July 13, 2007 12:28
Frightful Food
Anyone living in China gets used to the scary food/products stories and learns to dismiss them (along with scary air pollution, 200 people dying a day on the roads etc) as beyond control and therefore not worth bothering about. Or we did. In recent weeks, as readers may have noticed, the number of stories on the subject has skyrocketed. And it's not just the evil, biased, foolish etc etc foreign press. As Jodi noted in her earlier blog, the story of fake water was broken by the Beijing Times. Scuzzy (and expensive) water is bad enough. But now no less a source than the august China Central Television gives us this piece that features an undercover investigation revealing what exactly goes into your average steamed bun in the Chinese capital: chopped cardboard that has been soaked in an industrial solvent makes up 60 percent of the buns in one neighborhood restaurant. Yummy. I wonder if it's possible to survive on peanut butter (where was it made?) and jelly sandwiches. And well-boiled water. Or better yet, imported beer. A Corona hecho en Mexico anyone?
About The China Blog
Simon Elegant was born in Hong Kong and since then China has pretty much always been at the center of his life. Read more
Liam Fitzpatrick was born in Hong Kong and joined TIME in 2003. He edits Global Adviser for TIME Asia. Read more
Ling Woo Liu worked as a television reporter in Beijing and moved to Hong Kong to report for TIME Asia. Read more
Bill Powell is a senior writer for TIME in Shanghai. He'd been Chief International correspondent for Fortune in Beijing, then NYC. Read more
Austin Ramzy studied Mandarin in China and has a degree in Asian Studies. He has reported for TIME Asia in Hong Kong since 2003. Read more
RSS Feed
 |
Reader Comments
Posted by Mimi
July 13, 2007
Aren’t they ingenious and inventive? I wish they actually trademarked it. There should have been more than four great inventions from China including cardboard buns.
Is Feng Xiaogang going to make another black humor movie based on such heartless entrepreneurships?
Posted by John Smith
July 13, 2007
The latest is the rats (2 billions of them) they caught in Hunan. Some found their way in trucks to Quandong. I wonder what are these dead rats doing in Southern China. I am quite sure they have nothing to do with the food there. I like Cantonese food.
Posted by China Tsunami
July 13, 2007
A Cantonese delicatessen that no one bothers to fake because of overwhelming supply of 2 billion tails. I would not hesitate for a minute to BBQ a “chuan” of such kebab, the only authentic and unspoiled meat in China.
Posted by Anonymous
July 13, 2007
This is shocking, because it's hard to imagine that cardboard which in cost per unit weight should not be significantly more than wheat flour (indeed, it should be LESS) plus the cost of the solvent, are they purposely trying to make products bad regardless of economics? because i seriously doubt that a kilo of wheat flour is more expensive than manufactured industrial solvent and manufactured cardboard.
Posted by Anonymous
July 13, 2007
Americans have been eating feces contaminated hamburger meat for generations because the assembly line runs too fast and workers have no time to fully remove fecal matters from the dead animals. One trip to the meat processing plant would make Americans vomit.
Posted by Laura
July 13, 2007
Anonymous,
The cardboard is used to replace the meat not the flour. Previously, the filling was made of lean meat and some fatty meat . Now, it is cardboard (60%) and fatty meat (40%). It is always economics.
Posted by Anonymous
July 13, 2007
It's always economics and the drive to make huge profits that induce American meat processing plants to speed up assembly line so fast that workers have no time to fully remove fecal matters from dead animals. Thus meat and feces go into the grinder together.
Americans have been eating feces contaminated hamburger meat for generations. To Americans eating animal excrement is superior than eating cardboard.
Posted by Anonymous
July 13, 2007
well sorry man im love china but there's NO excuse for this, this is the one time i'll have to agree with the westerners, americans eating cow crap is no excuse for us to eat cardboard. like i said before the manufactured cardboard and solvent cannot possibly be a significantly large profit increase, and the bad news spreading and the resulting decrease in sales could not possibly be worth the minor gain in per unit profit.
Posted by Anonymous
July 13, 2007
Glad you like to eat cow crap with the westerners. Enjoy!
Posted by Anonymous
July 13, 2007
you'll see from my other posts i am opposed to westerners interfering in chinese internal affairs, but this is an internal affair for us people on the inside to worry about. i mean, the toothpaste issue is meaningless and the fault of importers, the environmental stuff is also biased, and the fake bottled water thing was a joke (i mean seriously, i drink tap water all the time). however, eating cardboard is just bad.
Posted by Laura
July 13, 2007
I can see there are two Anonymous. My previous post is an answer to the first Anonymous.
Eating cardboard may not be that bad (it is mainly fiber, I guess) but eating cardboard that is processed by harmful chemicals is absolutely bad.
Posted by Anonymous
July 13, 2007
July 13, 2007
AP Associated Press
CHICAGO - More than 120 people who ate from the same booth at the Taste of Chicago food festival last week became ill, at least nine of them with salmonella poisoning and 10 who were hospitalized, the health department said Thursday.
Ooooh yeh, food in America is Soooooo Clean!
Posted by Vietnam
July 15, 2007
the food in Chicago was imported. Maybe China
Posted by mythbuster
July 18, 2007
I used to think McDonalds and other "foods" like hotdogs might have something like cardboard in them as fillers, but it's pretty much beef for McDonalds, and corn by products, & soy for hotdogs. no cardboard. Even SPAM is all real meat.
Posted by TINA LYNN
July 22, 2007
WOW...WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO THESE DAYS...NOW IM GOING OT BE WORRIED ABOUT GETTING SICK WHEN I EAT...NEXT THING YOU KNOW ALL THE FOOD WILL BE INFECTED.THE STUFF ABOUT THE COWS AND THE RATS IS JUST PLAIN GROSS!!! =(
GROSS GROSSS GROSS.....
Posted by anne
October 25, 2007
entrepreneurs in china who exerts effort to crush all this cardboard as filling are all fucking morons! i wish they could all go to hell for poisoning people just to have small profit. im glad diff.countries took action and banned products from china. serves them right. why can't they just be honest? it's life we're talking about.. r they just plain ignorant?