Is Chinese Food Low Quality? Organic Farming in China
Hello Steem Blockchain!
Today's video is some food for thought. The label "Made in China" usually gets a bad rap. People think that almost everything in China is of poor quality: their electronics, their buildings and even their food. Yes, food can be hazardous when excessive pesticides are used to treat them. I think most people consider the produce coming from China to be toxic or of inferior quality.
I wanted to make this video to show Lillian and I going to an organic strawberry farm to pick some juicy strawberries. They are in season and this activity really got me into thinking about whether people outside of China know about these places.
This video and post highlights that China does have good quality good available. Sure, there are some vendors you shouldn't trust when buying your meats and produce, but this place for instance is only 15 minutes away from my apartment and offers some really high quality strawberries that you can pick yourself!
What's more, the price is only 20 RMB per 500g ($3.18 USD)! In order to get the same quality in Western countries, you would have to pay an arm and a leg. Many people in the West don't like to buy organic produce because it is so much more expensive and usually smaller than produce grown in conventional farms.
This farm does not use an pesticides, is protected from animals and pests and has a shield above to protect from the elements.
The produce in China is usually more fresh than what you might be used to. Whenever you go to the wet markets, you are buying vegetables that were harvested very recently. It could have arrived that day or the previous day. When you shop in supermarkets in the West, you are often buying vegetables that were shipped from long distances and are over a week old. That seems to be the trade-off. Most food you buy in China is very fresh but the downside is that it may have been treated with more and harsher pesticides than in other countries.
As a result, I'd like to say that the produce here is of high quality due to it being so fresh. There are special soaps on the markets that are inexpensive where you can soak your vegetables in order to get rid of some of these pesticides. That's a huge plus because it allows you to have a highly nutritious meal and the food is less hazardous to your health.
But let's go back to these organic strawberries.
Lillian and I took a taxi and arrived in a rural part of my city, Qinhuangdao. It isn't so far away but looks drastically different to my district. I felt like I travelled for 3 hours out of the city based on the way this place looked.
We went in the morning because if you don't, you'll miss out on the best and juiciest strawberries to pick. We made that mistake last time; we called the farm last week in the afternoon and they said we shouldn't come because all the good strawberries are gone. So that's my advice to you all: don't come to these farms late because you'll have nothing to choose from!
We were earlier and we were happy to see all the beautiful, ripe strawberries. They were a deep red colour and tasted very sweet!
The farm was organized in rows. We looked at each row, picked whichever strawberries we wanted and then checked out the other rows for more. There was definitely enough to choose from!
This goes to show you that you can find some high quality food in China. It's not all bad. Whenever you go shopping in China, check out the wet markets and organic farms like these. One thing that I would like to advise you on is that you can definitely find some low quality meat here. Often times, the vendors keep the meat sitting unrefrigerated for long periods of time. It's also tough to know how well the animals were treated!
Fortunately, I have found places to sell very high quality eggs. These eggs are from chickens that live freely on the mountaintops in a rural county of my city. The aren't injected with any hormones and are fed a natural diet. The yolks of these eggs are a nice orange colour, their shells are strong and the eggs are a little bit smaller than the conventional ones. I don't mind at all because they are still inexpensive! You can buy like 30 eggs for $8. I don't even know the actual price because I just load as many as I want and pay the price the clerk tells me. It's definitely cheaper than back in Canada.
There are services that can deliver grass fed beef and pasture raised chickens as well. Some friends I know use it. The company will simply deliver the meat to your home every week and you pay for it that way. Also, I am sure you could find some farms around here that raise and treat the animals properly.
But seriously, let's get back to these strawberries!
After some time, we finished picking our strawberries and went to the front to pay for them. In total, it costed us 55 RMB, which is about $8.75 USD! Not bad, eh?!
If you look at the picture above, we were able to fill that box to the top. The picture does not show the total number of strawberries we bought. We picked more and by the time we were done, the strawberries were bulging at the top of the box.
That about wraps this post up. I wanted to emphasize that not all the food in China is low quality. You can easily find some awesome spots like this place and get very high quality food for a fraction of what you would pay in Western countries. Food is usually more fresh as well because of how quickly the harvest and deliver it to the vendors. Another plus is that it is all grown in China. Almost all of their food is produced in one country and doesn't need to be shipped long distances, thereby ending up with aged produce that isn't so fresh. The Chinese believe that fresh food has more "Qi" and is therefore better for your health.
Every morning, you can see the senior citizens shopping at the markets and buying food from the vendors. It isn't like in the West where people buy food once a week in large quantities and have it last several days. Here, people frequently buy food in order to make sure that the food is as fresh as possible.
Thanks for reading & watching!
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500g of Strawberries for $3.18 USD? That kind of price is unheard of.
And this is a more expensive strawberry patch because it is located near the city. Go more rural and you will pay half!
