Uncovering the 12 Sources of Poisoning for Chinese People
In China, food poisoning incidents occur frequently. What foods are actually harming the health of the Chinese people? Below, the editor points out these "culprits" that most easily cause food poisoning.
1. Crab
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★
The first person in China to eat a crab has long since passed away. In the golden autumn season, holding a crab and drinking wine is one of life's great culinary pleasures for the Chinese people. However, this scavenger is also a diarrhea-inducing agent that harms the stomach and intestines. Especially, it must not be eaten with persimmons.
The combination of the two immediately causes food poisoning. Other foods that cause similar reactions include: pears, peanuts, eggplant, muskmelons, and even ice and tea.
Eating one crab requires you to avoid so many things, but can you really avoid them all? You will eventually fall victim. Furthermore, with rumors of hormones used in crab farming, the severity of "red tides," and the practice of feeding birth control pills to crabs during their spawning season, crab, as a signature dish in numerous seafood restaurants across the country, has inevitably become a high-risk food item.
2. Salmon
Its lovely pink color actually comes from coloring agents in its feed, and its rich, thick texture comes from antibiotics added during artificial farming. The chemical toxins remaining in its body are now sufficient to destroy the human immune and reproductive systems.
Of course, its delicate and delicious taste still makes it the most popular sashimi. It is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for the brain, retina, and nervous system, enhancing brain function, preventing stroke, preventing heart disease, and preventing vision loss. It is truly a "treasure of the water." Given the current level of pollution, it is not enough to make people give up eating it entirely.
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★
3. Shark Fin
Sharks are now being hunted worldwide, largely because some "evil scientist" discovered: "Of all animals in the world, sharks are the only ones that do not get cancer."
In our daily worries about whether our bodies are developing cancer, sharks have become a lifeline on a dangerous dinner table. Shark liver oil is made into expensive health supplements in Norway; shark fin banquets in China represent a form of炫耀 (showing off).
There are hundreds of shark attacks on humans every year, making headlines in newspapers, but humans eat sharks every day. Humans consume 800,000 tons of sharks annually. Furthermore, studies have shown that taking large doses of shark liver oil over a long period can cause poisoning.
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★
4. Goose Liver
It is a noble and exquisite delicacy with a fragrant and mellow taste, paired with a bottle of 1870 red wine, it becomes a luxurious floating banquet.
Little do people know that such a fatty liver is actually the liver of a goose that has developed liver disease. This delicacy is not part of our long-standing traditional cuisine, but the French came up with a method of force-feeding geese for four weeks with a mixture of wheat, corn, fat, and salt to induce "fatty liver disease."
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★
5. Soft-shelled Turtle
The saying, "A soft-shelled turtle eats a soft-shelled turtle—it recognizes no kin," may speak to the absurdity of these creatures, but their taste is indeed delicious.
However, the problem lies in: if it's a wild soft-shelled turtle, it is a long-lived animal with a large number of internal parasites that must be guarded against. If it's farm-raised, it has been revealed that they are grown with sex hormones, with a 7-year growth period being compressed into just 7 months, which is terrifying.
Doctors also warn: "Patients with hepatitis must not eat soft-shelled turtles. Its rich protein will加重 (加重) the burden on the liver. In severe cases, it can cause the condition to worsen rapidly, induce hepatic coma, and even lead to death."
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★★★
6. Pufferfish
1 gram of pufferfish toxin can kill 500 people, but "no poison, no deliciousness."
The deliciousness of pufferfish has made it the "Diaochan" of the Chinese culinary world—the more dangerous it is, the more people crave it. The Song dynasty poet Mei Yachen wrote in his poem "Pufferfish": "In spring, green reeds sprout, willow catkins fly. When pufferfish are in season, their price is beyond that of fish and shrimp." Pufferfish diners thus add a sense of "the wind is cold, the Yi River is cold" to their experience, but before they pick up their chopsticks, they always have the waiter taste it first. Only when the waiter doesn't fall do they indulge heartily.
