By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: How safe is Chinese meat
At dinner last night my brother in law was talking about how his family have seriously reduced the amount of meat they eat due to the perceived danger of eating contaminated meat. How can you ensure that the meat you buy is good. We buy from our local butchers and the meat always looks fresh with a good colour and tastes fine when cooked, but how do we really know if it is safe or not. Come to that how do we know any of the foodstuff we buy is safe. I have heard of people who have gone vegetarian due to this, but then what is put in the soil or sprayed on the plants while growing. Other people have gone to the stage of buying only imported foods. I am not that paarnoid, figuring there are plenty of old Chinese around and if the food were generally that bad the life expectancy would have shortened a long time ago. Just wondered about other peoples thoughts on this.
The matter also makes my head ache sometimes.Usually i would buy meat as well as most of the other food from big super markets rather than butchers or street hawkers.Fruits and vegetable are the exception,as they will be much cheaper and can also be quite fresh to get from hawkers.And if you want to buy meat from butchers,you have to check whether there is a stamp on their meat which means the meat have been inspected by the local food inspection department.Of course, problem of food safety is not that serious as some one imagine,almost all people around me buy food from wherever is convenient ,but nothing wrong happens to them.And there are lots of people living quite a long life .What we do should pay special attention to are the street snacks,some of their materials are not clean enough.
Well, is there any way to know how safe it is? If you inspect it before purchasing, and it seems ok, it can't be too bad. You're in China. You eat meat, along with everyone else. You eat all the other Chinese products. I mean, sure, sometimes the pork glows blue, if you leave it out on the counter at night. I doubt you're someone who would do that. A lot of people plant their greens along the roadside, where people litter and the pollution from passing cars floats around. As far as I know there aren't many short term effects, and the long term ones won't be obvious. Try to cancel it out by eating healthy, exercising, sleeping well, living in a city with cleaner air...leading a healthy life. It's the best you can do, aside from leaving the country.
However, the argument of old chinese being around may not count completely. The biggest effects have been in the last 30 years, long after they had reached adulthood. The younger people have not reached old age yet. There may be differences we haven't seen yet.
Chinese meat is the best. International competition cannot stand up to it at all, both in terms of quality, freshness, price, and availability.
In short, you really can't beat it.
tomcatflyer:
Now I know you really are Chinese and do not want to lose face. If you think this is true you really need to try quality meat from countries where proper health standards apply and are properly enforced. Real dumb reply Kchur, or hang on are you just being ironic?
kchur:
Man, I thought this post o mine would be as obvious and juvenile as a brick to the head. I guess I must be some kind of super-subtle geniose.
HugAPanda:
wait does this mean tomcat is chinese because he doesnt get sarcasm?
Mr_spoon:
Am I the only one to see something about meat beating? Thatsthejoke.jpg? Or am I just silly?
Sniff it. If it stinks, don't buy it. If it doesn't, still use at your own risk. If you do buy it, cook the hell out of it.
GuilinRaf:
And pray before you eat it! Not necessarily grace, but maybe for absolution?:-P