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Q: fake foods in china?
has anyone ever actually come across any of the fake foods in china. like the rice or eggs that were all over the news at points, just curious
7 years 13 weeks ago in Health & Safety - China
I don't normally smoke but I usually have one or two cartons from Duty Free Shops on standby, as gifts.
Last week I bought a Double Happiness pack on the street, just to compare the taste with the ones I got from the Duty Free Shop. Totally different taste. If you smoke, you can do the same comparison.
Same thing with Tsingtao beer. Get it somewhere else (non PRC) and taste the different. I can taste the difference, mainlanders who have been drinking that beer for decades can, too. One of the first things a mainlander I know of when he travels outside PRC is to order a bottle and enjoy it. If you want to be accurate, do a double-blind experiment.
I also know a few senior management guys working as food manufacturers (exporting locally manufactured canned food globally) in PRC. One time they stopped me from buying some biscuits from a local supermarket. They said, "don't buy it, we know what they are up to, we never eat these stuffs". Go figure.
trunch:
interesting, im newish to china. just came on a student visa this past september and my sister just hit me up and told me about some reports of fake rice she saw in the news. looked it up and saw there were fake eggs too. why would someone take time to make fake eggs
earthizen:
Fake rice (mixing it with plastic pallets), eggs, bleached vegetables to make them look better, "phosphorous" steaks that glow in the night, tea leaves, gutter oil .... you name it, they have it.
Why manufacture fake food? Ans.: Why do bank robbers rob banks which takes technical expertises, planning, info gathering, and risk assessment.....? In short, costs reward ratio.
In this case, scale of production. Few would make fake food if the channel of distribution is a corner store only. PRC has a 1.4 billion population. Who doesn't eat rice, noddles, eggs, vegetables, meat, cakes, ......etc.? The raw material for manufacturing fakes are next to nothing (ever heard of blankets filled with used cotton balls collected from hospitals, or wall plaster filled medicine tablets?). Extremely high return on investment! Talking about risk factors. Big deal. Death penalty? So what? 1.4 billion population, a country with no religions, no spirituality, next to nil human rights, only thing of value is money (which buys respect i.e. face), you tell me how to calculate mainlanders' life-value.
What are you studying, if I may ask?
There's a lot of fake wine, beer and spirits out there. I've bought alcohol that when you drink it obviously isn't what the label claims. Some labels are even spelled wrong.
trunch:
they warned us about fake booze during orientation. i also saw a bottle of "olay" shampoo labelled "oily" haha
Stiggs:
I can tell you from bitter experience that when you get a fake bottle of something, you'll be pissed off but will probably consider drinking it anyway because it's too late to go and replace it and you don't want to waste the money you spent.
Don't. The hangover will have you wondering what industrial cleaner that's not meant for human consumption was added to the stuff, and while you might not have been blinded who knows what you did to your stomach and liver.