Diners in Japan also share this courage; they have developed safe methods for eating pufferfish. The Chinese folk method is pufferfish meat plus radish. Every spring, some people always fall ill, but in China, there will always be successors.
7. American Beef
Deliciousness Index: ★★★
Danger Index: ★★★★★
To date, more than 100 people worldwide have died from eating beef infected with mad cow disease, and it is estimated that over 2 million people have been infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human form of mad cow disease). The incubation period for this disease is 10-30 years, so the danger still lies dormant within the body.
"If a person eats the meat, brain, or blood of a cow with mad cow disease, they may contract the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The human brain will also turn spongy like a cow's brain, eventually leading to neurological disorders and death." Such a description is certainly terrifying. Fortunately, although Western food is becoming increasingly popular, the Chinese are still not a nation that loves beef. So, we are more worried about the day when "mad chicken disease" might break out.
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★
8. Oysters
The aphrodisiac oyster is also the lifelong love of the great Casanova. The secret to his ability to be with numerous beauties a day may be attributed to swallowing 40 raw oysters daily.
The beauty of the oyster lies in its freshness. Therefore, the advice to "cook for at least 5 minutes before eating" is basically a "safety fallacy" that doesn't understand true delicacy or is impractical. The world's best oysters come from Europe, North America, and Japan. If you don't have enough money to eat in these reliable and hygienic places, you can only suffer from diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea.
Our farming environment and oceans are suffering from industrial pollution, and the oyster, like its body, is a recycling station.
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★★
9. Cured Meats
In the past, when logistics were poor, people had to worry unnecessarily and used various methods to dry meat into cured meats like bacon, sausages, and other preserved products.
But in today's world with smooth logistics, eating cured meats has become a matter of taste habit. They offer a concentrated flavor of five-spice and a nostalgic memory of experiencing the wind. So, we risk eating them, knowing they may contain color fixatives, stabilizers, preservatives, and other potential carcinogens, and we take the "unsubstantiated" risk of developing esophageal, stomach, or even intestinal cancer. As for whether they were made from dead sow meat next to a gutter, we care even less.
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★★★
10. Civet
As a representative dish of the wild game faction, the deliciousness of civet is fading from the taste buds of the Chinese people, although it is still a terrestrial wild animal with mature captive breeding technology and is allowed on the people's tables.
But "coincidentally," the SARS-like virus found on civets is remarkably similar to the SARS virus that infected humans. It is also rumored that among the first group of people infected with SARS in China, one was a chef from a wild game restaurant. The panic of SARS enveloped the country for over a year, and civets had to temporarily retire from the culinary scene. But the Chinese people's interest in wild game has not diminished; if there are no civets, they'll just find "foxes."
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★
11. Dog Meat
A person cannot outrun a dog—unless by poisoning. As the smartest animal around humans, dogs would never have expected that the Chinese would not abide by the rules of fair play and would use cyanide to hunt and slaughter them.
When South Korea hosted the 2002 World Cup, they were boycotted by foreigners for their dog-eating customs. "Dog meat boiled three times, even a god can't stand steady," but the Chinese, who are not gods, hide behind their own doors, defying animal lovers, risking nosebleeds, and risking the chance of toxic cyanide, all driven by an inner desire that dog meat is an aphrodisiac. Here, we also advise everyone not to eat dog meat!
Deliciousness Index: ★★★★
Danger Index: ★★★★
12. French Fries
This was a sensational discovery two years ago when Swedes found that "some starch-rich foods produce varying amounts of acrylamide after being processed at high temperatures such as frying, baking, etc.," with potato French fries or chips containing the most.
And acrylamide is a carcinogen. According to the standards set by the World Health Organization, an adult's daily intake of acrylamide from drinking water should not exceed 1 microgram. However, one kilogram of French fries contains an average of 1000 micrograms of acrylamide. Yet, French fries and chips are still the favorite snack for many people because they are crispy, high in calories, and convenient to eat.