When it comes to food safety, one cannot fail to mention supermarkets and shopping malls, where there are tangible standards and their own order, and each country keeps updating with the times. Of course, conscience must be mentioned, because it is outside supermarkets and shopping malls, even outside the rules-it tests the moral values of businesses.
visible is order
Before the reform and opening up of our country, it was only more than 30 years ago when you bought food to grocery stores, and bought clothes to clothing stores. The emergence of stores that mixed all kinds of goods in one place was only more than 30 years ago. For example, supermarkets such as Wal-Mart, for example Mini stores like “7-Eleven” or EasyJet. After they landed, they brought not only changes in people’s shopping habits, but also an emphasis on food safety.
What this kind of shopping mall brings people is a kind of consumption civilization. The products there have added packaging, which also increases the product description. When buying food in this kind of supermarket, consumers are often used to glance at the label to see the ingredients and shelf life. What. In terms of raw material composition, the label was quite clear before the first ten years, and the content was clearly informed. For example, the main ingredient of yogurt is raw milk or milk powder, but it gradually became more and more academic, such as bibacterium. , Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus delbrueckii, and pharmaceutical companies and merchants even directly use the Latin transliteration of some drug names. Later, they began to widely use scientific names to replace the previous commonly used drugs. For example, berberine hydrochloride tablets for diarrhea were later renamed berberine hydrochloride tablets, and corn patch for feet was renamed salicylic acid phenol patch. The more changes the patient becomes more at a loss.
I have consulted experts from the Medical Association for this, and their explanation is that they were called “small names” before, and then the regulatory authorities changed them to “big names” in order to unify and standardize them. In contrast, those health care products and quasi-drugs without a prescription in the US vitamin market are written concisely and clearly, and the ingredients are disclosed in the ingredient column as oyster powder and shell ingredients, and clearly stated in the function column Calcium supplementation is good for the growth of bones and teeth, or good for the heart, such as those chondroitin that treats knees, coenzyme Q10 that is good for the heart, etc.
Canada has always had a high reputation for food safety assurance, and many countries have chosen to improve their own systems by referring to their food safety systems. The picture shows a Japanese restaurant in Canada.
As far as the shelf life of food and medicine is concerned, there is still a lot to pay attention to. The shelf life means that it is safe to eat during this period, and it cannot be guaranteed after this date. That is to say, the responsibility of the manufacturer is before this date, but in real life, there is a process of deterioration of any kind of food and medicine, which is a gradual change rather than a sudden change, and it also depends on the surrounding environment. If the environment is suitable, this The deterioration process may be very slow, and even greatly exceed the shelf life. On the contrary, if the environment is not suitable, the deadline will be greatly shortened. For this reason, some food and drug packages in the United States do not write the expiration date, but “best before”, which means that it is best to eat before this date, and the implication is not that you cannot eat it after this date. Vitamins, and even some medicines, I actually often take expired ones. I also asked my French friends about this kind of problem, because I often brought French cheese back to China for a few years, and it expired after a long time. They told me that it would not be a big problem to store cheese for a long time, but some foods should be stored It tastes good when it grows hairy and moldy. For example, certain cheeses and steaks, like fermented bean curd and stinky tofu that Chinese people often eat, are essentially rotten cheese and stinky tofu.
Conversely, if the product is not stored properly, it will still go bad even within the shelf life. For example, red wine, if it is produced in sunny and sandy land, and the grape variety is good, the shelf life of 10 years is no problem. But that means that under normal circumstances, the surrounding environment is hot and cold, which will definitely reduce its lifespan. When eating in a French restaurant, the wine must be opened in front of the guests, and the guests should also be asked to taste whether it is suitable for the taste, not only to check the color, but also to check whether it is broken. If it does not come out or is broken when pulled out, replace it immediately. In fact that bottle of wine is probably more expensive than the meal and is the biggest source of profit for the restaurant. Between the dilemma of losing profits and losing customers, they often choose the former.
As far as food additives are concerned, it seems that adding them is a normal state, and not adding them is abnormal. Because of the additives, the shelf life of food is greatly extended, and the taste is also improved. Just like French milk always has a strong milky aroma, but when it comes to North America, the milky aroma is much less. In fact, the French and Italians are very good at using additives, just like they add different spices to cooking. I personally think that the pursuit of taste by the Latins is endless, and the taste buds are more complicated than the Anglo-Saxons, so they can do it. It is such a good meal that it is regarded as the top western food in both the East and the West in the world.
unseen are the rules
When I returned from France decades ago, I often brought cheese as a gift because it was good and cheap. Many years later, when people return from abroad, they bring milk powder to others, not only because of its high quality and low price, but also because of its safety. At that time, the author participated in a 3-month training course. In a food safety class, someone pointed out that the domestic breeding industry uses too many antibiotics and suggested that you can eat cows but not sheep, you can eat sheep but not pigs, and you can eat pigs but not chickens and ducks. Or because herbivores consume less antibiotics than omnivores, or because they are larger than smaller and thus metabolize faster. Anyway, at the buffet after the lecture, the dish of braised chicken nuggets was neglected.
