food and drug safety in China, King of Scandals

[Kenny同志]

I am lucky that I live in the countryside and eat food we produce ourselves. No food in a Chinese city is safe!

You see it’s only a couple of days ago that the contaminated capsules were brought to light. Now we’ve got this.

Watch 蜜饯的制作过程

[Kenny同志]

A list of major food scandals in China (2000-2012) (in Chinese)

Bear in mind that this list is only the tip of the iceberg.

[xiaocai]

Damn, I just had some 九制话梅 like half an hour ago. Are they also going to investigate 潮州凉果? But then I'd probably be too scared to watch...

Skimming through the report above, it seems that there has been a scandal of it back in 2005 already. Well, to make myself feel slightly better, the brand I usually buy was not on the list...

[Kenny同志]

Well, to make myself feel slightly better, the brand I usually buy was not on the list...

Good to hear that, Xiaocai.

Anyway, I don't like 零食 and I rarely buy them.

[WestTexas]

Does anyone else get strangely nauseous from some of the chicken they sell in supermarkets in China? Like if you eat a lot of it you have this strange retching sensation for half an hour afterwards? I get this problem from the chicken sold in the supermarket where I live. I had the exact same problem with the frozen chicken at supermarkets in Shenyang, so I don't think it's a local thing. If I buy the chicken from the local farmer's market, this does not happen.

[Kenny同志]

I presume those chickens sold in supermarkets are plucked and gutted. I don’t know exactly what’s the cause of the problem you have but I’ve heard that some bad vendors pluck chickens using asphalt or resin. They also handle ducks this way.

[gato]

What about preservatives?

[giraffe]

So what's a person supposed to eat? I'm planning a three week trip to China (my first) this summer, probably spending most of my time in Dalian. I don't eat red meat, Chinese poultry seems iffy, and I'm not too sure about seafood (the farmed fish and shrimp is raised in disgusting conditions). Greenpeace claimed recently that even the tea is contaminated with banned pesticides.

I could actually live happily on greens, grains and tofu but I'm wondering if those things might have problems too.

[Kenny同志]

I think generally, just generally, vegetables and fruits sold at such places are comparatively safer. Not sure if there are any in Dalian, but they can be found in Hainan.

[prateeksha]

Suddenly feel lucky to be a vegetarian and cooking my own meals here in China, although not sure how "clean" would be the veggies I buy here. A lot of friends complain about the quality of meat in the 食堂 meals, sometimes casting doubts whether it is real meat or not [talking about substitutes like soy and sometimes cardboard].

[roddy]

At least making your food from veg and meat means only the farmers have ruined it - it won't have been further ruined by the processing industry or the restaurant.

Like if you eat a lot of it you have this strange retching sensation for half an hour afterwards?

Yeah, I get the same thing from jumbo-sized bags of crisps, and last night when I had four bowls of pasta.

[xiaotao]

My kid stayed with a family in Beijng for 3 weeks and didn't get sick. She ate mainly vegetables, eggs, noodles, fish, rice and mantou.

[icebear]

I think the worst case of food poisoning I ever had was from bad seafood in Madrid.

Best bet in China is to stick with reasonable brands and hope for the best, or go with organic - in either case you're placing a lot of trust in the brand. Just like anywhere else.

[roddy]

Food poisoning's no problem at all. You eat something, you get sick within a day or two, you get better, you know not to eat there / that again. Have a look at heavy metal contamination of arable land, or the quality of the water fish are farmed in, or what livestock get fed. Unknown unknowns.

[WestTexas]

Food poisoning's no problem at all.

Sure seemed like a problem a few weeks ago when I had to poop every 20 minutes

[liuzhou]

In my 15 years in China, eating in street markets, restaurants, family homes and cooking by myself, I have only ever had food poisoning once - from a western ice cream in a 5 star western hotel.

[Arlo_]

@giraffe

Unfortunately food safety problems are not the sole preserve of China. Just keep an eye on this site:

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Quality-Safety

One example from the current headlines:

'Four indicted in US over alleged mouldy cheese conspiracy'

The US mouldy cheese conspiracy?? Yes, that's right. In the West we have a very one-sided view about food in China. That's because our trade organisations (and the politicians they sponsor) give maximum publicity to every scare story about food and any other product. They want to frighten westerners off buying Chinese products.

