Cooking oil is still a major staple . Local people will even give cooking oil as a gift for Chinese new year.
Food served in plastic bag inside a plastic bag!
Two reports of food poisoning in Nantou recently. One goose stall and one stinky toufu stall. Over 30 from the goose and over 180 from the toufu went to the hospital.
Beware of pre-cut fruit and bread products at night markets.
- half the fruit has unsafe E.coli
- high percentages of bread have unsafe E.coli
1 Like
Someone is corrupted (article from february 2019)
(video in chinese - august 2019)
2 Likes
I apologize for my poor English. I found English to be very difficult for me, though I was trying my best.
First we talk about additives, the food safety laws in Taiwan are outdated and have a lot of loopholes. So some harmful additives that are forbidden in most of the countries might be legally used in Taiwan.
You should also be really worrying about the additives approved by most of the countries in Taiwan. Why? Itâs because the standard amount of those additives in Taiwan may have exceeded the international standard amount way too much.
So donât just let your guard down when you find out the additives of the food you pick are approved by the international standard, since the amount of those additives may still exceed the international standard. Whatâs even worse is that some of the additives are not even legal to be used in Taiwan but you can still find reports about people putting illegal additives in foods and selling them.
Now we talk about the food hygiene, when you eat out in Taiwan, you canât really expect the food to be clean. I remember eating in a small noodle restaurant and I had an urge to use the restroom (by the way, many of small restaurants do not have restrooms available, they are only for employees), so I asked one of the employees if I could use it.
And yes I was allowed to use the restroom but I was disgusted as the moment I walked in, there was a table in the restroom and on the table were the pots filled with soup(without pot lids) and the vegetables, I also noticed there were buckets filled with their sauces on the floor. I quickly used the restroom and left.
After the incident, I seldom ate out. But when I have to eat in a small noodle restaurant, I always ask if I can use their restrooms. The other big problem of most small Taiwanese restaurants is that their kitchens are outside, which also means flies, mouses, and cockroaches can easily touch your food.
I canât assure you bigger restaurants have better hygiene since most of the Taiwanese vendors donât really care about it and the department of health in Taiwan is tremendously inefficient.
Surprisingly, Taiwanese donât seem to care about the food safety. They may get angry when a food scandal first spread over Taiwan, but after like three weeks, they either stop caring about it or just simply forget the whole incident.
A lot of Taiwanese also prefer foods that are yummy and cheap and large, I donât exactly know why but itâs just a trend in Taiwan. So itâs easy to imagine how vendors balance these three things in their food. The manufacturers that make processed food that contains harmful additives just need to re-manufacture their products and repackage them(or advertise their improvements), and then they will be fine. People will still buy their products. Also the food safety laws barely punish those manufacturers and will not be able to protect customers from getting those potentially toxic food. At this point, I think youâre starting to understand why the food safety in Taiwan is horrendous.
If you often read topics or watch videos about Taiwan food safety on the internet, you may notice thereâs a phenomenon in some comment sections in which some Taiwanese start changing the subject of the topic/the video and scolding that the food safety in Western countries are no better and every country has the same severe food safety situation like Taiwan.
Another interesting phenomenon Iâve noticed is that if a person suggests people should avoid eating in night markets due to the very worrying food safety and hygiene, people would scold the person for being haughty and arrogant or even see the person as rich.
But thereâs more!! When someone complains or gets depressed about the food safety in Taiwan, many Taiwanese will respond with something like âWe have eaten a lot of harmful things before, and yet we are still alive, donât overthink it.â or âI think those unscrupulous vendors have learned their lesson, so donât worry about the food safety.â, or âYou are lucky compared to those starving people, they donât even have food to eat and youâre here not knowing if you should eat your food just because of its food safety?â. It is more common to hear the first and the second comment during the food safety/scandal related conversations.
If you think eating in a expensive restaurant in Taiwan guarantees you a safe meal, you might be disappointed in what Iâm about to tell you. Even high-end steakhouses in Taiwan served customers restructured meat.
