Food Scandals, Safety, Recalls

Using expired foodstuffs isn’t a huge deal for me.
It shouldn’t happen and the law should be enforced, but a lot of food will be fine even if officially ‘expired’. It doesn’t really speak to the quality of the ingredients.

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Yeah, most stuff is just fine expired. The reason most companies put the use by dates is because they’re afraid the flavor will change and reflect poorly on their brand. People have excavated canned food that’s hundreds of years old, and the contents are perfectly edible.

I used to sell biochemicals and we would actually test the stability of them every 3 months. If they were still fine we’d then extend the best before date for another 3 months and repeat. Sometimes we’d be five years in with no appreciable drop in stability.

But trying to explain this concept to a lot of folks was tricky, many assumed we were taking them for a ride, but what we were actually doing was providing them with a higher guarantee of quality than a vendor selling something that had approached its 1 year expiry date and hadn’t been retested during that period.

Never underestimate stupidity! :wink:

ACtually when I read that it was pouder, I thought that it shouldn’t be a big deal… I guess. It depends on what that pouder is, and how it’s been preserved, hopefully totally dry.

Still, I feel poisoned every second in this country :S

This time not powder but actual frozen seafood, 12 tons of it.

True enough for some kinds of items. Salt doesn’t really expire, for instance; sugar doesn’t really go off. Items with oil like nuts and whole-grain flours certainly DO go rancid, and very easily in this climate. We’ve encountered numerous instances of items that had NOT expired but were already rancid, and had to return them. It’s unfortunate that the laws aren’t able to deal with the subtleties of the matter.

Companies should heavily discount items as exp. dates approach, rather than selling them after the date.

I don’t know man

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Vietnamese tea found being passed off as Taiwanese. . . . a tea farmer is importing cheaper tea from Vietnam and marketing it as Taiwanese tea at much higher prices to consumers.


oh Man tea origin fraud is such a huge business in Taiwan.

The funny thing is its mostly not illegal!

well well well…
what is funny is that it won the second prize and was elected by fine tea connoisseur… how in hell is that possible???
1)but as i always say, it is exactly like the people taking wine class and shaking their glasses, sniffing them then pretending to know sh…t. :wall:

  1. that makes one of the best tea on the island to be Vietnamese :rofl:

  2. how come no one in the customs alerted the local police when they sea that one of the reknow tea boy is importing 5 tonnes of Vietnamese tea — that should be a straight RED flag :ponder:
    and moreover a tea farmer importing tea… suspicious no???
    :bowing:

Its normal to import vietnames tea here and mix and then it qualifies as Made in Taiwan. Only needs a few % Taiwanese tea.

It’s normal around the world. Ever have Hawaiian Coffee or Hawaiian Macadamia Nuts sold at many duty free? Only a low percentage actual Hawaiian made inside.

So Taiwanese tea is actually Vietnamese? Damn. Is nothing what it claims to be here?

I am sorry, but I need to call BS on this. When “Kona” coffee is blended with cheaper varieties, they will say so–and when it’s 100%, they will also say so. The problem in Taiwan (which I would liken to an own goal) is that it appears to be entirely legal here to blend, say, 1% Taiwan tea with 99% other tea and simply label it as “Taiwan tea.” Short term monetary gain, long term damage to the reputation of the product.

Guy

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I found out recently the government has a big budget to invest in better food testing tech and going to work with some public unis to improve the situation .

I did mention to some.decision makers that the problem is also from upstream as it’s completely abnormal to mix factories with agricultural land , unfortunately they felt embarrassed more than anything and the discussion didn’t go anywhere.
Everybody agreed food testing should be centrally managed and not to let local governments get involved.

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Cyclamic acid in “fresh” (frozen) pineapple. :pineapple: :nauseated_face:

Good news?

Consumers who purchased the product between May and June could receive a full refund, he said.

bon appetit
60 percent of handmade drinks contain excessive levels of bacteria

http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3218724

Ha. Every year or so I’ll start drinking from tea stands again - I had my first one in ages two days ago - and then I’ll see a story like this and stop again for a year.

Mind you, I do get take-out coffee from Cama and the like, and I assume those have the same issues.