Later, when the author visited a fish farm on the southern coast, I was shocked by the courage of the local operator to build a row of large-scale fish ponds. The operator told us that the tilapia he raised were prone to illness, so he had to use medicine. One year, the disease was fish mouth. There is a kind of bacterial scale growing on the side. If you don’t take medicine, the fish’s gills will be covered. In the end, the fish will not be able to open their mouths and breathe, and will die in large areas. Because the drug resistance of this bacterial scale is constantly increasing, the toxicity of the drug has to be increased. After listening to it, I silently watched the continuous artificial farms again, and stopped eating tilapia.
That night, the operator invited me to eat seafood on the street, which is the kind of miscellaneous fish that varies in size and looks like it was fished out of the sea. Instead of tilapia from its farms. Afterwards, every time I go to the seaside for vacation, I try to focus on braised small miscellaneous fish. These different types of miscellaneous fish are more likely to grow naturally in the sea rather than artificially raised. In the future, I will mainly eat ordinary hairtail, which grows in the sea, is not expensive, and has few fish bones, because this kind of fish is not easy to breed artificially. Although scaleless fish may have high cholesterol, I would rather use a little more cholesterol. Less antibiotics. Because if you eat too much fresh fish and shrimp containing residual drugs, you will produce antibodies, and there may be no cure for illness.
But having said that, I would also eat raw seafood when others treat guests, but I spend my own money to treat guests and try to avoid eating river fish displayed in restaurants, because I know that these fish can survive to our table after many days of long-distance trafficking from the farm. Must have taken a lot of medicine.
Additives and drug abuse are a long-term problem. We can easily find many additives that are banned in some foreign countries but are still used in China. However, we can also find examples where our standards are higher than international standards. During the epidemic, our new coronavirus detection of cold chain logistics food was higher than that of Western countries, so there were many incidents of imported food being returned and destroyed, even from abroad. All urgent express mail must be sterilized and left to stand for more than a week before being sent to the country.
Beyond the standard is conscience
There are often various markets in France. On certain days, people come out early to set up stalls and sell their own food. Of course, they do not have the strict process of a food factory, but they just finish it at home with enthusiasm. This kind of home food is popular because of its freshness. People often don’t care about hygiene standards and production procedures, and you don’t see French urban management overturning their stalls. Contrary to the rhythm of increasing the number of layers, the French law enforcement has layers of relaxation.
As for the US, people love hot dogs like crazy, street stalls are everywhere, hygiene standards I can’t compliment, I’m not sure if they use expired buns, because you can’t tell the difference once you open the package. I don’t know how often they clean up that greasy mustard bottle. According to statistics, there are more than 20,000 street vendors in New York City, ranging from corn cakes, donuts, ice cream to fresh fruits and vegetables. I found out that there are so many Americans who don’t cook breakfast, and are used to buying hot dogs and coffee on the way to work and taking them to the office.
Those street vendors seem to be law-abiding, but in fact, there are only more than 2,900 mobile stall licenses issued by the New York City government, which means that most of them are illegal operators without licenses. Although New York has the most stringent law enforcement police in the United States, they turn a blind eye to these street vendors. At least during the years I lived in New York, I didn’t see them being forcibly evicted in broad daylight.
This means that there is still a measure of law enforcement on the border between compliance and violation of the rules, and things that are popular and harmless to the people are not so strict in Paris and New York. Because for them, the purpose is as important as the means, and they cannot always advocate “at any cost”.
Some pig farmers in China sell their pigs to others, but they don’t eat them themselves. Instead, they raise a few pigs for their own consumption. Some people pay high prices to raise private pigs, slaughter them in winter, and eat them with peace of mind. I often buy pigs that run all over the mountains to eat food from a friend. After slaughtering, I stuff them in the refrigerator and freeze them for half a year. In this way, I don’t have to go to the supermarket to buy pork, until his small pig farm was rectified and closed.
There are often various markets in France. On certain days, people come out early to set up stalls. The picture shows the market in Aix-en-Provence, France.
The concept of permaculture in Canada has been recognized by the public, especially farmers.
Speaking of cattle, Japan is also an example. They are not afraid of the cheap imported beef from the United States, and high-quality beef is produced in Japan itself. The Japanese are proud of it.
When it comes to food, in a country like Canada with a large land area and a sparse population, every three people occupy an average of 1 square kilometer of land. These lands are all hereditary. Of course, they know how to respect and protect this land, because it is their ancestors. Inheritance is also the foundation for the survival of future generations, and sustainable development has become a natural thing.
In a supermarket in Paris, France, after closing at night, some staff may throw vegetables, fruits and even meat that will expire the next day into the trash can. An important criterion for judging whether a food is expired is to look at the expiration date on the label. There are expired foods Once detected by inspectors, the result will be the closure of the store.
In some restaurants in the United States, the bread is served in a basket. Once it is served, it cannot be sent to other tables. If a table of guests leaves, even if the plate of bread has not been touched at all, it must be thrown away. So this is an eternal topic: Even if the diners have the mentality that they will not get sick if they eat dirty food, the shop owner can’t take the fluke that if you don’t eat it, you will be fine. Because although what you eat is nutritious, what you make is based on your conscience!
