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Causing a stir of late are unsubstantiated reports that some hawkers in Malaysia are adding plastic straws and bottles into boiling oil and frying it with their snacks, which then remain extra crispy for several hours.

But Singaporeans fearing such bizarre, cancerous culinary calamities could happen here need not get steamed up.

Scientists say that adding melted plastic to a dish to give it extra crunch is pointless as it would not work.

And health authorities here assure that checks have not turned up any examples of such health hazards.

Malaysian paper The New Straits Times had cited 'witnesses' as seeing a goreng pisang (banana fritters) seller in Johor Baru throwing a plastic bottle into boiling oil, and frying it with his snacks. Apparently the hawker said his customers are fine with it and the new recipe is popular with other hawkers.

The report was picked up by Singapore papers, and while some sceptics scoffed, others were alarmed.

Housewife Alice Kang, 60, was so horrified that she warned her family members to avoid deep-fried foods when eating out.

She said: 'You never know if local hawkers are doing the same. Even if they throw in a straw, it can be harmful. So it's just better to avoid it totally.'

The starch fact is this: Goreng pisang's crispy crust is due to a chemical reaction between starch and proteins in the flour-coated food. And Dr Ludger Paul Stubbs, senior research fellow at the Agency For Science, Technology And Research (A*star), said: 'The same effect is certainly not possible with plastics.'

A*star senior scientist Chen Zhikuan said that plastics, when thrown into hot frying oil, can soften and melt, but it also degrades into 'mainly aromatic compounds which may contain cancer-causing substances'.

Dr Stubbs added: 'What can be said with certainty is that none of these degradation products would be beneficial in the frying process. Deep-fried plastic or anything deep-fried together with plastic should not be consumed due to possible health risks.'

General practitioner and popular food blogger Leslie Tay agrees: 'When PVC burns, it releases dioxins which can cause lower fertility rates, neurological problems (and) cancers.'

A spokesman for the National Environment Agency (NEA), which governs licensing for all food and beverages retailers, said: 'We have not come across such harmful practices being used by local food operators.'

The agency conducts routine hygiene checks on the food retailing industry, and an operator found guilty of non-compliance with regulations can be fined up to $2,000, and may have his licence suspended or revoked.

Local goreng pisang seller Corlinn Lim, 46, owner of the popular Lim Kee banana fritters at Maxwell food centre, said the stir over stirred plastic is 'ridiculous'. Every hawker has his own special recipe for preparing the same dish, he said, but as for adding something like plastic, there is no such practice in Singapore.

He also pointed out that the strict hygiene standards and checks here will ensure it does not happen.

tanyihui@sph.com.sg

If you come across instances of unwholesome food being sold or unhygienic preparation, contact the NEA hotline on 1800-2255 632 or e-mail NEA_Contact@nea.gov.sg