EDIT: I wanted to make a quick update, specifically regarding the individual in the video - they actually reached out ibb.co/hg9XZsZ and everything tracks. I myself would be appalled to be defined by my low points, and his misunderstanding was understandable given the mess of information that's out there (even in China). I'm going to blur his face in the video, but it'll likely take a couple hours for it to take effect. Just wanted to get that out there at first Hey guys, just a few things that I wanted to emphasize... and a couple more than I wanted to clarify: 1. *Videos of people collecting oil from the gutter outside of restaurants is not evidence the restaurant is using gutter oil.* Outside of restaurants in China is a contraption known as a grease interceptor. This is a critical device that helps ensure that oil does not hit the sewage system, generally accessed through a manhole. The grease interceptor must be cleaned regularly. Specific regulations depend on the city and the district, but the ultimate responsibility is on the restaurant to maintain their grease interceptor. In particular, the fire department takes the situation incredibly seriously. In many larger cities there is a specific service (that the restaurant needs to pay for, in Shenzhen I recall it was about 5000 RMB per month?) that pumps the grease interceptor with some proper machinery. But the specific situation will depend on the locality. It is not unheard of for a restaurant to clear their interceptor themselves if there is a buildup. 2. *The oil collected in these videos are not being directly used in restaurants.* In many videos - though not all - it is implied that the oil is being collected from the grease interceptor is then being repurposed directly by the restaurant. Even from the more salacious media outlets, once the story is delved into in detail… it is made clear that the issue at hand is related to subsequent reprocessing of that collected oil. This was, indeed, the crux of the original gutter oil scandal: oil collected from grease interceptors was being neutralized, bleached, deodorized (in a similar way an edible neutral oil is produced) and sold back to restaurants. Due to contamination from bacteria and heavy metals in the sewer system, consuming this oil presents some health risks. But you would likely be oblivious to whether you were consuming it or not in the moment, particular in the context of other flavors. Perhaps you knew this already, but I felt it was important to emphasize. 3. *Recycled oil also has legitimate uses.* The most common destinations for recycled oils in China are industrial lubricants and biodiesel. It’s worth mentioning that the United States also has a lively market for recycled oil, as it’s a common inclusion in livestock feed (though to be clear, in the United States the oil used in livestock feed is sourced from deep fryers, not grease traps). In the past, one of the biggest issues was that recycled oil as a cooking oil commanded a 50% price premium over that bound for industrial purposes. Of course, markets tend to shift faster in the face of price-based carrots than punitive regulatory sticks (though the two can be especially effective in tandem). While the Chinese government has cracked down on gutter oil - as we discussed in the video - perhaps the more important development has been the dramatic increase in demand for recycled restaurant oil for use in biofuels. 4. *Videos of people collecting oil in rather-suspicious-looking unmarked vans (that perhaps respond poorly to being filmed) is not evidence of gutter oil.* Throughout the world, there is the phenomenon of grease theft. While more current information is available from a quick google, this 2000 Salon article province a nice overview: www.salon.com/2000/11/06/grease_wars/ In the USA, a grease thief will usually need a utility truck to get the job done. In China, it can be as easy as popping open the grease interceptor. This is in large part due to specific multi-compartment designs of grease interceptors that are popular in China (likely given the admittedly rather oily nature of Chinese restaurant cooking). 5. *Recycling restaurant cooking oil is a common practice worldwide.* In the industry in America, used restaurant grease is divided into brown grease (sourced from interceptors) and yellow grease (sourced from used deep frying oil). The general rule of thumb is that latter has much wider range of potential uses - in the USA, livestock feed appears to be the dominant application - and commands a much higher price. It is difficult to parse why oil sourced from interceptors in China is recycled while those in the United States is not. The obvious explanation the mind turns to would simply be a lower regulatory bar, which could potentially be problematic. But perhaps the destination of the recycled oil itself requires less of a regulatory hurdle - the dominant (legitimate) uses of recycled cooking oil in China are industrial lubricants and biodiesel. Perhaps some minerals and free fatty acids are less of an issue when you’re not feeding it to chickens. The standards given to oil recyclers in China would corroborate this idea, as from the document it appears that animal feed is not an allowable destination. www.leo-king.com/jtxw/info_24_itemid_778.html But this is an area that we’re quickly bumping into the limits of our understanding, and I’m worried that our analysis could begin to veer into confirmation bias. 6. *The original gutter oil scandal was real and not a fabrication. The most legitimate academic analysis we found put the market share of gutter oil at about 10% during the ‘00s.* It is important to emphasize that the gutter oil scandal was very real, stemming from well researched pieces of investigative journalism and made an indelible impact on Chinese society. The original gutter oil was called “frying oil” as it was generally being used for deep frying (i.e. an application where low quality oil would have less of an impact on taste). Researchers from Wuhan Polytechnic University estimated that roughly 10% of oil purchased by restaurants during this time was gutter oil, though other researchers had (unspecified) lower estimates. zqb.cyol.com/content/2010-03/17/content_3139053.htm 7. *There was a crackdown in 2011 and 2012 that - anecdotally - dramatically diminished (but likely not extinguished) the market for gutter oil.* I should be quite upfront in that this final point is primarily based off of discussions that we’ve had with friends in the industry. Take as well salted as you would any anecdotal evidence. Pre-2012, gutter oil was a bit of an open secret, and it was sometimes found in a perhaps surprisingly diverse array of restaurant settings (while you would be more likely to bump into it at a street stall than a hotel, it wasn’t necessarily the case). This has drastically changed post-2012. However, it is important to note that refined used cooking oil is still something that is available for restaurants to purchase, especially from grey market distributors. Said distributors will make it clear that the oil is not for use as a cooking oil, but it’s certainly possible that there is someone - somewhere - in China that is flying too close to the sun and using this sort of oil in 2024. Everyone emphasized that no restaurant owner in their right mind would use it in the larger cities, but it would probably be wrong to claim it as completely 100% eradicated. --- Anyway, delving into this whole morass hasn't been... great... for my personal headspace. Food is a lot more fun (though in fairness, absent the political dimension & people pushing narratives in bad faith... sewage is actually really interesting!). Anyway, apologies in advance for likely not engaging very much with this particular comment section - I'd much rather spend my waking hours researching our next dish than fruitlessly arguing with the fuck-anything-and-everything-about-china crowd. Our take is in the video and in the notes above. We probably overlooked some stuff, we're might even be wrong about some stuff. Take at face value :)
If people value traditions and culture over profit and greediness then they should believe in karma and someone misdeeds schemes to get rich fast could boomerang back and bite them hard. On a separate note and to prove this kind of scandals is not exclusive to Chinese culture, way back in the 60's there was a scandal in a Middle East country I cannot recall exactly that someone bought surplus and used mechanical oil from an Army depot and mixed it with vegetable oil destined for Human consumption and caused a large scale poisoning with many people getting chronic neurological diseases or even killed. Also the scandal of fake Olive oil being imported to the US and other countries that doesn't contain any oil from any Olive plants.
@@Themyscara Some other cultures like Japan they can drink straight form the tap, but that is because their preserve their water sources and keep them in pristine condition, others like South Korea albeit having the same standard of life as Japan but because they are adjacent to North Korea and fearful of warring foul play, nobody drink water form the taps, even for cooking I think they use bottled water. But if you are calling negligent management of aqueducts nobody topple the mishap in Flint Michigan that corroded their piping system by pumping untreated water from a polluted river. So what's your point with your question?
I remember there was a simpsons episode where homer and bart literally tried to get into the waste oil recycling industry and tried to steal Willies retirement grease
I worked for environmental consulting companies for several years, and grease traps are a vital part of managing the waste stream of restaurants. They stink like hell and require occasional pumping to stay functional and keep wastewater systems from getting clogged. The trucks that pump the grease out have to put it somewhere, and indeed that usually means biofuel or lubricant reprocessing. It's not great to have that stuff in landfills.
Its not just gutter oil though, even in 2024 there are heaps of videos out of China about fake foods, fake alcohol and drinks and counterfeit everything. Right now in Chinese news theres a story of Chinese tankers carrying all kinds of products from edible oil to toxic chemicals in the same tanker.
Grease traps are commonly used, the difference is there are uncut videos of CN restaurant employee scooping it up from mobile trash bin then heading back into the restaurant with said oil. Even CN customers don't like that and point it out. This channel just blanket ignores that when there's multiple videos of restaurant heading straight back into the restaurant with the scooped oil and just calls that grifting lol
@@chinesesparrows The best part is that if these Chinese shills actually moved to and lived in China, they'd probably get over the romantic view they have of the country and realize just how goddamn disgusting the country is, both from it's total disregard of human life, and for how low Chinese people are willing to go to make some cash. People seem to forget that China follows the same ideology as North Korea and the countries run very similarly. Just because China is a tiny bit more "free" does not mean it won't fuck you over and torture you because you said Xi was a Poo. Even serpentza, the biggest Chinese shill of the modern age who lived in China for years and who made hundreds of excuses, had to flee the country over just how disgusting it had become.
It is funny when my parents own a restaurant we would recycle to a company to take care of our use oil. We fellow the health guidelines here in the US. We have them pick up our use oil every week. The health inspector will check your paperwork every week. At the end of the year the recycle company would send us boxes of bath soap as gifts.
@@jacobishii6121 I don’t think the poster is saying it’s the same, I think just giving insight to how many restaurants out of China deal with waste oil
The difference is cooking oil was found to be shipped in tankers which also transported diesel/gasoline/waste water and yet inside of tank was not washed. It was a nationally reported widespread scandal that's still not been transparently addressed how much has been improved.
The second you mentioned that recycling companies PAY for used oil, I knew exactly why those people on the sidewalk must have been there, and whole-heartedly agree with your assessment at the end. People in need of enough money to feed themselves have been collecting recyclables to do so for decades now. The only difference between those folks and people who collect glass and cans here in the US is the item they're recycling. Thank you once again for making such a thorough, informative video.
@@EbonyPope True. I don't understand why people take a picture or clip with very little to zero other information and assume a story. For better or worse. I will say I wouldn't be surprised if people collect "other people's" oil (in their traps) for easy money. In california i used to walk the streets and if I see someone throw out their refrigerator by leaving them on the street for anyone to collect to fix or recycle (for scrap metal) I'd literally walk home and get a hand truck to then walk it home. Then I'd call the city and have them pick it up for cash. At the time there was a program where the state would give you money for your refrigerator because of the coolant in it so it gets recycled and not released into the air. When this program was in effect there was a 1 call per household limit, but I would just ask my neighbors if I could use there address. A few minutes of walk would earn me $40 each time. I definitely abused definitely this program.