Studies show that restructured meat should be cooked well-done(the doneness), otherwise you may likely get food poisoning. It means you may die from eating restructured meat. The thing about those Taiwanese steakhouses is they wonât tell customers about the restructured meat and still ask customers how they would like their steaks, causing people who like their steaks medium-well(or more rare) potentially get food poisoning without knowing it.
There was a time when I didnât know about restructured meat, I sometimes went to those âaffordableâ steakhouses, and there were multiple times I felt like I got headaches after eating their steaks that were cooked medium-well. It goes without saying that most of the steakhouses in Taiwan are still using restructured meat as steaks, especially for those âaffordableâ steakhouses. And yeah, following the logic, the pork slices and beef slices in Taiwanese hot pot restaurants are also most likely restructured meat, please think twice before eating any meat products in restaurants in Taiwan.
You may want to cook for yourself after reading this post, but what you should beware of is the condiments and the seasonings made in Taiwan, there are reports of safety issues with some condiments and seasonings made in Taiwan(also link down below).
Taiwan food safety related links(ALL in Chinese):
List of the food scandals in Taiwan- https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E9%A3%9F%E5%93%81%E5%AE%89%E5%85%A8%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8
Hight-end steakhouses in Taiwan serving restructured meat(They claimed they did not serve restructured meat, they only used their own âtechniqueâ on their steaks)- https://123.briian.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=3729
Unscrupulous vendor buying expired meat and kitchen waste from Costco and repackaging them to sell to breakfast shops and cafeterias- https://www.thenewslens.com/feature/foodsafety/30821
Unscrupulous vendor buying cheap catfish and labeling them as homemade Japanese cod steaks and selling them to breakfast shops and cafeterias- https://www.thenewslens.com/feature/foodsafety/31121
Factory that produced hot dogs, hams, bacon was found putting industrial grade sodium nitrite and industrial grade sodium nitrate in their products(And they had already sold their products to many breakfast shops and other caterings), and was eventually found not guilty- https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/society/breakingnews/2252905
Company selling industrial grade magnesium carbonate as food grade magnesium carbonate to a seasoning company and other downstream manufacturers(The seasoning company also knew about the industrial grade magnesium carbonate but still bought it from the company. And the seasonings they manufactured were already sold to restaurant owners and street vendors. It may have been as well sold to night market vendors and breakfast shop vendors and so on), and the company and the seasoning company were all found not guilty eventually- https://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E5%8F%97%E9%99%90%E9%80%9F%E5%AF%A9%E6%B3%95-%E9%BB%91%E5%BF%83%E8%83%A1%E6%A4%92%E7%B2%89%E6%A5%AD%E8%80%85%E7%84%A1%E7%BD%AA%E7%A2%BA%E5%AE%9A-094600606.html
Another seasoning company was found putting industrial grade magnesium carbonate in their seasonings, and their seasonings had been on the market for 7 years- https://www.setn.com/News.aspx?NewsID=72937
Owners of cafeterias, hot pot restaurants, bento restaurants and vegetable vendors picking up vegetable wastes and selling them to customers.(When inspecting, the department of health inspectors also found there were foods and sauces sitting on the floor in the kitchen of a restaurant that served vegetable wastes. Itâs not clear if they only found one restaurant with such horrible hygiene condition, it may have been more.)- https://news.tvbs.com.tw/life/720479
Soy sauces mixed with potentially harmful chemicals can be legally named natural brewing soy sauces- https://www.zencosmos.com.tw/2017/02/editors-choice/8116/
Soy sauces mixed with potentially harmful chemicals are even more expensive than the real natural brewing soy sauces- https://www.chinatimes.com/newspapers/20161215000505-260114?chdtv
