Early Look: Gutter Oil, the Real (Not Clickbaity) Story

That's funny. I'm friends with a ton of second generation immigrants (pan-Asian and Latin American) so that rings true. The parents of my friends won't let money just sit there. They're frugal almost to a fault. But LA also has some pretty conspicuous affordability issues. It might be for that reason that in the middle of the night before garbage day, all the recycling bins inevitably get plundered. As often as not by a determined looking woman of a certain age with a grocery cart.

Brad Foley

I'm old enough to remember the very tail end of Maoism and its brutal, grinding poverty and abuses of the common folk as reported in North America (I'm Canadian), and even 50+ years on that's still an image that culturally arises and colours a lot of older people's perceptions. It was incessantly drilled into our heads as children "Thank your lucky stars you aren't them" being shown the very worst examples. For those of us who have taken the time and effort to educate ourselves and actually talk to people who came from different areas of China, we know it's a different country from the China of the 60s and 70s (and blatant propaganda is a thing), but we aren't the majority. More central to the topic, we've had plenty of our own food quality issues before strict government regulations became a real, enforced thing, and various nonsense still occurs under the radar to this day (trust me, I work in the food industry and sometimes it's a bit scary). Regulations are only made after incidents occur; it takes time for government to catch up and people in general do not possess "common sense" on their own.

KhrispyB

Yeah, I think you see it in any country with a bottle deposit scheme, no matter how rich. eg, I've never seen it in the UK, where bottles aren't worth anything, but it's common in Germany where you can get up to 25 cents a bottle. North America, Europe, Australia - it's pretty universal. (Even somewhere like Sweden with a generous welfare system, there are people who slip through the cracks, want to avoid the state, or just want to get a little extra cash)

Ste & Danni JM

Thanks for the reply!

Ste & Danni JM

You’re not seriously proposing that people on the internet get a fucking grip, are you? What in the name of Dog are you trying to do? Torpedo your income stream? Nice job, by the way. I joined your merry band of miscreants initially for the cooking techniques, but have stayed for the insight into cultural context and culinary history.

Paul Weiss

We got a couple people asking about this news, so I figure I'll share what I know so far, after all this news was only out about a month ago. So from my understanding, it was in 2017 that certain Chinese food products (including Lao Gan Ma) in Germany that was found to contain mineral oil. Although I can't seem to find credible reports on this news. Then the news you mentioned about "Chinese trucking companies using the same tankers for soybean oil and industrial chemicals" broke out last month, and many non-Chinese media seem to link the two news together and create the kind of story about "Products exported to the West may have been contaminated". So first to answer your question, “is this actually a particularly big scandal in China” – yes, everybody’s looking at it and seeing how this will go. “Is it some huge systemic problem that people and authorities are worried about, or is it just one or two truckers cutting a corner and getting busted” – right now, it looks like the former. According to what I saw on interviews and media investigation, it seems like this is not some random incidents, it happens, and it’s around. However, how widespread this practice is, we don’t know. How common oil mixing with nonfood grade oil is, we don’t know. People in China are concerned as well and the whole thing is under investigation right now. As of now, cooking oil in China is not required to be tested for mineral oil, and the transportation of cooking oil has a “suggested national standard” but not a legally required one (meaning you don’t have to follow the strictest standards), these are probably the two main reason why this happened. But the industry seems fast reacting, right now I’ve seen some actions being taken and big corporation issuing their own standards for transportation to reassure the panicking mass market (making lard at home is back fashion again for instance). For consumers outside of China, maybe this is something that can bring you some comfort. So in China, there’s long been this belief that things that’re for export have a better quality (this belief’s starting to change now, though it’s another topic). Because companies and factory would use better quality materials and impose higher manufacturing standards for export goods in order to meet the higher requirements of the importing countries. And given the current political environment in the US and how Chinese companies and products are being targeted all the time, I think Chinese manufacturers need to be extra careful when producing and exporting to North America. Of course, I can’t say for sure that this is 100% safe, but judging from past experience and looking at the situation analytically, I think Lao Gan Ma lovers in the west are in good hands.

Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas

Please keep making content like this! It's great to keep proper insight into the aspects of the cuisine we love that are misunderstood. I've look track of how many arguments I've got over how whenever someone gets food poisoning they go through their last couple of days looking for an Asian/South Asian place to blame. Never the local café that constantly cross contaminates their food or the white people-operated diner with extra salty (past expiration) food.