That's not even the point @EbonyPope The point is that if you want to stop people from doing this, you give them economic opportunity. Cracking down on somebody trying to live is just spreading misery. You think they *want* to be scraping grease out of sewers at 2AM? Oh @TheLongDon, so we don't have to prove something if some random dipshit claims that it's 'commonly known,' huh? Then all people can rest assured when I say "don't bother, it's commonly known that TheLongDon can't satisfy a woman."
9:17 "kill a chicken to scares the monkey" aka saat kei geng hau (殺雞警猴) is a chinese idiom that means punish someone severely to set an example for the rest..
We have the equivalent in Thai as "เชือดไก่ให้ลิงดู" or, literally translated, "slaughter a chicken for a monkey to see". I wonder if this has been borrowed from Chinese immigrants and integrated into Thai everyday lingo, much like many words of Chinese origin in Thai.
While not the same and more of a "kill a monkey, to scare monkeys" approach, but Voltaire also once said "in this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others".
I'm trying hard not to be emotional, but not once have I ever seen a non-Chinese person shed such a respectful & accurate light on Chinese culture / cuisine. I'm part of a Chinatown BIA in North America, and a lot of our businesses need to deal with this gutter oil stereotype that affects business, especially since the COVID era. We've had longtime restaurants close as a result of false accusations around pests & supposed gutter oil collection. We even got the city hall to do inspections for the accused restaurants, but even when we got those establishments cleared they would still suffer from the TikTok videos.
Come on dude! Stop being so Radical, and outright Wrong. If that were the case... then MILLIONS of Chinese restaurants, wouldnt exist in the USA. Its a fact, that millions of Americans, Love Chinese cooking... and consume it on a frequent basis. Nobody that I know.. thinks that the Gutter Oil problem, is from within the USA. Its clearly a "China only" problem. If there are issues in CA... its more likely from mentally Ill radicals, from inside of your state. That, and or the Govt. shills, trying to shut down ALL businesses... because CA and the Corrupted Demoncrats.. want to covert the USA into Communism. And what better way to do it... than to cause massive inflation... stop punishing criminals... and cause businesses to go into bankruptcy. The MAIN reason why places are closing... is because people can no longer AFFORD to eat out ! Groceries are like Double the prices that they used to be... and cooking for yourself, is still infinitely cheaper than paying for prepared food + delivery fees.
It’s… annoying… when people harp on about gutter oil in China. People doing that shit to Chinese-American restaurants *in the United States*? Gross to a borderline unfathomable degree. I’m sorry you have to deal with that
I'm not going to pretend that Chinese restaurants, like any, have never had hygiene issues - but it boggles my mind how perhaps the world's most delicious cuisine is sometimes insulted as particularly filthy.
@@timmccarthy9917 It's just racism. People from Asia are often very high achievers when they immigrate to or study in English-speaking countries, which means racist people within that society can't use the same kind of bullying they use for the systematically disadvantaged people of their countries. The alternative is to say "yes, Chinese people (or Indian people, or Korean people) are very accomplished/intelligent, but eating their food makes you sick because it's unhygienic, or the ingredients are substandard, or the food culture itself is unethical (e.g. Western focus on "eating dogs" as a trope specifically attached to Chinese people even though many of the most revered and expensive dog breeds in the world originate from China.)
@@hoodedferret Lol, yes, "it's just racism." Absurd reductionism to justify your moral superiority won't backfire at all. Remember to get your Covid booster, those tens of thousands of VAERS reports are all fake and easy to file after all.
lol. i worked back of house at a restaurant in michigan for three months before i learned that there was an oil filter for the deep fryer that was supposed to be run every night before closing, and also that the oil was supposed to be changed twice a week not once, the guy who trained me just never bothered with that stuff. the restaurant has closed since i left when the building was deemed unsafe for occupation
Sadly, your experience is not unique. I worked in a fried chicken restaurant in Michigan where the normal practice was to filter the oil in the deep fryer when too much burnt breading was sticking to the food. The owner's policy was to change the oil once per week. The oil would be a dark brown color by the time it was changed. It looked like used motor oil.
Living in California, the idea of "oh yeah these people are dubiously illegally stealing recycleables" makes complete sense. We have folks who come and just dump our recycling bins looking for cans and guys who steal catalytic converters to sell for scrap, and hell there were/are guys who steal used cooking oil HERE for biodeisel, it makes a lot of sense.
Just put your cans in a separate bin for them to grab, those folks are just trying to make enough money to eat. I talk to them and offer to set my cans out separate and its very amicable.
@@talonhammer Not the issue, its not their property and they are making a mess of things. All i can say is put cams up everywhere and (Unless your a wuss.) be on site as much as you can so you can take care of business.
@@Sandman23Because some people don’t care how tough some people have it, they’d rather have them thrown in jail so they don’t have to think about the broken society they inhabit.
Yes - and one of them is people USING GUTTER OIL TO COOK FOOD IN CHINA! It's common knowledge among the Chinese who actually have to eat this stuff. And this video calls Winston Sterzel a "grifter" 28:10 . . . just for telling the truth? (BTW, he lived in China for over a decade, is fluent in Mandarin, has half Chinese kids, etc. You talk like he's just some random racist loser.) The whole premise of this video - that Xi and his "reforms" got rid of the problem - is frankly offensive to anyone who cares about the future of China and holds out hope for the reform or (hope beyond hope) eventual replacement of the CCP. This is Xi's China, where it's normal for a building owner, for example, to bribe elevator inspectors, leading to his tenants plunging to their deaths, which happens frequently, where EV manufacturers make shoddy batteries that cause cars to burst into flames, where highways are collapsing due to tofu dregs construction, etc, etc. You think with so many examples of "cha bu duo" mindset that there aren't still countless small vendors buying that processed gutter oil to save a few Yuan?
It always seems cruel when poor people are just trying to figure out ways to get by and others respond by getting that behavior outlawed or saying they’re garbage dogmonkeys and whatnot.
@@Leto_0 True, but the culture that influences those people is relevant. In China under the CCP, everyone understands: you do whatever you can to survive because no one is going to save you. There's a big problem in China with bystanders just looking on during kidnappings, attacks, etc. Funny, it turns out an evil gangster communist government ruling with an iron fist for 70 years isn't the best thing for social cohesion.
Came for the recipes, stayed for the nuanced analysis on western misconceptions, chinese history and deconstruction of "authenticity" as a culinary concept. Great work Chris, probably my favourite cooking channel on YT.
"authenticity" pisses me off. Like people put tons of stock into French cuisine but a ton of "authentic" recipes were just 1 way of a hundred to make a dish and the "authentic" version is just whichever recipe Escoffier happened to prefer. Like French onion soup used to have water or a milk broth but the "authentic" recipe uses beef broth, the old version would have bread on the side and _maybe_ cheese on the side but the "authentic" version has melted cheese on top of bread thats on top of the soup. The same is true with tons of other dishes where different regions had different versions and of course every cook made it slightly different, only centuries later did celebrity chefs write down their version and that became the standard and people assume the older versions are derivatives.
very this, and very elegantly said. also it just makes me happier knowing that the channel i follow for recipes is headed by people with good critical thinking skills... next to self-awareness it's the quality most important to me, but they really go hand-in-hand.
Years ago I worked at a movie theater with a 2 basket fryer in FL, popular chain, eventually I worked there long enough to be given the task of cleaning the fryer every Friday and to get a management position. We changed the oil every 7 days, the whole fryer was broken down into pieces and scrubbed, washed and then refilled with new oil, the old oil went into the grease trap. Anytime id overhear people say we used "old oil" I rolled my eyes, the fryer was never on all the time, it went off at the end of the shift and honestly the days it got the most use Friday-Sunday were the days it got the most use and the oil was the freshest. People need to work in the food and beverage industry once in their lives to see what goes into getting them their "restaurant quality" food. I believe it would give them a lot more respect for the good well run establishments out there and be more picky about the sketchy places that are treated like they are so clean you can eat off the floor.
THIS! like maam your popcorn is fresh! There's 300 people coming thru these doors and we are constantly popping....did you think we popped and stored this popcorn 3 days ahead???? .....Also the "butter" is coconut oil ☺
@@epicka The OP made the point most people eat from that fryer on the freshest oil days. If you can taste old oil in your food and it's a problem for you, as it is for me, you should stop eating at that restaurant. Most people who don't like the food at a restaurant just stops going there and that speaks louder than anything. If that place was in business long enough for an employee to go from regular worker to manager, it's safe to say the oil was good enough to keep the restaurant open. Fryers that have heating elements off the floor of the fryer can keep the oil tasting fresher for longer.
@@epicka I worked in similar (not identical) conditions to OP, and while 7 days feels like a long time, there are a couple of additional factors. For one, restaurant supply companies like Sysco offer filter pods that contain what I can only assume is some kind of flocculant, to pull a lot of the burnt and off-tasting compounds out of the fryer oil. You leave them in overnight and they do a pretty good job at extending the life of the oil. And in addition to that, we were pretty vigilant using a combination of square spider and bench scraper to pull any large chunks left behind by the food, so it wouldn't dissolve into the oil and burn. That being said, when our restaurant changed ownership, they did bump us up to twice-a-week oil changes. So once a week is probably *the longest* you'd actually want to go. But it's by no means unusual for the industry.
@@robertp457 It doesn't really change the fact that seven days is a long time. If it only gets changed once a week and the weekend oil is freshest, that screws over everyone who ate something fried in it on Thursday. And really, oil starts chemically changing the instance it's being heated; if it's getting heavy use on the weekend, by Monday it really shouldn't be usable. A twice-weekly change on Monday and Friday would be the bare minimum I'd hope for in this situation. And saying " If that place was in business long enough for an employee to go from regular worker to manager, it's safe to say the oil was good enough to keep the restaurant open" is a massive assumption. Lots of people are not versed in food safety, nor can they readily tell when their food is cooked in old oil. Old oil is not the same as rancid oil; more often than not, using old oil doesn't alter the flavour of the food or the oil at all. If anything, I have often heard it said that some people even prefer food cooked in repeatedly reused oil, as it makes the food more "characterful", which is a myth coming from the opposite direction. And if you ask people who work in kitchens (as I have done as I've known many over the years) from cheapo diners to really fancy places, they'll readily tell you about the kitchens using obviously rancid and even long out-of-date oil, and it clearly never affected their business or bottom line.
In the UK, cooking oil theft is massive for restaurants. It can be most weeks where either they steal most of it or take the entire barrel you're storing it in. They'll splice locks, hop over fences, it's worth a lot of money. It can easily be turned into fuel for a diesel heater, imagine free heating in winter.
I feel like China was abound with all sorts of food scandals and rumors, opium in the hotpot, gutter oil, fake eggs in the 90s and aughts. It was fairly common to see people riding around with with giant buckets on either side of their bikes, fishing oil out of the gutters. I remember being mystified by this whole process and feeling for those who took on this backbreaking and, no doubt, dangerous work. Thank you so much for the in-depth clarification on how this all works. It shows that you did a ton of research!
