A VIDEO showing gelatin-injected shrimp believed to be sold in a Shenzhen market has gone viral online, but the local authorities confirmed that the video was spreading false news, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Thursday.

In the video, a man claims that he had bought shrimp that were injected with gelatin with red clumps from a market called “Honggong market,” making many Shenzhen residents believe that he was talking about a local market in Longgang District. However, the district’s food and drug administration said that there wasn’t a “Honggong market” in Longgang.

The city’s food and drug administration said it had entrusted the city’s agricultural product quality and safety inspection center to test the “gelatin-injected” shrimp. The center found that shrimp died when injected with gelatin, but the gelatin then became invisible after the shrimp was boiled.

According to an expert from the center, the red clumps inside the boiled shrimp shown in the video are actually the shrimp’s gonads, but the man who mistook the shrimp gonads as gelatin in the video could be misleading many residents.

The expert said that a shrimp will die after it is injected with gelatin, and the gelatin might flow out of the shrimp when the shrimp is boiled, so it’s impossible for the gelatin to remain tidily and evenly inside the shrimp. (Zhang Yang)