
Secret Ingredients: China’s “Fake Food” - okket
https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2016/08/08/secret-ingredients-truth-about-chinas-fake-food
======
rdtsc
When people say we want a free market where government does not mess with it
regulating things, they usually dream of some Ayn Randian utopia. In actuality
this is what happens every time.

China in a way is more "free market" than America or Europe is. The same stuff
happens in Eastern Europe and other less developed countries. So behold, the
wonders of unregulated-everything. Anyone headed to the airport yet to live in
this utopia? (It is only a half joke, some will actually thrive there).

Yeah sure, on paper all these places have their FDAs, EPAs, FCCs in practice
they are not effective, so you do whatever you want.

One can make an argument that eventually the free market will resolve the
problem, and those selling gutter oil or mystery white chemical powder as baby
formula will be out of business and the true quality products will emerge.
Yes, maybe, but do you want to be the failing test case who gets cancer 5
years later, just so others learn that such and such a vendor was putting
benzine in their tomatoes. Are you even be able to find them 5 years later to
sue them? Or even publicly shame them?

~~~
wycx
I imagine that the hyper-laissez faire libertarian sitting in the passenger
seat of a crashing (unregulated) commercial airliner would fondly reflect on
the fact that they are about to be part of an event that will transmit
information to the market that will permit market participants to make an
informed choice regarding their air travel options.

~~~
seanp2k2
Unless the company covers it up somehow, and since they have a very clear
profit motive...::crash::

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J-dawg
Stories about fake food seem to be everywhere at the moment. China is the
source of the most stomach-churning ones ("gutter oil" being my personal
favourite - don't Google it if you're planning to eat any time soon).

But there are plenty from the USA and Europe too. Fake olive oil and truffle
oil, mislabelled meat and seafood, the horse meat scandal in the UK.

If we can't rely on governments to protect us, I'm beginning to think there's
a start-up opportunity for home food testing kits. Is such a thing technically
possible? I guess for meat/seafood being misrepresented as a different species
a DNA test would be required. But presumably there are chemical tests that can
check for contaminants?

~~~
csdrane
The tainted milk / baby formula incident is the one that most readily comes to
my mind [0]. That and the soy sauce made from human hair.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal)

~~~
louprado
I was speaking to some chemists recently that claimed some U.S. nutritional
supplements have human hair as an ingredient. They went on to mention that the
hair is often sourced from China and lately has tested for higher levels of
heavy metals.

I can not verify the above claim from an internet search. But does anyone know
why the protein in hair might be more beneficial as a supplement than other
forms of protein ?

~~~
desdiv
That's a pretty common myth spread by articles like this one[0]. Wikipedia's
article on Cysteine debunks it[1]:

 _The majority of L-cysteine is obtained industrially by hydrolysis of animal
materials, such as poultry feathers or hog hair. Despite widespread belief
otherwise, there is little evidence that human hair is used as a source
material and its use is explicitly banned in the European Union._

Makes sense too, since ~50 billion chickens are slaughtered per year, the
amount of poultry feathers available for processing probably dwarfs the amount
of human available.

[0] [http://www.naturalnews.com/032718_L-
cysteine_commercial_brea...](http://www.naturalnews.com/032718_L-
cysteine_commercial_bread.html)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysteine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysteine)

~~~
hn9780470248775
> poultry feathers or hog hair

Yum! I'm not sure the truth is all that much less disgusting than the myth.

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ting_bu_dung
Incidently, the most common cancer for males in China is lung cancer (21%),
followed by stomach cancer (19%). For females, stomach cancer is (12%).

Cancer kills about 7500 each day in China.

And according to WHO, China the hardest hit by global surge in cancer

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3643656/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3643656/)

[http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1422475/china-
hardest...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1422475/china-hardest-hit-
global-surge-cancer-says-who-report)

[http://www.wpro.who.int/china/mediacentre/releases/2015/2015...](http://www.wpro.who.int/china/mediacentre/releases/2015/2015020302/en/)

~~~
contingencies
I live in China, and a lot of the food here is very honest vegetable dishes
with an emphasis on freshness. People also eat a lot of fruit: it's largely a
very good diet.

The highest stomach cancer incidence in the world is Korea (at almost double
China's rate), followed by Mongolia (1.5x), then Japan (1.4x).

It seems that vinegar, chilli, salt, hard liquor and meat is not a recipe for
longevity.

[http://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/data-
specific-c...](http://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/data-specific-
cancers/stomach-cancer-statistics)

~~~
ting_bu_dung
correct, China is not the top one for stomach cancer. however, it is still at
#5 out of all the countries. gutter oil, imitation egg, walnut stuffed with
cement, industrial salt sold as table salt, plastic rice, etc, certainly
doesn't help

[http://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/data-
specific-c...](http://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/data-specific-
cancers/stomach-cancer-statistics)

[http://althealthworks.com/7943/top-10-toxic-fake-food-
items-...](http://althealthworks.com/7943/top-10-toxic-fake-food-items-
produced-in-chinayelena/)

~~~
contingencies
If you actually read the article, it says those myths are basically all
bullshit.

------
nommm-nommm
Surprised this article didn't mention gutter oil.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil)

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mih
Made me recall this investigate report from AlJazeera where they get a chef to
prepare fake noodles [1]. They compare the arduous process of producing
genuine soup versus the instant recipe made possible with several banned
additives which reproduce a similar taste and texture .

[1] [http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2014/08/food-
tho...](http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2014/08/food-
thought-201486125625816917.html)

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markvdb
Slightly off topic... everyone around me knows what "Tricatel food" means,
from the French film "L'aile ou la cuisse":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lxk0kxHi80&start=4171](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lxk0kxHi80&start=4171)

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rveeblefetzer
here's a Reddit account on finding fake rice:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/4u06wk/i_bought_fake...](https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/4u06wk/i_bought_fake_rice/)

it's black rice, which if you've never had it, you might've seen it in a pot
or shop-packaged cup as dessert with coconut milk

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Dylan16807
> Bees in China, as in the rest of the world, have suffered a catastrophic
> collapse in their numbers, due to pesticide use and land clearance.

Bees are dying at higher rates, but in the US there are actually more of them
due to beekeepers working to compensate.

~~~
Symbiote
Are they the appropriate species?

There are more than just honey bees, and beekeepers don't often encourage the
other kinds. But the other kinds are important for some major crops.

(I don't remember any more details, I saw a keynote at a conference about
this.)

Edit: an overview from Wired [https://www.wired.com/2015/04/youre-worrying-
wrong-bees/](https://www.wired.com/2015/04/youre-worrying-wrong-bees/)

