Food regulation, foodborne risks, processing, additives, and related safety issues.
From making pre-made cat food for three cats during the pandemic to always having fifteen finished meals in the freezer, Doudou turned the batch-cooking mindset into practical methods: portioning and freezing, keeping meat and vegetables separate, and sealing at low temperature.
Smallholders — over 98% of agricultural business entities — and a wholesale network that blends produce at every level render the “Compliance Commitment Certificate” incapable of full testing or traceability. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs’ new measures are unlikely to curb pesticide residues in the vegetable basket.
At a Fermentation Awakening Festival panel in Beijing, Lake Shore Culture’s Jing Yan and Liu Xinxing and Mary, authors of The Incredible Fermentation & Brewing, discussed traditional crafts—Highland barley wine, Sulima wine and others—vanishing as makers dwindle. Fermentation culture still lacks dissemination and consumer support.
A farmer who refuses chemical fertiliser and pesticide in a Hakka village — the weeding auntie worked four days, urged me to spray for four, then carried off my taro stalks on her way out. Her own taro? Too full of pesticide to eat.
Foodthink’s first issue of The Alchemy of Food breaks down kombucha through 20 questions — from cultivating the mother culture and tea-to-sugar ratios to identifying mould, secondary fermentation and storage, covering the full hands-on process.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit propelled jiàn shǒu qīng viral – prices soared, e-commerce platforms scrambled to list it, and poisoning cases outside Yunnan surged. “Toxic” and “can you eat it” are two different questions – cooking experience and “see little people” mindset won’t ship in a click.
What’s in sugar-free cola, Bingfeng and preserved plums, exactly? Sugar-substitute formulations stretch ingredient lists, and sweetness signals that can’t be relayed from gut to brain make quitting sweets even harder. Lulu, cardiovascular medicine doctoral student at Fuwai Hospital, takes us from ingredient lists to humanity’s evolving sweet tooth.
The cooperative’s home-brewed green plum wine was targeted by professional counterfeit hunters and its partner fined; building a processing factory far exceeds smallholders’ means. Lawyer Zhang Xueming, anthropologist Zhong Shuru and rural entrepreneur Li Jie each share their views on small-scale operators’ plight under food safety regulations.
Anthropologist Zhong Shuru, lawyer Zhang Xueming and rural entrepreneur Li Jie noted at a Foodthink and Tencent News roundtable that food safety risks arise at every stage, from cultivation to distribution. Both traceability and testing remain constrained by a lack of information; consumers must actively discern to protect their plates.
The Wellcome Collection gallery in London, through more than 100 exhibits, traces milk’s century-long image-making from 19th-century “swill milk” to post-war “perfect food”, revealing how commercial interests, government rationing and nutritional promotion combined to make milk a staple of the modern table.