Well done my friend .. beautiful
Look great experience, good for you .. Great information from you
Thanks for sharing
Nice for pointing out an alternative to the common trope that everything is toxic that comes from China. I lived in Shandong Province for several months and saw some of the worst of it, but I also know that there are tons of amazing , innovative things coming out of China, and we should see the good just as much as the bad, which your excellent review does so nicely. And strawberries- yeah- food of the gods. Nice one!
You are very right that the general perspective is that anything that comes from China is inferior in quality. In my own opinion to support yours, i believe there has been alot of good changes now.
High quality things now come out of China. I really love the green house organic strawberry farm. Does it tastes different from conventional ones?
China is changing really fast. They have the resources to come up with high quality products because the market is there.
It does much sweeter than conventional ones. Strawberries often times have more pesticides than any other fruit or vegetable. The thing is, a strawberry can't be peeled like an orange; where most of the pesticides remain. So eating organic strawberries is really important. I find that the conventional ones don't have as much flavour or have a metallic taste to them. This is what I remember with strawberries I ate in Canada; very little flavour.
I can't provide scientific evidence, but the organic tomatoes we grow in Snowdonia have way more flavour than anything I can buy in the shops. If only consumers could see pesticides with their eyes the market would be completely different. Looks are more important that health and taste it seems.
Yes, usually organic tastes better. I remember comparing organic/conventional blueberries in Canada and remember that the conventional ones tasted metallic. The organic ones had more flavour even though they were smaller.
Now i get itclearly, that means it migght be a good business idea if someone with enough capital can replicate samein the west. Over time i am optimistic people there will appreciate it. Thank you for explaining better.
on the other hand, there are still lots of things that are not great, like pickled ginger from China is still not very good and I avoid it at all cost.
I guess it also depends what it is.
Hey Kenan, great to know organic exists in China. I hope it grows. Did see any sign of it when I was there 14 years ago, but there was a growing voice calling for it in India a couple of years ago. I'm in Thailand now, just been to a permaculture project here making a video (pretty much only foreigners of course) and didn't see much interest in organic in Thailand. India and China will soon be about half the worlds population so spreading ideas about organic and the environment is very important. Lets hope awareness grows. Flying to India tonight, I'll post on how it's going there.
Awesome man. India is a country I need to travel to one day. Most of the population doesn't seem to care. People don't like paying more money for smaller produce (organic) and the health consequences are not clear. It really depends on how many pesticides are used and what type that determine how healthy it is. I'd say a lot of pesticides in the West are OK but in China, it seems they use much harsher pesticides that lead to digestive problems. I don't have any studies to back this up (haven't checked) but my digestion is a lot weaker in China than in other countries like South Korea and Canada.
My wife and other Chinese people will tell me to avoid some local restaurants and just cook at home because of poor restaurant kitchen habits.
Produce in big supermarkets aren't always so fresh. They keep them on the shelves until they rot.
I'm often told to buy produce from local market places where the farmers and vendors bring them directly from the farm which they grow crops.
The main complaint I hear some people say about Chinese food quality is that it's too oily or food is prepared with gutter oil, however I only think that some foods are made too oily but not most of Chinese Cuisine.
I'd say that a lot of food you buy in restaurants in China are quite oily. I'm not sure if your location is different, but here I would agree with other people that a lot of it is oily. They cook a lot of stir frys so you can expect a lot of oil.
That's all around China. I haven't seen much of difference in each province, besides small shops vs upscale restaurants.
The stir-fry dishes are oily. Some baozi are oily. Some small shops have served me some very oily fried rice. The continuous use of the same oil is the food concern with expats here. The street food some people don't trust or deem it has poor quality.
Sometimes one incident leads to the general belief like that baby formula incident years ago. They still use that as the excuse to buy imported baby formula over domestic.
Thanks buddy for showing the positive side of Chinese food industry. When I was little, my grandparents used to shop on the wet market on the streets every day to get the fresh veggies and meat. It was a great experience cause you can negotiate down the price by half sometimes. The stuff were so fresh compared to the industralised Western food in supermarkets. 10 years ago there is nobody talking about organic food in China cause normally people can buy on the street markets farmer's food which is by definition organic. They do not use pesticides sometimes cause they could not afford one, so the quality was actually great.
Thanks for watching! Things have changed a lot and finding organic isn't as easy as it used to be many years ago. But it's good to know that you can still find it.
Nice! I've seen stores selling organic fruit and vegetables here but I was always skeptical. Especially with the amount of counterfeit foods you see, it's difficult to trust the market here sometimes.
You're right. It's hard to know whether sometimes is truly "organic" or not. That's why I am so thankful to go a pick the strawberries myself and see what kind of conditions they are being grown in. Very happy!
中国当然有，在中国提倡的就是绿色发展观念，中国在减少对于农药的使用，特别是在中国农村，绿色有机蔬菜是经常可见的。China has, of course, promoted the idea of green development in China, and China is reducing its use of pesticides, especially in rural China, where green organic vegetables are often visible.
I find it funny that people associate products from China with low quality when they make virtually everything we use
The tables are turning. They are starting to invest a lot into having high quality products.