@@dannymoneywellhey Danny, just real quick, slow your roll and use your brain power 💪🧠 if you're squatting down, scooping oil out of a sewer/gutter in the the road, how visible do you think you are to, say: a truck?
Thanks for being a voice of nuance in today's polarized environment. Thank you for explaining a lot on the Chinese side of the things without delving into reductive tropes about Chinese culture or people. Yours is honestly a rare channel.
"We live on an internet that is completely inundated with bulls**t, and there's no valor in adding to the pile." Amen. Also, isn't there an episode of The Simpsons where Homer tries to make money by stealing oil/grease and selling it to a recycling plant?
Also, today I looked up more information about Pascal's Wager thanks to this video than I did when I first heard about the theory. Thank you Chinese Cooking Demystified!
Holy crap. Finally someone who explains what's going on with those scooping oil out of the gutter video. I never understood how there was enough oil in the sewer to make gutter oil but now everything makes sense.
“If something does not affect your life, there’s no imperative need to develop an opinion” I’m gonna need some time to think about that one. Not sure I agree with the first half, but giving those affected room to speak out is definitely important. It feels a little dismissive / bury your head in the sand to not develop an opinion on an issue affecting humanity even if you’re not directly implicated. Very nuanced video though. I definitely learned a lot!
I had never even heard of this whole "gutter oil" fiasco going on until this video title, and just based on the thumbnail I got a pretty good guess. I didn't work for a restaurant, but I did work for a factory that made cured meats, some of which were larded, or encased in lard. The lard after using a few times would then be liquefied and stored in barrels to dispose of with our biohazard pickup company. I just assumed that this is what's going on, and the casual observer has no idea how this all works and assumes malicious intent.
@cyan_oxy6734 Would you clean the filthy oil from your sump in broad daylight in front of your customers? And wouldn't you bail if a foreign stranger approached you with a camera yelling accusations at you?
I'll say this much, working as a fry cook at red lobster, we'd use the same oil in the fryers for a week, and sometimes my manager would wait 2 weeks or more before replacing the oil, it would turn color like used motor oil, and smell, and nothing would fry properly. I think the off chance of getting "gutter oil" from chinese food should be the least of people's worries
same thing here. worked at a popular american chain (not saying which), and the oil in one of the fryers regularly degraded to the point of it being nearly pitch black. you could paint with it like black watercolor. less than a centimeter of visibility, and smoked like the depths of hell the moment you heated it up.
@@Ahayeahishere Yes, we know the difference between "digouyou and laoyou" -we watched the video. And it reminded us of our own experiences in restaurants. We are commenting on the topic of the last third of the video (the inevitable difference between the law and restaurant practices- even here in the usa). You obviously didnt watch the very end- doubt you got to 19:19. Read the title and came down here to complain. Classic. "There you go. Given a fuck where it aint your turn to give a fuck"
It does get a bit weird when random videos of people removing oil from gutters get instantly branded as a part of the gutter oil operations if they're from China (or, at least, labeled as China). That stuff just happens all the time in any country where there's inexperienced cooks absolutely mishandling cooking oil. There's even a whole genre of Korean videos dedicated to removing sewer blockages caused by oil.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified "Genre" may have been a bit of overexaggerating, but there's a channel called "하수구의제왕" (King of Sewers) who has an absurd amount of views for what's really just sewer cleanups-- over half of which is related to oil crusting over stuff.
@DrainCleaningAUSTRALIA is a channel I have watched where he has delt with drains blocked due to grease. I remember one where he specifically opend up the grease trap to sort out a clogged pipe.
Like other people have said. Too few people have worked in the "blue collar" side of food service. They dont know what its like to take care of waste that people callously leave for other people to "take care of"
It's like if the situation is slightly different, those people would've picked up on that many parts of rural China still have manual labor of handling "night soil". as in a bamboo pole slung on the shoulders, carrying 2 wooden buckets of night soil to be carried out of the village and dumped at a facility. someone who doesn't know what's going on will likely latch onto that and make up all sorts of fiction as to what those buckets of excrement will be used for, and there's no way they'll accept anything but the worst scenarios as they're simply... racists looking to be racists.
@@chiangweytan5937but let’s be honest, it sells to be anti-China much more than being nuanced or even “pro-China.” Even though a lot of “pro-China” or positive pages get labeled as CCP propaganda or paid shills / WuMao’s.
I see a complex issue, poverty, cost savings, recycling, food safety, trust issues, and people skating the laws. This video does help a lot with understanding the eco system and the drivers and reasons. Eating out is always a risk, so if you can get to know the owner and the crew working, or find a family run place that you trust. We have some great family run places and the food is great, never got sick and the people are great. Like you said it is really more an issue for those who deal with it directly. Food safety is hot topic, and gutter oil is such phrase that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It's no wonder trust issues would arise from it. But your video is good and thank you for making it.
There’s a certain inherent risk in letting someone else prepare your food, no matter where you are in the world. I wish more people in general were conscious of that, because I feel like it’d challenge more of their own biases with stories like this.
The problem with this is that the person you are buying food from might be trustworthy and being lied to. This is about how trustworthy the people trusted by the people you trust are.
Proper regulation has worked wonders in the past. America's food infrastructure was horrendous. Upton Sinclair wrote a whole book about it (pushing for better working conditions rather than food safety...) and the public rose up and demanded food-safety regulation (on top of that, numerous social programs were introduced that created a middle class). U.S. food became some of the safest in the world. Of course, since the 80s, the middle class has dissappeared, regulations have been eroded by lying Republicans aided by feckless pandering Democrats that have allowed multiple food-based illness breakouts that have led to deaths. Of couse, not only do we need regulation, we need a properly educated and informed and economically empowered populace to demand food safety. That being said, hope all the "deregulation" crowd enjoy their food-born parasites that are about to spread across the country.
I also think a big part is poverty tourism. There are big videos of Indian street foods and how unsanitary it often is, particularly viewed through the American lens. It's framed as disgusting but they real issue is poverty. I'm sure the cooking would look different if people had access to clean, running water, for example, or refrigeration. Your clip of the Wire is on point. Thanks for making this
It also doesnt help that things like "gutter oil" are a common myth in China to the point its become slang. It also doesnt help that China isnt the only country to have this semi-true myth, tons of western restaurants get accused of using old oil even when they replace their oil once or more a week and even when oil gets reused for a few days they'll likely filter it daily or more. I worked at a restaurant that had a filter built into the fryer and the oil was changed twice a week so your "gutter oil" was 3 days old at worst. You see similar in China where restaurants get accused of using "gutter oil" all the time.
this is the same argument as poverty causes crime, yet certain groups cause more crime in poverty than others, sweden right now is a great example. onto another example, i recall an indian restaurant being shut down in england (uk) because they found literal shit everywhere. the chef didnt believe in using toilet paper, opted for his hands, and barely if ever washed his hands. he would certainly be living richer than in india at the least
@@thefutureisnowoldman7653 you do realize india has a lot more people than both of those countries combined, right? during the industrial revolution when the poor lived in slums or crowded cities, before the importance of sanitation was realized, there was filth everywhere on the streets. I'm talking about 19th century England, and I think this was the case for the U.S. too.
@@MGX93dot If you've ever watched Gordon's shows (e.g. Nightmare Kitchen), you'll know that White people can have disgusting restaurants and poor standards of hygiene/food quality too. Btw "Sweden right now is a great example" is not self-explanatory; the context of your response makes your meaning ambiguous, especially since the smaller, near-homogeneous European countries typically have better care for their populace in general, given their high taxation and social welfare. When there aren't many ppl to look after, it's easier to keep track of everyone and get what they need. Larger countries don't have that luxury -- example problems being in the U.S. (healthcare), Russia (Putin), and Mexico (cartels). To say or imply that any one ethnic group is more "dirty" or "morally-compromised" (inferred from your brief mention of crime) than another is always a product of negative bias from a lack of adequate exposure to said ethnic groups and the understanding that no demographic is a monolith
I’ve never heard of ‘gutter oil’ but this was super engaging, really well reasoned and researched and I would welcome more of this type of content from you.
Lots of American restaurant owners chiming in as to how normal this kind of stuff is here when it's done legit and I just want to add: I've worked at plenty of small scale places with cheapskate owners who would stretch oil and do all kinds of stuff your average American consumer would puke over. Regardless of how restaurants are regulated, if there's poverty you will have restaurant owners trying to cut corners regardless of safety. Your Asian village street vendor is no different than your McDonalds in a town of 1k people
Selling things (especially food) on the street is completely different than selling in a built for purpose building. But comparing asian street food to Mcds doesn't do it any favors.
Right? Westerners will get so racist over stereotypes, then eat a Big Mac. I've worked in a McDonald's. I don't take cuisine-racists seriously knowing they probably feed McDonald's to their own children. There's a reason I don't eat at McDonald's anymore. People will see an Indian street-food vendor reuse oil, and willingly say the most heinous shit with a face full of fast-food chicken nuggets. All I can think of is how my dad, a straight up Aryan, used to own a deep-fryer for personal use as a teen, and how he openly says he never changed the oil for years.
@TheGingerMale it's crazy the amount of people I've seen talk about how gross their McDonald's were when they worked there. I worked in one and it was the cleanest kitchen I've ever been in, every reg followed to the letter. You'd think a Corp like McD's would have a lot more consistency. Though, for the record, the one I worked at is the busiest in the area, they can certainly afford to change the oil and have dedicated cleaning staff all shift.
I worked with an oil recycling company in NYC, and the key question asked was "what is the best day of the week to change your fry oil?" When it's dirty simple as that. Buy clean oil sell old to a recycler/refiner
Yeah, but the idea behind changing it on a schedule would be making sure it gets done regardless of any individual's perception of cleanliness. Deciding which day would be important in that case because it would affect when in the week the oil tastes the best, but that mainly depends on the restaurant than anything the recycling company could provide input on. I have yet to work in a restaurant that changed their oil weekly, in the fast food industry, so even scheduled changes would've been an improvement. And that's not for a lack of trying, I've had managers get mad at me for asking them to change the oil too often when they let it get weeks old before bothering.
I really appreciate when you guys do these kinds of videos. Much like when you did the stuff on wet markets years ago; as an outsider it's hard to know what the truth is when these narratives spin up.
A really good rule of thumb is if something gets you immediately riled up, it's probably false and designed to get you riled up. Like if something seems like it lacks nuance, then it lacks nuance 😄 If you want actual information you need nuance.
Unless I'm somehow misremembering it, one of the videos I watched showed a restaurant employee skimming oil out of the trash and then carrying it directly into the back of the restaurant.
