Archive for Safety

Food in China, Part 2:

Posted in Culture, Food Advice with tags , , , , , on April 10, 2008 by renlingshuiyue

Since my pal Jack has given his consent, these are his direct quotes for the question that was posted in the part 1 post:

Cook it till it’s crispy! HAHAHAHAHA…that’ll teach ‘em…
Yeah, well, even the veggies the folks here say don’t make a salad
‘cuz the farmers s#*t on them for fertilizer, or lack of another place to properly dump…
and i guess just washing them doesn’t quite cut it, gotta cook them a bit…

or the one I like… la du zi, roughly translated means bowel pains, the like of which I’ve never had before but can come from eating bad meat, poorly cooked meat or dirty food… but medicine for it is common and you can hear people talking about it all the time, especially in the summer…
but try to talk to a local chinese about health and sanitary issues…?
That’s some more of that Western devil talk…

I wouldn’t read that if you are the queasy type, you’ve been warned.

Food in China Part 1:

Posted in Food Advice with tags , , , , on April 10, 2008 by renlingshuiyue

Trust me when I say that the food will have its own section. First, for the bad and the ugly, don’t read it with a full stomach if you are the queasy type.

A board mate Bluecat asked this question on OE last year during the Chinese product crisis in US, “How safe is Chinese food produced in China?”

This is my reply (I skipped the first 2 because it’s irrelevant to food) -

3. The only thing I drink in China are usually in bottles or cans, pop, juice, tea, coffee. When I go out, if we are having tea or coffee, it better be boiled and freshly made. Bottled waters are for green horns, because I never buy them unless it’s from a reputable store. As for home use, get the tankers or a really good filtering system.

4. Never eat street stall food. Never eat anything wrapped unless you know for sure what’s in it. If you can cook, that would be great. Instant Ramen are probably safer than a lot of pre-packaged food. Stay the F*ck away from Ma La Ton(s#*t on sticks dipped in spicy boiling broth). Meat on a stick is also a hit and a miss, so if you find a good restaurant, more power to you. Muslim restaurants run by real Muslims probably have decent lamb. Seafood is toilet heaven. Eat it at your own risk. Beijing was hit with a brain worm disease with a type of shell fish last year. Ebola also kicked around for a bit.

5. Wash your hands, wash your hands, and wash your hands!!! And don’t touch anything that you aren’t suppose to.

6. The only vegetable that you can make salad with are western style green housed organic farms or the much better version, Natural farms. Natural farms have no pesticides nor fertilizers. They wait until the soil retains enough nutrients on its own before growing stuff, and they use natural methods like sugar water traps, birds or other bugs eating bugs to contain the bug population.

As soon as Jack gives permission, I’ll also post some gems of his wisdom on food safety.