Foreignersâ opinions about Taiwanese night markets(Lots of Taiwanese in the comment section scolding those who give their honest opinions about Taiwanese night markets)- https://www.ettoday.net/news/20170905/1004417.htm
Company buying rotten eggs, expired eggs, damaged eggs, moldy eggs, eggs with worms inside and eggs with drug residues and making them liquid eggs to sell to other caterings(Including breakfast shops and cafeterias and pastry shops, etc)- https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/society/breakingnews/2753434
Famous barbecue restaurant suing the two former employees for exposing their terrible food safety(The former employees revealed the restaurant served customers leftovers and served food that had fallen on the floor. They also revealed the restaurant served customers spoiled beef and then they told customers it was âspecial flavored beefâ. Inspectors of the department of health also suspected the restaurant used washing powder as dishwashing liquid, which was in conformity with what the former employees had said. The inspectors also discovered the hygiene condition of their kitchen was terrible and messy)- https://www.ettoday.net/news/20181002/1271902.htm
For your own health, when you eat beef products in Taiwan, youâd better make sure theyâre well-done.- https://buzzorange.com/2014/11/11/glued-meat-as-steak/
The reason steaks in night markets taste delicious- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7vluWAaJk0
The horrible hygiene of a noodle restaurant- https://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E8%B6%85%E5%99%81-%E8%80%81%E7%89%8C%E7%89%9B%E8%82%89%E6%8B%89%E9%BA%B5%E5%BA%97%E7%88%86%E6%B9%AF%E9%8D%8B%E6%93%BA%E5%BB%81%E6%89%80%E5%A4%96-121515313.html
Another horrible hygiene of a noodle restaurant(And you can see how inefficient the department of health in Taiwan is)- https://news.tvbs.com.tw/entry/201080
The dirty secret of Taiwanese food- http://www.3kirikou.org/article_detail.php?SerialNo=3644SerialNo%3D3644
Reasons why buying soy sauce in Taiwan is risky(This one is really worth reading)- https://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E9%86%AC%E6%B2%B9%E7%88%86%E9%A3%9F%E5%AE%89%E6%BC%8F%E6%B4%9E-%E7%AE%A1%E5%88%B6-%E6%8A%BD%E6%AA%A2-%E6%A8%99%E7%A4%BA%E5%B1%A4%E5%B1%A4%E7%BC%BA%E5%A4%B1-101132376.html
After auditing 40 brands of soy sauce, 57 products of soy sauce were found misbranded and 5 were found containing too much preservatives than the standard amount- https://healthylives.tw/article/vD628Y4452j.html
Untold secrets in Taiwanese night markets(This one is also really worth reading)- https://buzzorange.com/2017/09/05/taiwan-night-marcket-food-much-worse-than-a-few-bad-eggs/
Why food safety in Taiwan is terrible- http://www.phycos.com.tw/articles/152
â4-Methylimidazoleâ in Coca Cola Taiwan is 39 times more than the amount of Coca Cola U.S.- https://www.thenewslens.com/article/877
person complaining about the hygiene of breakfast shops gets criticisms on the Internet- https://oops.udn.com/oops/story/6698/2846271
another topic about foreigners giving honest opinions of Taiwan night markets(many comments down below)- https://oops.udn.com/oops/story/6699/2683736
Whistleblower exposing unscrupulous company selling expired and spoiled seafood ends up getting into troubles. (The whistleblower(ex-employee) reveals the company he worked for was relabeling expired and spoiled seafood as normal ones, and those seafood had already been sold to caterings. The company was eventually fined around $3870 USD and the whistleblower received around $2322 USD from the department of health. The whistleblower then got rejected by many other local companies and even received personal safety threats, it is reported that the whistleblower left his hometown and is working in some other area.)
https://udn.com/news/story/6656/3938106https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhF_DwjTSZo
A noodle restaurant was found soaking kelps in a dirty bucket and put it on the ground, with a mop dripping water in the bucket.- https://news.tvbs.com.tw/life/1169672
9 Likes
I do appreciate the effort you put into this post.
Unfortunately, food safety in Taiwan can usually be summed up as:âWhat is food safety?â.