The dig on serpentza is unwarranted, he lived in China for years and I used to watch him talk positively about China for YEARS! He only went anti China a few years ago.
He only went anti China after his business in China failed and got his visa denied due to getting a criminal record for sexual assault in South Africa. And being anti China just pays more
To add onto that, he lived in China for a long time because he loved the Chinese people. It looks more like him hating the CCP for not taking care of their citizens. I thought his criticisms came from a love for China.
This guys is a shill and is being paid. He had the gal to call SerpentZA a grifter, when the dude had to literally flee the country, fearing for his and his family safety, because the chinese government started to harrass and threaten his life, because of a minor thing.
As a dietitian who basically feels like she just spends all day fighting against the pandemic of medical misinformation, i appreciate when content creators spend time to make nuanced videos. Sometimes the tidal wave of influencers spoon feeding fear-mongering seems endless. Thank you so much and i learned a lot!
I've heard this rumor once or twice from people before and thought "ain't no way" and didn't even give it a second thought This really brought a lot of information to me, some of which I'll probably mention if I hear things about this again. This is genuinely why I love this channel. It brings a completely thought-out perspective to a lot of things, and it's one of my only sources that I use when cooking Chinese food because the recipes are so well researched and have a basis in the country itself. The Mapo Tofu recipe is practically engrained in my head, and it's all thanks to you two bringing an experience and information to an English market that's so hard to find anywhere else.
Gutter oil is old news, nowadays it's commercial cooking oil being transferred in industrial oil tankers. Also there's hotpot soup broth being frozen and reused hence spit soup lol
Not the video I was expecting from you guys, but very interesting and informative. It sucks you can't have any sort of dialogue about China without it resorting to jingoistic vitriol. In any case, looking forward to the next recipe!
This video didn't tell me much I didn't know about the subject, but it's just refreshing to see an educated, level-headed take on a contested topic that isn't so emotionally charged on either side of the debate that it feels the need to push the scales the other way. Usually people will react to this sensational outrage culture by treating it like a myth, or just a bygone reality. It's a shame that the same qualities I just praised are exactly why videos like this won't end the debate and result in cooler heads. People only want to see other people getting angry at the same things they are.
I just discovered this video and channel by chance today. Great content, sir. Objectively discussed and researched. As a Nigerian who loves Chinese food and can cook some, i have many positive and negative misconceptions about China but it's so refreshing to see balanced coverage of topics like this and you cover and criticize all sides. You correctly highlight the risks pf the practice but give reasons behind them and dispell the sensationalism behind the videos while acknowledging the fear around the issue. You gained a sub
28:31 Kinda funny to put up a clip of a guy from South Africa who knows Chinese & lived in China for the line "if you believe something wildly off about China sitting there in your basement in America it's costless"; I've watched a number of his videos & he's very fond of Chinese culture, though less so of the CCP. Most of what he talks about is based on videos coming out of China often that otiginated on Chinese Social Media, which he supports with personal anecdotes in the sense that "this is what people in China are talking about & I believe them because of X personal experience when I was in China"
The bit about old oil had me thinking about how theres a place in my american city that uses about century old grease to deep-fry its burgers and brags about it...
US is the most loosely regulated country ever and your regulators are so ridiculously under-staffed is genuinely distressing 😄 Like if there was even e-coli found in food, nevermind anyone dying from it, where I live it would be major fucking deal and big news. I think it's been years if not a decade since I heard about an incident. Oh and we eradicated salmonella from our chicken stock in co-operation with our neighbouring countries, it's safe to use raw eggs here.
That's a good bit different though. Much of the oil used in China in restaurants is used for Hot Pot, a style of eating where flame-heated chili oil is placed in the center of the table for people to cook their own meats and food in. The problem is that it can lead to contamination from the people over and over dipping a piece of meat, taking a bite, maybe redipping it, over and over thus becoming contaminated with human pathogens, germs, ect. Presumably reused oil at a restaurant that is used ONLY for cooking will not be host to the same sorts of pathogenic contamination.
@@pbjandahighfive BREAKING NEWS: High temperature, BOILING SHIT at that, now no longer kills pathogens because pbjandahighfive said so. ridiculous point.
I worked in American restaurants for 10 years and I can tell you that of all the places I worked, the only one that changed their oil more than once a *week* was a KFC. And frankly, since I've moved back from abroad, I've eaten enough rancid takeout to suspect the standards these days are far worse in a lot of places, from local joints to big chains. As always, look to your own house, before you start chucking stones at the neighbor's.
Yes this 100% happens in America. Lots of Boomers think old grease is good. It is not. It goes rancid like any fat. Fryers should be deep cleaned regularly. At a place like KFC, it is possible to go through oil so fast you refill it faster than it goes rancid, and you can keep rotating oil for a long time when you're busy. The food is taking away all the old grease. But - as stated - you must absolutely drain the whole thing and deep clean it regularly. Once a week is actually fine in some situations. Buy the places cutting corners? You ever notice how a few local kitchens catch fire every single summer? Grease problems are a big factor.
Yes, in the section of the video where he mentioned restaurants perhaps pushing their oil a bit farther than they should, I definitely had the thought that restaurants of all kinds do that. It's a business thing, not a specific cuisine thing. I can also vouch for the fact that the US refines and recycles used cooking oil- my workplace has a machine to collect and filter it (it looks different than the ones shown in this video, but it does the same thing), and the resulting oil gets poured into lidded buckets, palletized, and shipped out.
There's even a restaurant in America that prides itself on deep frying cheeseburgers in the same oil they used when the restaurant was founded. They get featured on travel shows where they talk about the "unique flavor" their oil gives their burgers.
I remember I did pest control on one Chinese restaurant and after that, I never ate there again. No mater how many god damned rat traps I set out, they would always be full the next day. And apparently one of the cooks who didn’t speak English would take the dead rat from the trap in the kitchen and eat it. Supposedly it’s a delicacy there?
I think the person in the original video was witnessing oil theft like you suggest. I worked in a fast food restaurant that was part of a truck stop type complex off a major US interstate in the 90's. We had people steal our fryer oil fairly often. When I first stared working there I thought the lock on the fryer oil container was to keep pests out, but I was told later it was mostly to deter the casual theif. From what I understand someone would come by in the middle of the night with a pump truck, cut the lock, empty everything out, and then hop on the highway before anyone could stop them. It was such a bummer since we sold our oil to a local person who made biodiesel. Any waste product that has even a little value like used fry oil, scrap metal, aluminum cans, and bottles will have shady gleaners and not-so-legit recyclers.
This is such a high quality and well made video! You approached it from such a nuanced perspective, without relying on sensationalism like so many clickbaiters.
chris. you have such a way with words, it blows my mind. thank you for this video and playing your part in helping ppl like me who have “no skin in the game” educate myself on topics such as this. videos like this help us realize how intertwined culture, politics, and even food are with one another and yet, you explain everything so clearly with grace and eloquence. thank you man
I like the informative video. However, can't say I agree with the "Don't take a stance on something if you don't have skin in the game" argument. You might as well say "Ignorance is bliss" to anything not squarely in your wheelhouse of skills or education. Theoretically lets say China never did anything about it and it started becoming a practice in the US (I know it wouldn't, but I'm using this an example). International criticism on universal practice that like say, something in Europe or America is valid if you don't want that bad practice spreading or becoming accepted or tolerated by people elsewhere.
If this guy were truely concerned, he would call the cops quitely. I can't think of one reason cops will cover for "gutter oil producers". Yet he choose to confront in an insulting way. Don't think there's anything these online "influencers" wouldn't do to grab attention.
Having seen news about gutter oil for years from the outside, I have indeed been practicing the sentiment from the wise Bunk to this point. So it's great to finally have the situation explained in such a an astute way, thank you. This video is certainly a great addition to your catalogue of 'demystifying' Chinese cooking.
This doesn’t explain all the videos of restaurant employees taking gutter oil out of other restaurants used oil receptacles in China. Tianamen square 1989
Thanks for taking time to explain what you think is going on, and not jumping directly to the idea that gutter oil is re-used not recycled via purification standards.
Idk if this is still an issue but there was a study showing some brands olive and avacado oils consisted of rancid old oils or cut with cheaper vegetable oils. Companies cutting corners to increase profits is just a human thing not unique to any specific country or ethnicity.
Restaurant manager in the US here. We recycle our old oil,we have a dedicated oil dumpster for it when we change it. I'm not sure what happens to it when the recycling company comes to take it away, but I'm pretty sure you're just seeing a small Chinese operation doing the exact same thing over there, taking it away to be recycled into something else - *not* food oil.
Unfortunately, another commenter running Chinese restaurant business in Chinatown in the US was talking about how they're still bothered by this kind of sterotype, even their business is in the US.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Yeah, sadly, there's a growing tide of Sinoracism here in the US, egged on by the same politics driving the current trade war. It's stupid and atrocious, but there you have it. These recent gutter oil videos are just a symptom of that.
@@jeremiahmiller6431 That laowei influencer that filmed the drain cleaners was aiming his rage in the wrong direction and effecting badly the wrong people. If the lax of proper supervision is from unregulated gray area of businesses then the main problem is with the administration of the city itself, not the people that try to comply with the lax Laws.
I drive my diesel car with HVO100, which is hydro-treated vegetable oil, so the basis for my fuel is exactly the stuff that is being collected here. I loved the video (and always love to see your handsome mug)!
@kusazero we actually do have similar done in small and large operations. Bio-diesel is oil which has been treated to remove glycerine and break down fatty chains into shorter, more readily combustible hydrocarbons. Most fuel producers will have it make up about 10% of your diesel, because it does a fantastic job of replacing sulfur as the main lubricant inside diesel engines. Alternatively, if you make it yourself, you can run most diesel engines with 100% bio-diesel with no problems
@@kusazero there are some videos you can look up that show the process on small scale. It may not be doable for you, or maybe you will find it's easier to do than you thought. Fuel aside, you can make a lot of glycerine as well, a key ingredient in many soaps and moisturizers.
I really appreciate your effort to put context around this topic. I have seen how misinformation perpetuated by videos like the one you showed make their way to elderly overseas Chinese by way of Chinese language radio in the U.S. This is often a population not savvy with internet media or the idea that you can't believe everything. There is no one talking to this population in a balanced way. I had heard a little bit on the topic from an elderly relative. Most recently, this relative advised me to not consume Chinese made chili crisps because trucks used to transport industrial oils would also be used to transport food grade oil. I guess implying that food made in China is contaminated with non-food grade inputs. Not being familiar with it, I am glad you spent the time to share factual information in a even handed presentation.
