The agency was responding to a social media video showing a woman washing Golden Penny Semovita in a sieve using cold water where she claimed the residue she got after sieving was plastic.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) on Monday dismissed claims that there was plastic or harmful contaminants in Golden Penny Semovita as circulated in the social media.
The agency was responding to a social media video showing a woman washing Golden Penny Semovita in a sieve using cold water where she claimed the residue she got after sieving was plastic.
But the NAFDAC Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, said in a statement that the claim in the social media was misleading, asking members of the public to disregard it.
She also enjoined the public to exercise discretion in the use of social media to address any suspicion they might have on regulated products, explaining that Semovita only exhibits viscous and elastic properties.
The statement read, “The attention of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has been drawn to a social media video showing a woman washing Golden Penny Semovita in a sieve using cold water.
“The woman claimed that the residue she got after sieving was plastic. A similar video was shown in 2020 and that led to a press release similar to this.
“Upon receiving the alerts from various quarters in the community in 2020, the Director General immediately gave a directive to conduct emergency post-marketing analysis using different brands of Semolina.
“The agency investigated this claim by conducting appropriate analytical testing in her internationally accredited laboratories. The results showed that there was no plastic or any similar harmful contaminants in Golden Penny Semovita.
“It contained the expected components plus the required Vitamin A. NAFDAC, therefore, wishes to inform the general public that the claim in the social media video assertions is misleading.
“The alleged Golden Penny Semovita is a brand of semolina, a very popular flour made from wheat and consumed in several parts of the world. Semolina contains mainly water, carbohydrates and about 13% of gluten-forming proteins.
“Gluten is made up of two classes of proteins – glutenin and gliadin, which upon addition of water combine to form gluten, a protein that gives nutritive value and imparts other characteristic properties to the product.
‘’Glutenin normally gives a bread dough the ability to rise during baking while gliadin gives it the viscous and elastic (viscoelastic) properties, or it simply makes it extensible and elastic.
“This latter property is the rubbery/plastic-like appearance that was exhibited in the said video. Semolina has no plastic content in it; it only exhibits viscous and elastic properties.
“The rubbery-like material that was observed in the video after many washings with water is the gluten that formed after the gluten-forming proteins get mixed with water.”