nature of certain rice on the grounds that they would burn and be reduced to ashes.Notice to all those (Gabonese and non-Gabonese) who live in the kingdom of the dictator king Ali Bongo Ondimba, a great bloodthirsty man before the eternal.On this subject, the editorial staff of the Observers of France 24 contacted Doctor Alfred Bernard, toxicologist at the University of Louvain in Belgium.The latter was alerted in May by the Belgian press after a Belgian consumer suspected of having found plastic rice.The toxicologist agreed for France 24 to reproduce the tests he conducted on a "high quality" rice of the brand "Uncle Ben's".He concludes, video below in support:Excellent quality uncooked rice, heated over a flame, burns as described in the video.I was even able to get better flames.Another clue that proves it's not plastic: burn plastic and smell it.Burnt rice doesn't smell the same at all.3. Bouncing rice?Nothing abnormal!In many other videos, Internet users try to show that a plastic rice can have the same properties as a tennis ball.They make rice balls and throw them on the ground.And surprise, the rice bounces.However, there is nothing surprising in this, according to Dr. Fallou Sarr, director of the Technical Food Institute in Dakar.We have carried out analyzes at the level of our Institute on "doubtful rice" in Senegal.We have identified that this rice referred to as "plastic" is actually old rice, which is over two years old.Further tests positively identified that there was not the slightest trace of plastic in this rice.So why is it bouncing?In fact, starch has two components: amylose, which gives the rice its hardness, and amylopectic which gives the stickiness.Beyond two years, amyloidosis decreases and amylopectin increases.And when you heat this rice, it gives a very sticky product, which, when it dries, is very condensed.So no wonder you can throw it on the floor and it bounces.If you want to know more about the origins of the plastic rice rumor, and understand why it is so popular on social networks in Africa, come and read the second part of our investigation:SURVEY - "Plastic rice" (part 2): how the intox has fooled AfricaDownload the appThe content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.