Thank you for the video, it was definitely something I needed to see. I try and be mindful of disinfo online but admittedly I have a blind-spot when it comes to Chinese affairs. Unfortunately both my wife and I were in HK during that period in 2012/2013 and were affected by a big gutter oil scandal that spread across Taiwan and HK at the time, so I was predisposed to believing the crazy videos on the subject without giving it too much thought. This video was brilliant in helping me recontextualise some of the things I've seen online in the past 10 years whilst being very entertaining and educational. Looking forwards to the new recipes, you guys have taught me how to cook from zero :)
I worked for a chicken restaurant here in the states. We served steak biscuits as well and the GM would use oil so old and reused to cook the steak biscuit patty that the oil was black. The only time that the steak fryer got actually fresh oil was when I accidentally changed it, and once when the health inspector was coming by. That was twice in over a year. You would put the steak on a biscuit and if you looked under it the biscuit would be stained black.
@@dan339dannot op but I've worked in kitchens 20 years, mostly in NZ. You notice it in things like french fries first, but soon you'll notice the bitterness and plasticky rancid taste in anything. Most places strain the oil & wipe out the deep fryers every day and top it up with fresh oil. One day a week is the full clean and fresh oil. The old stuff sits in a drum out the back for recycling into non-food uses.... Given how 90% of olive oil is "fake", it doesnt surprise me places all across the world would also sell and buy refined used oil not meant for human consumption cos "it's refined, right? How bad can it be? It doesnt have any bad taste" But going back to the flavor of unchanged dark oil? Yes you'd definitely notice. I've sent food back before... Once, very embarrassingly, I had a customer send their food back to me with a note "tell the chefs they need to change their fry oil"... and that was only 4 days old!
@@dan339dan the GM said that people didn’t taste it. Before I worked there I used to eat steak biscuits. My dad would stop by get breakfast and the steak biscuit was my go to. Then I noticed that yeah they started tasting bad and when I worked there years later I found out why. They had a Cajun steak biscuit for a bit. I thought it was that that made me nauseous because they smelled bad.
I'm sorry but if you're alluding that old and reused oil is the same as gutter oil. That's just false equivalency. Sure it's disgusting. But not as disgusting as oil in sewers.
lol my face shows up every now and then Basically just don’t want people to get the impression that this is “that expat white dude’s channel”, when Steph’s by far the more important part of the whole operation. Like, this whole channel is very much the product of the weird mind-meld the two of us have going on, but I’m definitely the more replaceable of the two brain hemispheres
Instead of worry, fear, hatred this video is one of the rare ones that develops empathy, understanding and clarity. Simply amazing. Big respect to you for taking time to make this great video. Subscribed.
It was really great to see an informed and considerate take on the whole affair. I've only seen one sort of pseudo-documentary video on gutter oil street vendors, and I'm sure it's very easy to manipulate footage and subtitles to create a narrative. And even with the example you brought up - good intentions or no, the speaker was putting his own ideas onto what was going on. I had no other context. It's far better to understand what could be happening so I can actively think for myself. I know it's not your usual video but don't feel bad for making it. This is an interesting topic that touches on that fuzzy area where business and culture intersect. I learned a lot and I'm always excited by anything eco-friendly and love knowing that used oil can be recycled for industry use, used in biodiesel and even partially composted - all better than mere trash.
that opening video was really uncomfortable. I never knew about gutter oil, but you're absolutely right. It's better to mind my own business than to be ignorant about someone else's business. Thank you for this great video.
@@minhuang8848 Fr, as soon as I heard him call them inhuman dog monkeys that deserve to die the next day I was like 'well there's no way this person isn't a total piece of shit'.
Personally, if something like this happens in my neighbourhood I wouldn't mind my own business. I'm that person who reports unattended luggage and calls the emergency number when I hear someone shouting "Help!" However, I would probably watch these guys, maybe take a picture or video so I can ask other people what they're doing, and also ask them what they're doing. I wouldn't start swearing at them, that's unnecessary.
@@julesverneinoz That's because food safety has become the number 1 (non-economic related) issues in China. Counterfeit baby formula, chemically bleached food, counterfeit alcoholic drinks, counterfeit food products... the list is endless, and news and rumors spread like wildfire about a new scandal every month, the latest being cooking oiling being transported by trucks used to move chemicals without being cleaned in between. To simply put, Chinese people don't trust the food industry, they don't trust the government regulators who kept promising food safety and they don't trust the Chinese media to report honestly. So they're taking matters into their own hands in whichever way the system allows them to.
@@julesverneinozNot only was he yelling at them, he was dehumanizing them, calling them names that imply they're not human. This looks especially bad coming from a non-chinese person. Even if these people are operating illegally, it's absolutely inappropriate to treat them that way for doing something discreetly that doesn't directly harm anyone.
He also has no idea what they're actually doing, why they're there, if they have permission etc. He's jumping to conclusions based on the same prejudices those videos push, except instead of making nasty comments on the internet about people, he's abusing and threatening them to their faces. A lot of people are just looking for an excuse to attack others and it sure has that vibe
Thank you so much for this video! I remember hearing my parents talk to their friends about gutter oil as a kid (in the 00s), and I've always wondered about it to some degree. I'm glad to hear more of the story!
Thank you for the time and effort you put into this. In these current times of rampant disinformation and xenophobia etc, influencers/people with online followings taking the time to provide good quality information is really vauable and appreciated.
This was a really thorough, thoughtful and educational video. Excellent work, and I'm sorry to see that you've had to deal with the onslaught of comments about it. Just wanted to say thank you for making it.
I frequently quote the “My retirement grease!” line from the Simpsons so I’m familiar with grease thieves. Makes even more sense when said grease can be collected outside the restaurant. Pretty interesting. One of my dreams is to open a self-reliant restaurant, a garden-to-table kind of operation, and recycling oil to make biodiesel, soap or other products is one of the key elements I want to implement. There’s no waste, only raw materials for something else.
Incredibly well said advice at the end there. Thanks for being one of the people out there putting in effort to educate and make a difference within their circle of influence.
This video sat in my google tabs for 2 weeks before I managed to watch it, I really appreciate the nuanced and educational take you presented as I was expecting some frothing "Uncensored" take on the topic. I should have known better from your channel!
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I saw the grease videos and was very worried because I will travel to China next year. This does give me some peace of mind, but your overall philosophy is good too. I also love the cooking videos too. So keep it up.
thank you for shedding light on the gutter oil. we hears things and rumours every now and then, your video provided the necessary link to the whole story. Many thanks.
You are right and have changed my mind on a lot of the stuff that's on the internet. I'll try to take a step back as you've suggested on stuff that I don't have a stake in. And you've earned a sub.
I generally agree with what you are saying. But I would also point out (not necessarily applicable in this case) that marginalized groups often need to rely on people without "skin in the game" to have an opinion and care about the issues affecting them.
Every restaurant in the US where I have worked has a smaller grease interceptor inside, usually under or near the dishwashing machine or sink. Depending on how oily the rinse is, we can often get away with using a digestor enzyme, but that stuff is only so effective. At the BBQ place I worked, I had to personally empty the thing a few times a month, and it was the foulest smell I have ever experienced. Also, here on the west coast a pretty sizeable part of the population rides around on "salvaged" bikes collecting cans. The trash bin outside my apartment gets picked over a dozen times a day. As long as they don't make a mess, I much prefer the can collecting over the catalytic converter and bike theft that also occurs with some regularity.
This exactly. But I was speaking with someone who moved here from the UK, and they mentioned seeing this as something crazy that you only see late night. So I guess it's less common in some cities, and seeing laws against it makes some sense as to why.
Your cooking videos are definitely what bring me to the channel, but i also love when you cover some of the other aspects of China and Chinese daily life. Like the video done on Wet Markets back during strong Covid times its great to hear about all sides of the situation instead of just what the normal algorithm allows us to see. Thanks for the great video and information.
I am a Hawaiian speeding jaywalker that is happy to see your face for the first time after all these years of watching your videos. I have to say that TH-cam watchers need this video. Period.
I just wanted to say great job on the video, and trying to help people understand the situation (and their own attitudes and how they develop too) while managing to be decently even-handed about it! I feel like if you're trying to reach the most people you struck a nice balance
Toronto Canada 🇨🇦 uses gutter oil waste recycling method too. Restaurants pour oil in chamber in ground, another company comes in and pumps the oil out. Even McDonald's is famously known for this to this day.
thank you for this. it was the first video of yours I have ever seen but I do plan to watch more. I quite enjoyed your prospective on this issue as well as your thoughts on the internet in general. again, thank you.
As an American, this makes a lot more sense to me than grainy stock-footage of vaguely Southeastern-Asian looking people moving buckets of anomalous liquids from street-hatches to trucks with an overly dramatic voiceover whining nonsense about "gutter oil IN CHINA".
Wdym? Its proven that this is and was in fsct happening. Restaurants getting the gutter oil and using it to cook with it. Its a fact. The thing that is the question is how often does thst happen and thats what the video talking about esdentially. Your comment makes it seem like you think its just completely made up thst restsjrants used it
@@Ahayeahishere The problem is the channel owner's "clarification" in his list.. his firstt few points sorta say it is untrue and people don't read beyond and jump in to go " AH HAH it's fake!"
I absolutely love this discussion format. Thank you Chris. The perception/culture/regulation/misrepresentation\etc aspects are very interesting, thank you.
I really appreciate people posting videos like this, as well as your earlier video about wet markets to combat what is frankly just sinophobia. People in the West are quick to believe anything negative posted about China and completely ignore similar health scandals committed by companies in other nations. The social media landscape can be a nightmare. Full of clout chasers and grifters like Serpentza that you referenced, but also Falun Gong fronts like China Insights, etc. that people in the West just unquestioningly believe. Even mainstream news will often cite back to these same super disreputable sources, both for the monetary incentive that outrage creates, and as part of the propaganda model Chomsky and Herman talk about in Manufacturing Consent. The one part of the video I might push back on is the implication that the Western media is in fact any more free. Consider first, and most overtly the findings of The Church Committee, which revealed huge CIA influence in many major publications. But even beyond that we can look at the way the vast majority of media that reaches Americans is curated by one of a handful of giant corporations with a vested interest in protecting the interests of capital. It is one of the greatest achievements of American propaganda that Americans seem to think they are uniquely immune to it while reciting some of the most ridiculous lies ever told that just so happen to make America's enemies look monstrous or backwards.
Who knew 2024's most sane English-language take on China-West cultural relations was going to come from cooking youtube! In our era where the most respected US and European newspapers struggle to summon more than a zero-research hitpiece, this was refreshingly reasonable. I learned stuff and had fun. If you ever have the mental resources to wade into additional morasses for future videos, we will appreciate it.
I don't care what anyone says. You are a thoughtful and honest person, and unlike tourists you understand how local infrastructure works. In much of the rest of the world grease and oil is handled at a water treatment facility, so the practice of cleaning the sewage grease trap is generally unknown.
