Chinese Street Food Made From 'Gutter Oil' : The Most Disgusting Thing You Will See All Day

Someone just pointed me to this story that has kind of put me off eating Chinese for a while. So i thought id share it with ATS.

The next time you consider eating Chinese street food you might think twice.
The use of gutter oil it turns out is pretty common. This refers to a process of pulling waste oil from sewers, grease traps, waste from slaughterhouses, reprocessing it and then selling it as cooking oil.

Source





It seems that earlier this month a man from china was sent to prison for life for making gutter oil but the practice still goes on.

Outrageous!!

Not one of them was wearing a hairnet.

Yikes!!!!! And I'm the kind that would've tried one of everything!

*gag*

I keep thinking about Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, especially Zimmern. He loves street food.

New meaning when you oder the poo-poo platter.

And US is the most important trade partner for them. Makes me wonder where Mc Donald's cooking oil and cheap incredients comes from.
I almost puked while watching this

Is this what we degenerate into as our resources become more scarce ? disgusting, however I would be willing to bet that at least one person or company of western origin hasn't seen this and thought hmmmm....£££££ ? How would you like your fries sir ?

I've been living in China for 7 years and you would be AMAZED at how many cheap, hole in the wall restaurants use this stuff.
One thing you gotta understand about China is that it's PROFIT FIRST, safety last, most people don't care as long as there's a profit in it, they have no morals to whom they might be harming, just think of their own wallet. Also the people who do eat this stuff eat for the sole reason that it's CHEAP.

My family has always ate at home because of the food safety concerns here.

Just one more reason to stop eating out. It doesn't matter if it's Chinese food or not. I've worked in the food and beverage arena and I could gross out everyone here with some of the stuff I've seen. Such as a manager rubbing a frozen slice of pie (it's served frozen) on the filthy kitchen floor and covering it with whipped cream to get back at a customer for upsetting his favorite waitress. I've witnessed a waiter spitting in the food of a customer that angered him. I walked into the kitchen of a restaraunt to find the owner at peak dinner time spraying the kitchen for roaches and then the roaches were running everywhere in the food and on the dishes!

Add to the list dirty fingernails on the waitstaff, dirty utensils set out on tables, roaches hiding in a salad and filthy restrooms. These are not fast food joints I'm talking about. These were 4 and 5 star restaraunts. So now I cook my own food. That way I know whats in it where it's been.

Firstly I agree with everything that has been said and I would not want my food cooked in this stuff.

Having said that, perhaps the safety concerns are a bit over the top. That is cooking oil. At 175C or 347F that my deep fryer uses, surely any nasties are dead before you put your food in or am I missing something!

Yes, it is disgusting, but! The thought of recycled water is a bit off putting and yet it can be made safe.

P

that is just gross ....yuk...i never thought i would advocate macdonals but if i ever go to china that will be all i will eat....yuk

reply to post by pheonix358


it seems a percentage of the oil is carcinogenic. What they pull out of the sewers probably contains engine oil as well as food oil. Industrial rapeseed oil can have horrific effects on the body and 1000's of people have died ingesting it in the past. You just don't know what you are getting when you are pulling it out the gutter and sewers.

PhoenixOD
reply to post by pheonix358

 

it seems a percentage of the oil is carcinogenic. What they pull out of the sewers probably contains engine oil as well as food oil. Industrial rapeseed oil can have horrific effects on the body and 1000's of people have died ingesting it in the past. You just don't know what you are getting when you are pulling it out the gutter and sewers.

Thanks for that, damn good point. I suppose in a country like China, they could throw anything down the drain. Had not considered motor oil, yuk. I know some areas in the western world where certain people have the attitude 'I don't care, it is only a gallon of oil. Too much trouble to dispose of it properly.'

Star for you!

P

Sounds like the perfect filler for McD nuggets

Why dont they just stick to using is as fuel for vehicles?!

reply to post by PhoenixOD

This is a disgusting practice, putting street oil on top of corpses. Makes me want to find a nice Indian buffet and get my naan on.

I just....I can't....I think that's enough interwebzzz for me today.

Reminds me of futurama the secret ingredient of slurm

There's certainly worse food practices from a bacteria standpoint but I imagine that there's all kinds of oil in there that can't be healthy for ingestion. Probably still safer than drinking contaminated water however.

I'd much rather eat something cooked in that hot oil than drink water that hasn't been pressure boiled from many places around the world.

we have a rather large cooking operation (with a few kitchens). We sell our grease. Not the stuff in the greasetrap...that is suctioned off by a septic service. But the oils from the fryers, etc...it all goes into a big metal container and is picked up once a month by a company that pays me about 50 bucks, depending on how much we have. I would pay for someone to provide that service, so am happy to have a little incremental revenue instead of an invoice.

The grease/oil is used for biodiesel and other types of fuel.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


People steal that from fast food joints I hear to make fuel. When the gas prices got really high you'd hear about that kind of stuff.