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First we talk about additives, the food safety laws in Taiwan are outdated and have a lot of loopholes.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? It's because the standard amount of those additives in Taiwan may have exceeded the international standard amount way too much.

So don't 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. What's 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 can't 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 can't assure you bigger restaurants have better hygiene since most of the Taiwanese vendors don't really care about it and the department of health in Taiwan is tremendously inefficient.



Surprisingly, Taiwanese don't 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 don't exactly know why but it's just a trend in Taiwan. So it's 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 you're 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 there's 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 I've 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 there's more!! When someone complains or gets depressed about the food safety in Taiwan, many Taiwanese will respond with something like "We have eaten a lot of harmful things before, and yet we are still alive, don't overthink it." or "I think those unscrupulous vendors have learned their lesson, so don't worry about the food safety.", or "You are lucky compared to those starving people, they don't even have food to eat and you're here not knowing if you should eat your food just because of its food safety?". 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 I'm 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 won't 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 didn't know about restructured meat, I sometimes went to those "affordable" 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 "affordable" 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 ... %E8%A1%A8

Hight-end steakhouses in Taiwan serving restructured meat(They claimed they did not serve restructured meat, they only used their own "technique" on their steaks)- https://123.briian.com/forum.php?mod=vi ... d&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/br ... ws/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% ... 00606.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. It's 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/ed ... oice/8116/


Soy sauces mixed with potentially harmful chemicals are even more expensive than the real natural brewing soy sauces- https://www.chinatimes.com/newspapers/2 ... 0114?chdtv


Foreigners' 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/br ... ws/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 "special flavored beef". 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, you'd better make sure they're 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% ... 15313.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. ... lNo%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% ... 32376.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/taiwa ... -bad-eggs/



Why food safety in Taiwan is terrible- http://www.phycos.com.tw/articles/152


"4-Methylimidazole" in Coca Cola Taiwan is 39 times more than the amount of Coca Cola U.S.- https://www.thenewslens.com/article/877

solid first post

yeah im really upset

The one paragraph in the middle where he talks about an LO8 hand was good.

Some links look glitched, I will try contact the moderators, sorry about this....

I spent 2 weeks in taiwan last year, and everything I ate was delicious!

you read that?

But did you know the reason why everything taste delicious- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7vluWAaJk0

I think most of the food vendors have learned their lesson. If the food was really bad you would have gotten sick.

Uhhhh inb4 nuke into orbit

Yeah, it's scary. Even if you only ate vegetables I read that a lot of the vegetables are grown with contaminated toxic water. Also many crops are grown in areas with very bad air pollution. When people care more about making money than anything else that's a recipe for disaster. What is safe to eat?

The grills and fryers aren't dirty, they're seasoned . And when you've survived a dirty water dog in NY, you can make it anywhere.

Restructured meat FTW!

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntr...isiting-taiwan

As far as food safety in Taiwan, do they have any kind of government inspection like we do in the US. As far as street food vendors like that they are usually covered by the local health departments. As far as places that produce meat and other components, it is split. The FDA does non meat ingredients. USDA FSIS covers meat and poultry, they are also getting into fish. I believe that there are also divisions that cover dairy and eggs. In the US butcher shops and places that produce meat products are inspected daily by the USDA or in some cases the state level programs, that are also overseen by the USDA.

Do you have any clue how well seafood is inspected at all? I'm mainly concerned with pollution. With the extra environmental hazards in the last decade it seems pretty sketchy to consume too much or maybe even any at all. It's definitely something I'd like to study up on just to be comfortable eating some of my favorite food again.

At this point I don't know if eating anything from the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific is safe to eat especially regularly.

Outside of Japan and South Korea, are you really going to find anything different in these eastern Asian countries in terms of their food practices? Most of it would be self-regulated with either it being outside the jurisdiction of local authorities to regulate, or if they can regulate either they don't or accept bribes when they inspect.

Taiwan has Costco?

Move it to the poker thread imo.

Alright, the links weren't fixed. Here are the normal ones.

Taiwan food safety related links(ALL in Chinese):

List of the food scandals in Taiwan- https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F...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 "technique" on their steaks)- https://123.briian.com/forum.php?mod...hread&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...ngnews/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%...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. It's 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...s-choice/8116/


Soy sauces mixed with potentially harmful chemicals are even more expensive than the real natural brewing soy sauces- https://www.chinatimes.com/newspaper...5-260114?chdtv


Foreigners' 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...ngnews/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 "special flavored beef". 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, you'd better make sure they're 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%...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_deta...erialNo%3D3644


Reasons why buying soy sauce in Taiwan is risky(This one is really worth reading)- https://tw.news.yahoo.com/%E9%86%AC%...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/ta...-few-bad-eggs/



Why food safety in Taiwan is terrible- http://www.phycos.com.tw/articles/152


"4-Methylimidazole" in Coca Cola Taiwan is 39 times more than the amount of Coca Cola U.S.- https://www.thenewslens.com/article/877


--------------------
(two links added)


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

Thanks for the update!

Two latest food safety related news in Taiwan

--------

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/6656/3938106
- https://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

Can I join your 20's social group?????!?!? its hard to find in london.

This actually made me go back and skim the post.

me too