My experience, having lived here for two years, is that the variety and freshness of food, not to mention the standard of cooking, is way higher than in my native UK.

It's certainly true that there have been some serious food issues in China but, as others have said, if you shop and choose restaurants carefully, you will be relatively safe.

[roddy]

In my 15 years in China, eating in street markets, restaurants, family homes and cooking by myself, I have only ever had food poisoning once

Yep, once, slowly, over a decade and a half ;-) Enjoy your meal.

While I'm sure your tongue was in your rosy little cheek, people are confusing food safety with food poisoning. China's food safety issues aren't "how many people died of salmonella this week", it's the long-term chronic effects of, variously, heavy metals accumulating in veg and fish, the additives fed to livestock, whatever's in the water this week and so on. The issues are also of less concern to those who can price themselves out of the cheap stuff, and those who grow their own food and know what's in there (more or less. What's in your soil and water, Kenny? What's upstream of your irrigation inlet?).

Anecdotal "my aunt went to China for a month and was fine" reports are as useless as the anecdotal "Chinese medicine cured my aunt's cold" reports.

[Kenny同志]

Roddy, we have a small plot where my mum grows vegetables. The soil is fertile, containing little chemical fertilizer but chiefly manure. Pesticides are almost never used. Right next to the plot is a pond which has a thick layer of sludge. The water might be relatively safer than that in many parts of China but we don’t use it except for washing clothes. Also there’s a very small reservoir, seven to ten times the size of the pond perhaps, which is surrounded by hills on three sides and located less than two hundred metres away from the plot. The water in it is completely safe and free from any contamination as all of the water there is from rain and springs. We once in a while use the water to water our plot in summer but usually the rain will suffice. The reservoir used to be the primary water source for the paddy fields. Sadly since most of the land was converted for the cultivation of cotton, the reservoir has been nearly deserted. By the way, each household in the village where I live has or shares a well with others. The well is the source of their drinking water.

[liuzhou]

I'm sure your tongue was in your rosy little cheek

Moi?

In fact, my comment was in relation to the two proceeding posts. Of course, 'food safety' is much broader than 'food poisoning', but i do think it is a bit silly to say that :

Food poisoning's no problem at all.

Tell that to her.

The issues are also of less concern to those who can price themselves out of the cheap stuff

I suspect the reverse is true. The poor tend to eat, I would have thought, a lot less of the type of foods which we are seeing being deliberately or ignorantly contaminated. At least in China, if not in the west. If I was planning to deliberately make a buck or three by contaminating food, I would go for something with a bit of a higher price than the vegetables most low income people live on.

The fact is that that the longer term food safety issues are not solely or even predominantly a Chinese issue. It is a world wide issue. Huge multinationals with huge political lobbying power are rendering agencies such as the USDA and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the UK totally ineffective in protecting consumers. It is also worth remembering that at least one of the major culprits in the melamine scandal was a joint venture.

People in China are far, far more likely to die of malnutrition or even far, far, further more likely of obesity (and smoking) related illnesses long before heavy metals get to them. If they don't fall down a hole, get run down or otherwise mashed in a road traffic accident first.

Incidentally, the Liuzhou cadmium problem had a negligible effect on agriculture. The Liujiang, the river in Liuzhou which was affected by a spill in a tributary many miles upstream, despite a bit of meandering, effectively runs west to east and due to the topography does not run through or irrigate much agricultural land. The vast majority of the land feeding the city lies to the north of the city and is on a different river system which was unaffected.

Finally, let me say I am a bit surprised by this:

I think generally, just generally, vegetables and fruits sold at such places are comparatively safer.

The link is to my blog - an entry about fake food!

"Such places" in many cities give the impression of being farmers' markets with the honest, hard working peasants selling their own produce. Utter nonsense. The vendors are not farmers. They buy the produce from middle men and spend all day sitting there selling it. Real farmers' markets are over by 11am or noon - they have to get back to pluck the pigs and swill out the chickens or whatever it is that peasants do.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with (most of) the food, and it is often fresher in appearance than that sold in the supermarkets, but there are no guarantees there either.