Adeyeye said the public should ignore social media videos claiming Semovita is made of plastic materials.
The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, Monday, in a statement said a scientific analysis carried out on the content of Semovita shows no plastic material.
Adeyeye said that NAFDAC’s post-marketing analysis was as a result of a claim by a woman in a social media video purporting washing Semovita plastic content, claiming that the residue she got after sieving the Semovita content was plastic.
According to the DG, a post-marketing analysis followed a viral video circulated in 2020 showing a similar situation in a community. Following this, she gave a directive to conduct emergency post-marketing analysis using different brands of Semovita.
While revealing that the agency did a research by carrying out appropriate analytical tests in its laboratories, matched with best international standards, she said the results showed there were no plastic or related harmful contaminants in Golden Penny Semovita.
“It contained the expected components, plus the required Vitamin A”, the statement quoted her.
“NAFDAC wishes to inform the general public that the claim in the (on) social media video assertions is misleading, the statement read.
“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 per cent of gluten-forming proteins. Glutenin is made up of two classes of proteins – glutenin and gliadin, which upon addition to water combines to form gluten, a protein that gives nutritive value and imparts other characteristic properties to the product.
“Glutenin normally gives a bread though 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, Semovita has no plastic content in it”, she said.