Food adulteration to increase shelf life is one of the ways chemicals like mercury end up in your sugar. In other cases, as an expert revealed to The Standard, residue from these toxic chemicals end up in food during processing and the post-harvest period.
Kenyans took to various avenues to react to the news:
REACTIONS IN THE PAPER:
Good clarification, but the way things are, this mercury thing is a scam that has been designed to water down the corruption story. They know Kenyans forget quickly. It does not sound true. If it is, let them publish laboratory findings. Kadima Lanya
This has been a trend in this country to create a scandal to erase another scandal from the minds of Kenyans. Now that this NYS saga is taking a toll on some of the prominent political leaders cum thieves, they have to find a way of making us forget about it. Kimathi Danson
This article still does not offer clarity on what we Kenyans want to know. Is the sugar that I put in my tea this morning safe for human consumption? How can I verify this at home? Red Pepper
Chemistry tells us that mercury cannot 'mix' with sugar... End of story! Can we now go back to NYS, NCPB, Kenya Power, Kenya Pipeline corruption cases? #SugaryLies— Yoyocial (@yoyocial) June 21, 2018
IF ANYONE doubts the traces of heavy metals in sugar, rice and other foodstuffs, visit the cancer Ware at KNH and you will shut up forever. #PoisonousSugarKE #SugaryLies pic.twitter.com/2ETrgFS7Yi
— Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK) (@ConsumersKenya) June 21, 2018
KEBS says they were not involved in Matiang’i findings of mercury and copper. So where did Matiang’i get his test results from? #SugaryLies— Mukami (@Mukami_Mungai) June 21, 2018
*How to separate coper and mercury from sugar*
1. Put water in a container possibly a sufuria.
2. Heat the water to boil.
3. Add sugar to the boiling water.
4. Add tea leaves.
5. Kunywa chai uwache ujinga.#SugaryLies
— Victor Mochere (@VictorMochere) June 21, 2018
Some little maths here. Pure mercury goes for $48 (Sh. 4800) per 100g. Sugar goes for 0.1 shillings per gram. Who is that stupid enough to waste mercury on sugar? #SugaryLies— Victor Mochere (@VictorMochere) June 21, 2018
The war on contaminated sugar in not for the interest of Kenyans its just a business war with nothing to do with our safety and health #sugarylies— Nyokabi Ndani (@NdaniNyokabi) June 21, 2018
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