Chinese authorities are becoming more concerned over reports that restaurants all over the country are mixing opium in dishes to make them more addictive,

The official information agency of China has reported that restaurants across China have been spiking the dishes they serve with poppy shells and other products that are rich with opium. Chefs reportedly do this because they want the people feeling satisfied whenever they leave the diner.

Like Us on Facebook

Experts noted that the main goal was to have customers keep coming back since there are a lot of other eateries in the area serving the same dishes as one restaurant does.

The most frequent dishes that are spiked with opium include hot pots, noodle dishes and lobsters. According to reports, a man failed a police drug test months ago but insisted he never took any drugs.

The failed drug test continued to be a mystery until the man figured out it might be from the noodles that he got for lunch at a small shop in the area. The man then asked his relatives to try the noodles and they also failed the drug test after.

Food writer Fuchsia Dunlop, who is also a chef and the first ever westerner to have trained under the Szechuan Institute of High Cuisine in Chengdu, said she had experienced eating food spiked with opium.

"About 10 or 20 years ago I was in Szechuan and I went out with some friends to a town to visit some other people," Dunlop narrates. "They made hotpot for lunch, so we sat around in the kitchen around this bubbling cauldron of chillies and Szechuan pepper and we used our chopsticks to cook our own food."

Dunlop said hours after the meal, they got more and more relaxed until everyone just fell into an "absolutely blissful sleep." Dunlop said they actually saw poppy heads bobbing around the broth when they woke up.

Adding opium to dishes was actually banned in China back in 2008 and that a crackdown was launched in order to end it, said Dunlop. However, it might still be practiced in small family-run restaurants.

TagsChinese Food, food addiction, opium, Fuchsia Dunlop