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Since early 2011, social media rumors have asserted plastic rice was being manufactured in China, exported, and consumed by people in other countries unaware the rice they were eating was in fact not a food at all. In February 2011, Raw Story and The Mary Sue published items about the purported plastic rice controversy, both articles noteing that the claims were not substantiated: Between 2011 and 2016 the story intermittently made the social media rounds, losing even the very basic details from unfounded reports that the faux food was purportedly fabricated from other edible starches (such as sweet potato or potato) and distilling it simply to an issue of plastic rice. In October 2016, the claim recirculated on Facebook and inspired blog posts anew, such as verbatim details of the years-old claim reproduced on alternative health blogs: Perennial plastic rice rumors bear all the hallmarks of a standard food from China panic, including identical claims rehashed year in and out without substantiation. The Chinese Restaurant Official is always warning that consuming the purported product is akin to eating a plastic bag and asserting that the motive behind the food fakery is cynically financial (without offering any proof that it's cheaper to go to the trouble of making plastic rice than growing real rice). Another marker of panic over fabricated food from China is the existence of multiple videos purportedly depicting the shady manufacturing of fake rice in factories: The repurposed video angle was at the forefront of another Chinese export panic involving labor intensive wax cabbage, proffered via a video clip swiped from an Asian television show about making display food which is not intended for consumption. And like the plastic rice rumor, the wax cabbage claim circulated bearing the implausible assumption that people would carry on unaware the salad they were eating tasted like a candle, or their rice had a styrofoam-y mouthfeel. The earliest and primary versions of the plastic claim hinged on reports, alleged investigations, information that was scary if true, rice fabrication that it [was] thought occurred, and the sort of content which tends to make a better safe than sorry impression on readers without the need for any rigorous followup. Naturally, the plastic rice claims perpetually played well on social media pages devoted to food sanctimony with or without substantiation. When the claims were new in early 2011, they essentially represented a rumor which had filtered into non-English news sources from an unsubstantiated single report, with no clear evidence presented to suggest plastic rice was real or a known risk. An extant Wikipedia page (littered with clear signs of editorial neglect) lists plastic rice as an imitation food, but its citations are largely newer iterations of the old unproven rumor. By May 2015, the plastic rice rumor had hit a fever pitch in Indonesia. One English-language source reported on the initial panic — and that testing had revealed the claim was false: In November 2015, the Jakarta Post reiterated that notions of markets rife with synthetic rice were a public panic or hoax, not a legitimate health concern. The same alleged incident with the same porridge vendor was found to have escalated fear of plastic rice, leading to an entrenched belief the staple food was making Indonesians sick: As of October 2016, the plastic rice panic was still going strong both in and outside the United States. A 17 October 2016 article in The Hindu lamented the routine belief such blatant adulteration was common in spite of food safety regulation processes: Much like soy sauce purportedly made from human hair, the above-mentioned wax lettuce, or warnings about crabs, pork, tilapia, chicken, and garlic exported from China, the plastic rice rumor served as a socially acceptable manner in which people could express reservations about exotic or culturally unpalatable ingredients in Chinese exports (rather than a legitimate health or safety concern). Such legends and rumors antedate their social media format, although before Facebook they tended to manifest in the form of cat and dog meat-stocked freezers or bodily fluids lurking in Chinese takeout, all of which carried the underlying message that Chinese-made goods were not to be trusted. And despite the new life breathed into it by Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms, the base rumor was one of the oldest in circulation. Versions were traced back as far as the 1850s, with one example from 1948 on a snopes.com page explaining why such rumors have tremendous resilience in Western countries: Since the appearance of plastic rice rumors in 2011, we have been unable to locate any substantiated reports that anyone successfully passed off plastic rice off as the real thing regularly (or ever) in any of the countries in which the rumor took root. As a case study from Indonesia illustrated thoroughly, the rumor was self-promoting: one woman exposed to the plastic rice rumor became ill and presumed the fake food she'd heard about was to blame. Faulty initial testing cemented the belief, and soon many people were attributing all illnesses to the specter of plastic rice. A few follow-up items reported that thorough testing had revealed the rice in question was not plastic or was simply adulterated, yet the claim went on to make the alternative health rounds in October 2016 unencumbered by the debunkings. All versions stemmed from one shaky item published in January 2011 and plastic rice lived in realm of legend until 21 December 2016, when the BBC published an article reporting that the notorious faux foodstuff had been seized in Nigeria. Although the headline said plastic rice had affirmatively been discovered, the article suggested otherwise: As of the 21 December 2016 report, the plastic rice seized in Nigeria was en route to be tested and its composition unconfirmed. The customs chief's statement about unsavory businessmen preying on holiday shoppers suggested he was previously aware of the rumor, as did the BBC's reference to myriad fake food scandals in China (which have been almost entirely fictitious, as noted above). It was possible a batch of rice tainted by chemicals or otherwise not fit for consumption was presumed to be the legendary plastic rice by folks exposed to the years-old rumor, or that the rice was in some manner counterfeit. However, the nature of the grains remained in question, and the scenario seemed likely to be an instance of ostension (or pseudo-ostension). On 24 December 2016, Nigeria's Ministry of Health announced that tests on the plastic rice had revealed the rice was in fact not plastic: The plastic rice story (and its fellow counterfeit Chinese food export legends) resemble an internationally viral 2007 CCTV segment about pork buns purportedly made with scrap cardboard, for which an independent journalist was eventually detained and accused of faking the oft-referenced story.
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