Here in Jakarta (Indonesia), we have 'Pemulung', doing basically the same thing with plastic/cardboard trash + used electronics and furniture. They're a lot more open with what they do though. In the past, they'd buy your trash for the price of some pot ash (to clean the underside of your pot/woks) and resell it to a recycler for tiny marginal profit compared to the hard work
Pemulung are different though, people generally respect them more as they function more as a proto-recycling company. They don’t work with consumables like cooking oil. As someone who loves to cook the Indonesian way, a more similar concept would be to stretch out the minyak jelantah (reused oil) until longer than usually advised
EDIT: I wanted to make a quick update, specifically regarding the individual in the video - they actually reached out ibb.co/hg9XZsZ and everything tracks. I myself would be appalled to be defined by my low points, and his misunderstanding was understandable given the mess of information that's out there (even in China). I'm going to blur his face in the video, but it'll likely take a couple hours for it to take effect. Just wanted to get that out there at first
Hey guys, just a few things that I wanted to emphasize... and a couple more than I wanted to clarify:
1. *Videos of people collecting oil from the gutter outside of restaurants is not evidence the restaurant is using gutter oil.* Outside of restaurants in China is a contraption known as a grease interceptor. This is a critical device that helps ensure that oil does not hit the sewage system, generally accessed through a manhole.
The grease interceptor must be cleaned regularly. Specific regulations depend on the city and the district, but the ultimate responsibility is on the restaurant to maintain their grease interceptor. In particular, the fire department takes the situation incredibly seriously.
In many larger cities there is a specific service (that the restaurant needs to pay for, in Shenzhen I recall it was about 5000 RMB per month?) that pumps the grease interceptor with some proper machinery. But the specific situation will depend on the locality. It is not unheard of for a restaurant to clear their interceptor themselves if there is a buildup.
2. *The oil collected in these videos are not being directly used in restaurants.* In many videos - though not all - it is implied that the oil is being collected from the grease interceptor is then being repurposed directly by the restaurant.
Even from the more salacious media outlets, once the story is delved into in detail… it is made clear that the issue at hand is related to subsequent reprocessing of that collected oil. This was, indeed, the crux of the original gutter oil scandal: oil collected from grease interceptors was being neutralized, bleached, deodorized (in a similar way an edible neutral oil is produced) and sold back to restaurants. Due to contamination from bacteria and heavy metals in the sewer system, consuming this oil presents some health risks. But you would likely be oblivious to whether you were consuming it or not in the moment, particular in the context of other flavors.
Perhaps you knew this already, but I felt it was important to emphasize.
3. *Recycled oil also has legitimate uses.* The most common destinations for recycled oils in China are industrial lubricants and biodiesel. It’s worth mentioning that the United States also has a lively market for recycled oil, as it’s a common inclusion in livestock feed (though to be clear, in the United States the oil used in livestock feed is sourced from deep fryers, not grease traps).
In the past, one of the biggest issues was that recycled oil as a cooking oil commanded a 50% price premium over that bound for industrial purposes.
Of course, markets tend to shift faster in the face of price-based carrots than punitive regulatory sticks (though the two can be especially effective in tandem). While the Chinese government has cracked down on gutter oil - as we discussed in the video - perhaps the more important development has been the dramatic increase in demand for recycled restaurant oil for use in biofuels.
4. *Videos of people collecting oil in rather-suspicious-looking unmarked vans (that perhaps respond poorly to being filmed) is not evidence of gutter oil.* Throughout the world, there is the phenomenon of grease theft. While more current information is available from a quick google, this 2000 Salon article province a nice overview: www.salon.com/2000/11/06/grease_wars/
In the USA, a grease thief will usually need a utility truck to get the job done. In China, it can be as easy as popping open the grease interceptor. This is in large part due to specific multi-compartment designs of grease interceptors that are popular in China (likely given the admittedly rather oily nature of Chinese restaurant cooking).
5. *Recycling restaurant cooking oil is a common practice worldwide.* In the industry in America, used restaurant grease is divided into brown grease (sourced from interceptors) and yellow grease (sourced from used deep frying oil). The general rule of thumb is that latter has much wider range of potential uses - in the USA, livestock feed appears to be the dominant application - and commands a much higher price.
It is difficult to parse why oil sourced from interceptors in China is recycled while those in the United States is not. The obvious explanation the mind turns to would simply be a lower regulatory bar, which could potentially be problematic. But perhaps the destination of the recycled oil itself requires less of a regulatory hurdle - the dominant (legitimate) uses of recycled cooking oil in China are industrial lubricants and biodiesel. Perhaps some minerals and free fatty acids are less of an issue when you’re not feeding it to chickens.
The standards given to oil recyclers in China would corroborate this idea, as from the document it appears that animal feed is not an allowable destination. www.leo-king.com/jtxw/info_24_itemid_778.html But this is an area that we’re quickly bumping into the limits of our understanding, and I’m worried that our analysis could begin to veer into confirmation bias.
6. *The original gutter oil scandal was real and not a fabrication. The most legitimate academic analysis we found put the market share of gutter oil at about 10% during the ‘00s.* It is important to emphasize that the gutter oil scandal was very real, stemming from well researched pieces of investigative journalism and made an indelible impact on Chinese society.
The original gutter oil was called “frying oil” as it was generally being used for deep frying (i.e. an application where low quality oil would have less of an impact on taste). Researchers from Wuhan Polytechnic University estimated that roughly 10% of oil purchased by restaurants during this time was gutter oil, though other researchers had (unspecified) lower estimates. zqb.cyol.com/content/2010-03/17/content_3139053.htm
7. *There was a crackdown in 2011 and 2012 that - anecdotally - dramatically diminished (but likely not extinguished) the market for gutter oil.* I should be quite upfront in that this final point is primarily based off of discussions that we’ve had with friends in the industry. Take as well salted as you would any anecdotal evidence.
Pre-2012, gutter oil was a bit of an open secret, and it was sometimes found in a perhaps surprisingly diverse array of restaurant settings (while you would be more likely to bump into it at a street stall than a hotel, it wasn’t necessarily the case). This has drastically changed post-2012. However, it is important to note that refined used cooking oil is still something that is available for restaurants to purchase, especially from grey market distributors. Said distributors will make it clear that the oil is not for use as a cooking oil, but it’s certainly possible that there is someone - somewhere - in China that is flying too close to the sun and using this sort of oil in 2024. Everyone emphasized that no restaurant owner in their right mind would use it in the larger cities, but it would probably be wrong to claim it as completely 100% eradicated.
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Anyway, delving into this whole morass hasn't been... great... for my personal headspace. Food is a lot more fun (though in fairness, absent the political dimension & people pushing narratives in bad faith... sewage is actually really interesting!). Anyway, apologies in advance for likely not engaging very much with this particular comment section - I'd much rather spend my waking hours researching our next dish than fruitlessly arguing with the fuck-anything-and-everything-about-china crowd. Our take is in the video and in the notes above. We probably overlooked some stuff, we're might even be wrong about some stuff. Take at face value :)
so palm oil and canola oil or others like it are already gross af and not for human consumption too
Hows that trustworthy Chinese tap water you are cooking with? Tasty?
If people value traditions and culture over profit and greediness then they should believe in karma and someone misdeeds schemes to get rich fast could boomerang back and bite them hard. On a separate note and to prove this kind of scandals is not exclusive to Chinese culture, way back in the 60's there was a scandal in a Middle East country I cannot recall exactly that someone bought surplus and used mechanical oil from an Army depot and mixed it with vegetable oil destined for Human consumption and caused a large scale poisoning with many people getting chronic neurological diseases or even killed. Also the scandal of fake Olive oil being imported to the US and other countries that doesn't contain any oil from any Olive plants.
Never has the phrase “garbage dog monkey people” sounded so funny. 😆
@@Themyscara Some other cultures like Japan they can drink straight form the tap, but that is because their preserve their water sources and keep them in pristine condition, others like South Korea albeit having the same standard of life as Japan but because they are adjacent to North Korea and fearful of warring foul play, nobody drink water form the taps, even for cooking I think they use bottled water. But if you are calling negligent management of aqueducts nobody topple the mishap in Flint Michigan that corroded their piping system by pumping untreated water from a polluted river. So what's your point with your question?
I remember there was a simpsons episode where homer and bart literally tried to get into the waste oil recycling industry and tried to steal Willies retirement grease
Classic
"...My god! You're greasy!"
"Simpsons did it! Simpsons did it"
@@user-kl5zd2oe3eboss it is happening again.
I worked for environmental consulting companies for several years, and grease traps are a vital part of managing the waste stream of restaurants. They stink like hell and require occasional pumping to stay functional and keep wastewater systems from getting clogged. The trucks that pump the grease out have to put it somewhere, and indeed that usually means biofuel or lubricant reprocessing. It's not great to have that stuff in landfills.
Its not just gutter oil though, even in 2024 there are heaps of videos out of China about fake foods, fake alcohol and drinks and counterfeit everything. Right now in Chinese news theres a story of Chinese tankers carrying all kinds of products from edible oil to toxic chemicals in the same tanker.
Grease traps are commonly used, the difference is there are uncut videos of CN restaurant employee scooping it up from mobile trash bin then heading back into the restaurant with said oil. Even CN customers don't like that and point it out. This channel just blanket ignores that when there's multiple videos of restaurant heading straight back into the restaurant with the scooped oil and just calls that grifting lol
@@chinesesparrows The best part is that if these Chinese shills actually moved to and lived in China, they'd probably get over the romantic view they have of the country and realize just how goddamn disgusting the country is, both from it's total disregard of human life, and for how low Chinese people are willing to go to make some cash. People seem to forget that China follows the same ideology as North Korea and the countries run very similarly. Just because China is a tiny bit more "free" does not mean it won't fuck you over and torture you because you said Xi was a Poo.
Even serpentza, the biggest Chinese shill of the modern age who lived in China for years and who made hundreds of excuses, had to flee the country over just how disgusting it had become.
It is funny when my parents own a restaurant we would recycle to a company to take care of our use oil.
We fellow the health guidelines here in the US.
We have them pick up our use oil every week. The health inspector will check your paperwork every week.
At the end of the year the recycle company would send us boxes of bath soap as gifts.
My restaurant gets paid to collect all the oil.
My dad used to have a guy who would take used cooking oil from our restaurant for free and make biodiesel from it
Not the same the thing
@@jacobishii6121 I don’t think the poster is saying it’s the same, I think just giving insight to how many restaurants out of China deal with waste oil
The difference is cooking oil was found to be shipped in tankers which also transported diesel/gasoline/waste water and yet inside of tank was not washed. It was a nationally reported widespread scandal that's still not been transparently addressed how much has been improved.
the comparison to can and bottle recycling blew my mind and suddenly every detail of your explanation so far fell into place. awesome writing
The second you mentioned that recycling companies PAY for used oil, I knew exactly why those people on the sidewalk must have been there, and whole-heartedly agree with your assessment at the end. People in need of enough money to feed themselves have been collecting recyclables to do so for decades now. The only difference between those folks and people who collect glass and cans here in the US is the item they're recycling. Thank you once again for making such a thorough, informative video.
