China’s greedy merchants and toxic food culture

Chinese street markets are known for scrumptious street food and drinks being sold by local vendors on the roadside. This can be a hearty meal of a lamb skeweror a belly filling mug of draught beer. Everything looks so tempting and easy on pocket till the time one realizes that most if it is not even actual food that was ordered. Yes, from manufacturing counterfeit gizmos now the Chinese traders have started developing artificially enhanced food and liquor, which is a dangerous trend that can lead to some serious health concerns. But local Chinese vendors are not concerned about human life and will go to any extent for profiteering.

There are multiple roadside barbeques, stalls, bars and night markets will serve fake lamb skewers that are made of a mixture of pork and duck with mutton fat and marinated to sooth the taste buds. When it comes to beverages there is counterfeit beer that retains same flavor but is made up of that is made of local liquor, lemon acid, and finally baking soda is added for the froth.

During the festive holiday season street food stalls are widely popular in small provinces in China. Lamb skewers paired with draught beer is a standard combination that everyone relishes. It is difficult to estimate how many these beers are concocted and how many lamb skewers are not even lamb meat. Some unscrupulous traders even stoop down to a very low level and use cat meat instead of lamb.

Not just lamb and beer the local Chinese market is inundated with gutter oil, expired food, and low quality counterfeit products, making it difficult for the consumers to get genuine quality. In recent years, there is a rise in online shopping and these unscrupulous Chinese vendors have gone high-tech to loot the consumers by resorting to deception to sell their counterfeit products and reap huge profits.

Especially counterfeit liquor is rampant in China. There is not just mixed beer, but also high-end Baijiu (local beer), and imported wines that is counterfeited and sold across the Chinese markets. The top-selling Chinese liquor brand Moutai Baijiu has imitated versions that are made by recycling genuine bottles and filling them counterfeit liquor and selling them as original. The fraud traders easily manage to pass Moutai’s anti-traceability system verification by cracking the near field communication (NFC) phone authentication and, thus, the consumers easily fall prey.  In the case of imported expensive wines, which are most faked, the fraudsters replace its content with inferior quality wines that are local made.

In recent years, many Chinese businessmen have shown interest in investing in foreign wineries, and many of these wineries have turned into the channel of counterfeit alcohol. There are many foreign wine brands like Chivas, Hennessy, Royal Salute, Martell etc. that are easily counterfeited and sold at Chinese nightclubs. These wines although come through legitimate channels and were sold in nightclubs, discotheques, bars, hotels and also the night markets and food stalls. Shockingly the owners of these places knew that they were buying fake alcohol but the cheap price and the prospect of massive profit tempted them.

Then there are artificially enhanced food products such as beef stew made up of synthetic beef. Beef here is prepared by adding water retaining agents, star anise, cinnamon leaves and beef flavor powder. Not just beef, there are products such as rice and noodles that are made up of various additives like bone broth, fresheners, and street fragrance oils. Although these food products taste as good as the real ones, but are very harmful for the health.

Not just the counterfeits the Chinese food market is also marred by selling of products that have gone beyond their expiration date. Near-expiration stores have sprouted in many local markets in China, primarily selling products that are near their shelf life, in some case with a shelf life of just 1 month. Most products at these stores are selling products at just half a rate or even one third of supermarket prices. This trend is also reminiscent of current economic situation of China. These stores are generally located in smaller cities and also supply through community group purchases, self-service restaurants, and night-stall markets.

Chinese traders also indulge in selling toxic food for small profit such as gutter oil, duck eggs, and sub-standard sausages. Some restaurants directly scoop gutter oil from trash bins for reuse, and some others collect it reprocessing and selling it later in the market. Experts believe that re-purification of gutter oil requires heating at high temperature that may kill bacteria but is also high on toxins and carcinogens. Short and long-term use of such gutter oil can lead to ailments such as gastrointestinal infections or even cancer. The sub-standard sausages are sold mostly on children for just about 5 yuan. These sausages are made up of leftover unidentified meat, nicely minced and mixed with harmful ingredients such as artificial starch, monosodium glutamate (MSG), guar gum, and sugar syrup etc.

There are also knock-off foods that have packaging quite similar to some of the original famous brands. Lastly, some of these counterfeit products are openly sold on the e-commerce platforms helped by fake advertisings that dupe consumers into buying them, but once received these products are vastly different than what was shown online.

Why are there so many counterfeit food items in China? The Chinese Communist party since its inception, has been riddled with corruption, lies, and deception, and this manifests with widespread fabrication of news, statistics, and even in officials’ academic qualifications. Under such corrupt regime and widespread lack of faith, a focus on money and self-interest have arisen among Chinese citizens. This has led to multitude of unscrupulous merchants in China compromising on their morals and hence the counterfeits.