Leonardo

Hey, we were getting back to someone about the more recent oil scandal in China and (mistakenly, awkwardly) deleted their comment when trying to respond to it. This was their comment: "On the topic of being sensible about Chinese food oil scandals - the other day I read a story about Chinese delivery companies using the same tankers for soybean oil and industrial chemicals. The emphasis in the articles I read was "Products exported to the West may have been contaminated!" (which I admit did get me thinking about my jars of lao gan ma, a product that is almost entirely soybean oil). But is this actually a particularly big scandal in China? Is it some huge systemic problem that people and authorities are worried about, or is it just one or two truckers cutting a corner and getting busted?"

Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas

Hey, we were getting back to someone about the more recent oil scandal in China and (mistakenly, awkwardly) deleted their comment when trying to respond to it. And this was their comment: "On the topic of being sensible about Chinese food oil scandals - the other day I read a story about Chinese delivery companies using the same tankers for soybean oil and industrial chemicals. The emphasis in the articles I read was "Products exported to the West may have been contaminated!" (which I admit did get me thinking about my jars of lao gan ma, a product that is almost entirely soybean oil). But is this actually a particularly big scandal in China? Is it some huge systemic problem that people and authorities are worried about, or is it just one or two truckers cutting a corner and getting busted?"

Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas

(This is Steph): So getting to the age of 40 and growing up the 80s/90s, I'll say the general social environment/atmosphere has changed rapidly and significantly over the past 20 years, while the previoius 20 years before that there were still changes but slower. Food safety wise it has improved a lot. For me, traveling to America and eating around doesn't feel that different than eating in China now (though always squatting toilet at restaurants in China and maybe no toilet paper). And we always hope more people can come to China and experience the great food themselves. However, it was a different scene in the 90s for sure. Your classmates may have some exaggerations on the facts as it's a common sight among certain Chinese that moved abroad, but I can say it was not that good. Just like we said in the video, 90s China, early stage capitalism real hard, lol.

Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas

That's interesting. I (Steph) have seen on Chinese social media some Chinese immigrants in the US complanin about their parents going around and digging through garbage to collect bottles as a past time, wonder if what you see is a recent scene or has it always been there.

Stephanie Li and Chris Thomas

I kinda had to laugh at the fact that you were like "if you've been to India or Southeast Asia, you've probably seen people digging through garbage to get recycling" .... because I live in LA and I see this *all the time*. (I have in fact also spent plenty of time in SE Asia, but, like, even in the richest country in the world, we do this all the time) GREAT post, by the way. There's a reason you're my favourite youtube channel.

Brad Foley

In all honesty, when I started this video I was thinking "do I really want to see this?" But actually (a) I'm glad I watched it and (b) nice work. You have a rather unique perspective from which to do a little social media criticism, and I think the point about skin in the game is actually something a lot of folks haven't considered that might help them to navigate out current information swamp. I've occasionally wanted to write an article on the same topic, but never came up with quite the right way to put it. So thanks for doing it, and you haven't driven me away yet. :)

Abhayakara

Chris! This was fantastic. Very very level headed and brutally honest. I’m an old fart, and remember the Tiananmen Square protests. I also remember how my grad student friends were planning on not returning to China during the 90’s. The environment is very different today than during the previous 40 years. The thought of visiting China would not have crossed my mind back then. Or Peru for that matter. And I spent some afternoons in Juarez, Mexico during the late 80’s and got a “taste” of non-US food handling. It was no near as bad as my classmates led me to believe. Even the open rotisserie of chickens in the dining room with the pan under it to catch grease.

Ellen Bloomfield

This is good work, and I think it's valuable for you to contribute this even-handed, rational breakdown to a conversation that's bound to be dominated by knee-jerk emotional reactions.

Adrian Slider

Thank you for providing such a nuanced and respectful discussion on such a hot button topic! I love your point on the end: why give a fuck if you don't know anyone personally that would be affected? However, on your hypothetical "category 2" oil of recycled oil dosed with high purity oil: it is important to remember that government regulations are, at the end of the day, semi-arbitrary lines drawn in the sand. They (hopefully) try their damndest to use our humanity-wide collection of scientific knowledge to best approximate where this line should be drawn, but at the same time, science is far from the truth — it's just the best that we got. That said, even if that aforementioned blended "category 2" oil meets regulatory standards, it might not be out of the question that it still is unsafe for consumption because of another compound that science has yet to find adverse affects and the government has yet to regulate. Not to mention, how trustworthy would that recycle-blended oil actually be if it was just barely pure enough to be labeled as "category 2?" Just food for thought to fuel humanity's indominable desire to obtain unknowable truths :))

Farren

Very informative and nuanced and thought-provoking!

Andrew Condon

Ste & Danni JM