Pretty cool of the guy in the video to harass and verbally abuse them then:/
Dude neither you nor he knows. You don't know if they sent it to a recycler.
Who pays more, recycling companies or re-using companies? This is just Chinese propaganda. This is a very commonly known issue for a reason
@@EbonyPope True. I don't understand why people take a picture or clip with very little to zero other information and assume a story. For better or worse.
I will say I wouldn't be surprised if people collect "other people's" oil (in their traps) for easy money. In california i used to walk the streets and if I see someone throw out their refrigerator by leaving them on the street for anyone to collect to fix or recycle (for scrap metal) I'd literally walk home and get a hand truck to then walk it home. Then I'd call the city and have them pick it up for cash.
At the time there was a program where the state would give you money for your refrigerator because of the coolant in it so it gets recycled and not released into the air.
When this program was in effect there was a 1 call per household limit, but I would just ask my neighbors if I could use there address.
A few minutes of walk would earn me $40 each time.
I definitely abused definitely this program.
That's not even the point @EbonyPope
The point is that if you want to stop people from doing this, you give them economic opportunity. Cracking down on somebody trying to live is just spreading misery. You think they *want* to be scraping grease out of sewers at 2AM?
Oh @TheLongDon, so we don't have to prove something if some random dipshit claims that it's 'commonly known,' huh? Then all people can rest assured when I say "don't bother, it's commonly known that TheLongDon can't satisfy a woman."
9:17 "kill a chicken to scares the monkey" aka saat kei geng hau (殺雞警猴) is a chinese idiom that means punish someone severely to set an example for the rest..
We have the equivalent in Thai as "เชือดไก่ให้ลิงดู" or, literally translated, "slaughter a chicken for a monkey to see". I wonder if this has been borrowed from Chinese immigrants and integrated into Thai everyday lingo, much like many words of Chinese origin in Thai.
Thank you! I knew I was missing some context there.
In Turkish we say 'set the blankets on fire to kill a flea'
For those who don’t know OP uses the Cantonese pronunciation. In Mandarin/ Hanyu Pinyin it would be “sha ji jing hou”
While not the same and more of a "kill a monkey, to scare monkeys" approach, but Voltaire also once said "in this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others".
I'm trying hard not to be emotional, but not once have I ever seen a non-Chinese person shed such a respectful & accurate light on Chinese culture / cuisine. I'm part of a Chinatown BIA in North America, and a lot of our businesses need to deal with this gutter oil stereotype that affects business, especially since the COVID era. We've had longtime restaurants close as a result of false accusations around pests & supposed gutter oil collection. We even got the city hall to do inspections for the accused restaurants, but even when we got those establishments cleared they would still suffer from the TikTok videos.
Come on dude! Stop being so Radical, and outright Wrong. If that were the case... then MILLIONS of Chinese restaurants, wouldnt exist in the USA. Its a fact, that millions of Americans, Love Chinese cooking... and consume it on a frequent basis. Nobody that I know.. thinks that the Gutter Oil problem, is from within the USA. Its clearly a "China only" problem.
If there are issues in CA... its more likely from mentally Ill radicals, from inside of your state. That, and or the Govt. shills, trying to shut down ALL businesses... because CA and the Corrupted Demoncrats.. want to covert the USA into Communism. And what better way to do it... than to cause massive inflation... stop punishing criminals... and cause businesses to go into bankruptcy.
The MAIN reason why places are closing... is because people can no longer AFFORD to eat out ! Groceries are like Double the prices that they used to be... and cooking for yourself, is still infinitely cheaper than paying for prepared food + delivery fees.
It’s… annoying… when people harp on about gutter oil in China. People doing that shit to Chinese-American restaurants *in the United States*? Gross to a borderline unfathomable degree. I’m sorry you have to deal with that
I'm not going to pretend that Chinese restaurants, like any, have never had hygiene issues - but it boggles my mind how perhaps the world's most delicious cuisine is sometimes insulted as particularly filthy.
@@timmccarthy9917 It's just racism. People from Asia are often very high achievers when they immigrate to or study in English-speaking countries, which means racist people within that society can't use the same kind of bullying they use for the systematically disadvantaged people of their countries. The alternative is to say "yes, Chinese people (or Indian people, or Korean people) are very accomplished/intelligent, but eating their food makes you sick because it's unhygienic, or the ingredients are substandard, or the food culture itself is unethical (e.g. Western focus on "eating dogs" as a trope specifically attached to Chinese people even though many of the most revered and expensive dog breeds in the world originate from China.)
@@hoodedferret Lol, yes, "it's just racism."
Absurd reductionism to justify your moral superiority won't backfire at all.
Remember to get your Covid booster, those tens of thousands of VAERS reports are all fake and easy to file after all.
lol. i worked back of house at a restaurant in michigan for three months before i learned that there was an oil filter for the deep fryer that was supposed to be run every night before closing, and also that the oil was supposed to be changed twice a week not once, the guy who trained me just never bothered with that stuff. the restaurant has closed since i left when the building was deemed unsafe for occupation
and yes, you could Definitely tell when the oil had had a few days too long. but it's like they say, nobody wants to see how the sausage gets made
@@opensourceq Very foamy oil that overflow the fryer and make a big mess.
Sadly, your experience is not unique. I worked in a fried chicken restaurant in Michigan where the normal practice was to filter the oil in the deep fryer when too much burnt breading was sticking to the food. The owner's policy was to change the oil once per week. The oil would be a dark brown color by the time it was changed. It looked like used motor oil.
Whoa once a week is way too frequent. I worked at a place a couple years back that hadn't changed their oil in months.
Living in California, the idea of "oh yeah these people are dubiously illegally stealing recycleables" makes complete sense. We have folks who come and just dump our recycling bins looking for cans and guys who steal catalytic converters to sell for scrap, and hell there were/are guys who steal used cooking oil HERE for biodeisel, it makes a lot of sense.
The cans and converters are everywhere , I worked for a phone company ppl were stealing copper wire off towers.. fact is, poverty
Just put your cans in a separate bin for them to grab, those folks are just trying to make enough money to eat. I talk to them and offer to set my cans out separate and its very amicable.
@@talonhammer Not the issue, its not their property and they are making a mess of things. All i can say is put cams up everywhere and (Unless your a wuss.) be on site as much as you can so you can take care of business.
@@mavericksetsuna7396 why not just be nice and put out a separate bin for them? seems to fix both peoples issues easily.
@@Sandman23Because some people don’t care how tough some people have it, they’d rather have them thrown in jail so they don’t have to think about the broken society they inhabit.
The reality is poor people are going to do 'poor people things' because they're poor. I've travelled extensively, there are things like this all over.
Yes - and one of them is people USING GUTTER OIL TO COOK FOOD IN CHINA! It's common knowledge among the Chinese who actually have to eat this stuff. And this video calls Winston Sterzel a "grifter" 28:10 . . . just for telling the truth? (BTW, he lived in China for over a decade, is fluent in Mandarin, has half Chinese kids, etc. You talk like he's just some random racist loser.)
The whole premise of this video - that Xi and his "reforms" got rid of the problem - is frankly offensive to anyone who cares about the future of China and holds out hope for the reform or (hope beyond hope) eventual replacement of the CCP. This is Xi's China, where it's normal for a building owner, for example, to bribe elevator inspectors, leading to his tenants plunging to their deaths, which happens frequently, where EV manufacturers make shoddy batteries that cause cars to burst into flames, where highways are collapsing due to tofu dregs construction, etc, etc. You think with so many examples of "cha bu duo" mindset that there aren't still countless small vendors buying that processed gutter oil to save a few Yuan?
It always seems cruel when poor people are just trying to figure out ways to get by and others respond by getting that behavior outlawed or saying they’re garbage dogmonkeys and whatnot.
The difference is obviously whether or not anyone is being hurt, and your opinion on whether it's "right" to hurt other people for your survival
@@Leto_0 Would you sell drugs to feed your family? Some do and we glorify them as rapstars.
@@Leto_0 True, but the culture that influences those people is relevant. In China under the CCP, everyone understands: you do whatever you can to survive because no one is going to save you. There's a big problem in China with bystanders just looking on during kidnappings, attacks, etc. Funny, it turns out an evil gangster communist government ruling with an iron fist for 70 years isn't the best thing for social cohesion.
Came for the recipes, stayed for the nuanced analysis on western misconceptions, chinese history and deconstruction of "authenticity" as a culinary concept. Great work Chris, probably my favourite cooking channel on YT.
This channel and Adam Ragusea: Came for the cooking, stayed for the nuance.
Same, I love learning the history and evolution and blending of food and cooking techniques. It helps you across any type of cooking
"authenticity" pisses me off. Like people put tons of stock into French cuisine but a ton of "authentic" recipes were just 1 way of a hundred to make a dish and the "authentic" version is just whichever recipe Escoffier happened to prefer. Like French onion soup used to have water or a milk broth but the "authentic" recipe uses beef broth, the old version would have bread on the side and _maybe_ cheese on the side but the "authentic" version has melted cheese on top of bread thats on top of the soup. The same is true with tons of other dishes where different regions had different versions and of course every cook made it slightly different, only centuries later did celebrity chefs write down their version and that became the standard and people assume the older versions are derivatives.
very this, and very elegantly said.
also it just makes me happier knowing that the channel i follow for recipes is headed by people with good critical thinking skills... next to self-awareness it's the quality most important to me, but they really go hand-in-hand.
nuanced my anus. he's a shill.
Years ago I worked at a movie theater with a 2 basket fryer in FL, popular chain, eventually I worked there long enough to be given the task of cleaning the fryer every Friday and to get a management position. We changed the oil every 7 days, the whole fryer was broken down into pieces and scrubbed, washed and then refilled with new oil, the old oil went into the grease trap.
Anytime id overhear people say we used "old oil" I rolled my eyes, the fryer was never on all the time, it went off at the end of the shift and honestly the days it got the most use Friday-Sunday were the days it got the most use and the oil was the freshest.
People need to work in the food and beverage industry once in their lives to see what goes into getting them their "restaurant quality" food. I believe it would give them a lot more respect for the good well run establishments out there and be more picky about the sketchy places that are treated like they are so clean you can eat off the floor.
THIS! like maam your popcorn is fresh! There's 300 people coming thru these doors and we are constantly popping....did you think we popped and stored this popcorn 3 days ahead???? .....Also the "butter" is coconut oil ☺
Not sure what you fried but 7 days is still a very long time for only cleaning it once a week.