3 Likes
Hello Bless. You may also be interested in these threads:
Other parts of Asia tend to have similar problems in food safety, but perhaps it gets exposed more often in Taiwan because of greater media interest (and freedom, compared to the less developed places). Can anyone post a comparative study? E.g. âWhich part of Asia will have the least negative effect on my health, foodwise?â 
Using industrial grade chemical âxyzâ instead of edible grade chemical âxyzâ is a common theme in Taiwan Iâve noticed.
I remember a few years ago one or more of the Taiwan biotechs got into trouble using an industrial grade magnesium salt in their magnesium supplement, which was contaminated with all sorts of crap. The Taiwanese company was trying to cut costs as the only other source they had at the time was importing the food grade magnesium from Germany.
Surely Taiwan makes food grade chemicals too? Or do they not trust it?
But if they donât trust Taiwanese food grade chemicals then why use industrial grade which is presumably much worse?
I do wonder if âhave to import stuff from Germanyâ is a really bad excuse. I have gone to those chemical stores before and they have all kinds of food grade chemical (not additives, just stuff like sodium chloride, hydroxide, etc. that are used in food) made in Taiwan. They probably say âbut otherwise we have to import it from Germanyâ as an excuse to somehow justify their use of technical grade chemicals (which like you said is contaminated with all sorts of stuff and have no standards applied to it).
Also, do NOT eat pre-cut fruits from nightmarkets or anywhere else. Some stalls, in order to keep the cut fruits looking good longer (they turn brown when exposed to air, and not being in a fridge out in the heat does not help), they soak the cut fruit in a solution containing formaldehyde based bleach. Itâs not good for you. Normally they soak it in salt solution which keeps it looking good longer than not doing anything but the bleach makes it last all day.
Sometimes I wonder if formaldehyde is named after Taiwan because the damn thing is used so often in Taiwan, often in foods (they are not supposed to be used in foods at all).
2 Likes
Food quality is worrying here, but Iâd take it over somewhere like China where information is suppressed.
1 Like
In whatever country you live, the best is to cook your own food, thatâs why I think Taipei food is expensive because supermarketa are. I also encounter a toilet = kitchen and stop eating out, it seems they donât know how to manage space in here. Also Taiwanese families donât know too much about food safety (in-laws are a disasters), they think microwave is bad for health and they defrost meat in water and contaminate everything, I told them is really bad.
1 Like
yeah, obviously your English is too poor that I can not read through the post till the end.
1 Like
The kind of stuff you see here would never pass food safety inspection anywhere in the US, even backwater flyover states.
Stuff like some lady sitting on a stool with a hose to wash dishes is against the law in the US.
The only place Iâve seen where proper sanitation procedure is followed is Costco. But Iâve seen some very disgusting kitchens in the US as well.
By the way Iâve never had food poisoning in Taiwan, I have twice in the US.
I may not agree with everything in your post, but your English is far from poor.
2 Likes
Although I keep a scrupulously clean kitchen at home, Iâm not particularly phased by the washing of dishes in the gutter, or grubby restaurants. If the food is good (a big if), Iâll eat there. A bit of dirt wonât hurt anyone, in fact it has been shown to be beneficial, especially at a young age, some here may be familiar with the âhygeine hypothesisâ of allergies.
What I think is far more dangerous is the ignorant and reckless use of food additives, so thanks to the OP for this information.
1 Like
I have stared at pre-cut fruit in a night market or some such place and wondered what the hell they were using to keep it looking fresh but never knew the details.
Food safety laws are so strict in the US that very few home kitchens would even pass muster. The rule is, food canât spent more than 2 hours combined in the âred zoneâ, between 45-140 Fahrenheit. Most food in Taiwan has spent all day in that zone.
In fact at the walmart I worked at, any groceries given up at the cashier are thrown away. In Taiwan carrefour they put it in those coolers for soft drinks and Hagen daz ice creams but in the US we canât do that.
1 Like