Controversy over Chinese cabbage pickling method
Local hygiene criticized
Banned for environmental reasons from 2019
Chinese cabbage pickled in a pit in the northeast of China. / Photo = Internet community capture
[아시아경제 임주형 기자] The food hygiene controversy is growing as Chinese cabbages are being pickled in large quantities using an excavator.
On the 7th, an online community posted a video titled’How to Pickle Chinese Cabbage’. In the released video, a man who takes off his jacket in a large plastic tank is driving a cabbage into an old excavator.
In the video, the saltwater filled in the tank has a dark color, so the hygiene does not look good, and the excavator, which is supposed to be playing a role of mixing cabbage, is also rusty. Netizen, who posted the video, argued, “Of course, this cabbage is also exported to Korea.”
The netizens who watched the video pointed out food hygiene conditions such as “It’s terrible. Are you dying to eat?”, “It looks dirty”, and “I will never eat Chinese cabbage.”
The video was also published in’Weibo’, a social network service (SNS) in China in June of last year. ‘I pickled cabbage with an excavator. It is a video titled’The general public cannot digest it because the investment is enormous.’ It was filmed using an actual excavator to move the cabbage and pickle it in salt water.
A Chinese netizen who posted the video explains that “I am an excavator driver,” and “I also pickled cabbage, but the cabbage you eat is pickled by me.”
The method of pickling cabbage in a buried type that was uploaded to the Chinese social network service (SNS)’Weibo’ in June of last year. It is a method of pickling cabbage in salt water using an excavator, and it has been handed down as a method of pickling that is currently banned in China. / Photo = Internet community capture
In fact, the method of filling salt water in a large pit and then pickling cabbage in it has been pointed out several times for hygiene issues in China.
Local Chinese media such as’Bando Shinbo’ reported that in 2014, dozens of tons of Chinese cabbage were found fermenting in a pit in the suburbs of Northeast China.
According to this media report, there was no cover inside the saltwater pit, so rainwater and soil were reported to have flowed into the cabbage as it is. Local Chinese media also criticized the method of pickling cabbage by defining it as’pickled cabbage in the garbage’.
However, in China, the method of pickling cabbage in the pit is illegally prohibited. Since June 2019, Chinese authorities have banned the method of pickling cabbage in the northeast region, saying, “The excessive content of sodium nitrite and preservatives seriously threatens the health of the people.”
The authorities said, “(In the landfill method) a large amount of salt water seeps into the land, polluting the environment and destroying farmland.” “I asked.
Reporter Lim Joo-hyung [email protected]