@@epicka The OP made the point most people eat from that fryer on the freshest oil days. If you can taste old oil in your food and it's a problem for you, as it is for me, you should stop eating at that restaurant. Most people who don't like the food at a restaurant just stops going there and that speaks louder than anything. If that place was in business long enough for an employee to go from regular worker to manager, it's safe to say the oil was good enough to keep the restaurant open. Fryers that have heating elements off the floor of the fryer can keep the oil tasting fresher for longer.
@@epicka I worked in similar (not identical) conditions to OP, and while 7 days feels like a long time, there are a couple of additional factors. For one, restaurant supply companies like Sysco offer filter pods that contain what I can only assume is some kind of flocculant, to pull a lot of the burnt and off-tasting compounds out of the fryer oil. You leave them in overnight and they do a pretty good job at extending the life of the oil. And in addition to that, we were pretty vigilant using a combination of square spider and bench scraper to pull any large chunks left behind by the food, so it wouldn't dissolve into the oil and burn.
That being said, when our restaurant changed ownership, they did bump us up to twice-a-week oil changes. So once a week is probably *the longest* you'd actually want to go. But it's by no means unusual for the industry.
@@robertp457 It doesn't really change the fact that seven days is a long time. If it only gets changed once a week and the weekend oil is freshest, that screws over everyone who ate something fried in it on Thursday. And really, oil starts chemically changing the instance it's being heated; if it's getting heavy use on the weekend, by Monday it really shouldn't be usable. A twice-weekly change on Monday and Friday would be the bare minimum I'd hope for in this situation.
And saying " If that place was in business long enough for an employee to go from regular worker to manager, it's safe to say the oil was good enough to keep the restaurant open" is a massive assumption. Lots of people are not versed in food safety, nor can they readily tell when their food is cooked in old oil. Old oil is not the same as rancid oil; more often than not, using old oil doesn't alter the flavour of the food or the oil at all. If anything, I have often heard it said that some people even prefer food cooked in repeatedly reused oil, as it makes the food more "characterful", which is a myth coming from the opposite direction. And if you ask people who work in kitchens (as I have done as I've known many over the years) from cheapo diners to really fancy places, they'll readily tell you about the kitchens using obviously rancid and even long out-of-date oil, and it clearly never affected their business or bottom line.
In the UK, cooking oil theft is massive for restaurants. It can be most weeks where either they steal most of it or take the entire barrel you're storing it in. They'll splice locks, hop over fences, it's worth a lot of money. It can easily be turned into fuel for a diesel heater, imagine free heating in winter.
I feel like China was abound with all sorts of food scandals and rumors, opium in the hotpot, gutter oil, fake eggs in the 90s and aughts. It was fairly common to see people riding around with with giant buckets on either side of their bikes, fishing oil out of the gutters. I remember being mystified by this whole process and feeling for those who took on this backbreaking and, no doubt, dangerous work. Thank you so much for the in-depth clarification on how this all works. It shows that you did a ton of research!
Why the hell would scooping gutters be dangerous? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@dannymoneywellhey Danny, just real quick, slow your roll and use your brain power 💪🧠
if you're squatting down, scooping oil out of a sewer/gutter in the the road, how visible do you think you are to, say: a truck?
@elen5871 hey man leave danny and his 2 neurons alone, they don't have much going for them
Thanks for being a voice of nuance in today's polarized environment. Thank you for explaining a lot on the Chinese side of the things without delving into reductive tropes about Chinese culture or people.
Yours is honestly a rare channel.
"We live on an internet that is completely inundated with bulls**t, and there's no valor in adding to the pile." Amen.
Also, isn't there an episode of The Simpsons where Homer tries to make money by stealing oil/grease and selling it to a recycling plant?
Also, today I looked up more information about Pascal's Wager thanks to this video than I did when I first heard about the theory. Thank you Chinese Cooking Demystified!
My retirement grease!
he just buys a bunch of bacon and then cooks it, and feeds the bacon to the dog
Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of people (waving flags) that don't seem to care about valor (unless they can steal it).
Holy crap. Finally someone who explains what's going on with those scooping oil out of the gutter video. I never understood how there was enough oil in the sewer to make gutter oil but now everything makes sense.
yeah, weird to have a street facing grease trap but it makes way more sense.
You'd think the grease collecting function would just be built into the sewers at that point.
“If something does not affect your life, there’s no imperative need to develop an opinion”
I’m gonna need some time to think about that one. Not sure I agree with the first half, but giving those affected room to speak out is definitely important. It feels a little dismissive / bury your head in the sand to not develop an opinion on an issue affecting humanity even if you’re not directly implicated.
Very nuanced video though. I definitely learned a lot!
The issue is the bargaining power for the average citizens in China is piss poor.
I had never even heard of this whole "gutter oil" fiasco going on until this video title, and just based on the thumbnail I got a pretty good guess. I didn't work for a restaurant, but I did work for a factory that made cured meats, some of which were larded, or encased in lard. The lard after using a few times would then be liquefied and stored in barrels to dispose of with our biohazard pickup company. I just assumed that this is what's going on, and the casual observer has no idea how this all works and assumes malicious intent.
If it wasn't malicious why would they do it in the middle of the night and bail immediately after being approached?
@cyan_oxy6734 Would you clean the filthy oil from your sump in broad daylight in front of your customers? And wouldn't you bail if a foreign stranger approached you with a camera yelling accusations at you?
I'll say this much, working as a fry cook at red lobster, we'd use the same oil in the fryers for a week, and sometimes my manager would wait 2 weeks or more before replacing the oil, it would turn color like used motor oil, and smell, and nothing would fry properly. I think the off chance of getting "gutter oil" from chinese food should be the least of people's worries
This is what I kept thinking during this video. Like don't y'all know how nasty American restaurants get. Worked at a few- never seen an inspector.
same thing here. worked at a popular american chain (not saying which), and the oil in one of the fryers regularly degraded to the point of it being nearly pitch black. you could paint with it like black watercolor. less than a centimeter of visibility, and smoked like the depths of hell the moment you heated it up.
Are you joking? Gutter oil would still be way way worse than old frying oil
@@Ahayeahishere Yes, we know the difference between "digouyou and laoyou" -we watched the video. And it reminded us of our own experiences in restaurants. We are commenting on the topic of the last third of the video (the inevitable difference between the law and restaurant practices- even here in the usa). You obviously didnt watch the very end- doubt you got to 19:19. Read the title and came down here to complain. Classic. "There you go. Given a fuck where it aint your turn to give a fuck"
Changing your oil every 2 weeks is absolutely normal and perfectly fine in restaurant settings.
It does get a bit weird when random videos of people removing oil from gutters get instantly branded as a part of the gutter oil operations if they're from China (or, at least, labeled as China). That stuff just happens all the time in any country where there's inexperienced cooks absolutely mishandling cooking oil. There's even a whole genre of Korean videos dedicated to removing sewer blockages caused by oil.
I'm curious about the genre, any key words suggestions?
@@ChineseCookingDemystified "Genre" may have been a bit of overexaggerating, but there's a channel called "하수구의제왕" (King of Sewers) who has an absurd amount of views for what's really just sewer cleanups-- over half of which is related to oil crusting over stuff.
@DrainCleaningAUSTRALIA is a channel I have watched where he has delt with drains blocked due to grease. I remember one where he specifically opend up the grease trap to sort out a clogged pipe.
Like other people have said. Too few people have worked in the "blue collar" side of food service. They dont know what its like to take care of waste that people callously leave for other people to "take care of"
It's like if the situation is slightly different, those people would've picked up on that many parts of rural China still have manual labor of handling "night soil". as in a bamboo pole slung on the shoulders, carrying 2 wooden buckets of night soil to be carried out of the village and dumped at a facility. someone who doesn't know what's going on will likely latch onto that and make up all sorts of fiction as to what those buckets of excrement will be used for, and there's no way they'll accept anything but the worst scenarios as they're simply... racists looking to be racists.
Recognising he has his biases, already makes this video more truthful than 90% of the videos on this platform when it regards to China.
@@chiangweytan5937but let’s be honest, it sells to be anti-China much more than being nuanced or even “pro-China.” Even though a lot of “pro-China” or positive pages get labeled as CCP propaganda or paid shills / WuMao’s.
Any thoughts on accented cinema?
I don’t have many anti China biases I had Asian friends growing up and got rejected by most whites….
@@antokarman2064Accented Cinema is fantastic, we’re Patrons
More truthful than 90% of the videos on the internet, period.
I see a complex issue, poverty, cost savings, recycling, food safety, trust issues, and people skating the laws. This video does help a lot with understanding the eco system and the drivers and reasons. Eating out is always a risk, so if you can get to know the owner and the crew working, or find a family run place that you trust. We have some great family run places and the food is great, never got sick and the people are great. Like you said it is really more an issue for those who deal with it directly. Food safety is hot topic, and gutter oil is such phrase that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It's no wonder trust issues would arise from it. But your video is good and thank you for making it.
The whole system would work properly if followed..
After food use. It should be down grade to non-food use. Soap, biodiesel.
There’s a certain inherent risk in letting someone else prepare your food, no matter where you are in the world. I wish more people in general were conscious of that, because I feel like it’d challenge more of their own biases with stories like this.
The problem with this is that the person you are buying food from might be trustworthy and being lied to. This is about how trustworthy the people trusted by the people you trust are.
Proper regulation has worked wonders in the past. America's food infrastructure was horrendous. Upton Sinclair wrote a whole book about it (pushing for better working conditions rather than food safety...) and the public rose up and demanded food-safety regulation (on top of that, numerous social programs were introduced that created a middle class). U.S. food became some of the safest in the world.
Of course, since the 80s, the middle class has dissappeared, regulations have been eroded by lying Republicans aided by feckless pandering Democrats that have allowed multiple food-based illness breakouts that have led to deaths. Of couse, not only do we need regulation, we need a properly educated and informed and economically empowered populace to demand food safety.
That being said, hope all the "deregulation" crowd enjoy their food-born parasites that are about to spread across the country.
I also think a big part is poverty tourism. There are big videos of Indian street foods and how unsanitary it often is, particularly viewed through the American lens. It's framed as disgusting but they real issue is poverty. I'm sure the cooking would look different if people had access to clean, running water, for example, or refrigeration. Your clip of the Wire is on point. Thanks for making this
It also doesnt help that things like "gutter oil" are a common myth in China to the point its become slang. It also doesnt help that China isnt the only country to have this semi-true myth, tons of western restaurants get accused of using old oil even when they replace their oil once or more a week and even when oil gets reused for a few days they'll likely filter it daily or more. I worked at a restaurant that had a filter built into the fryer and the oil was changed twice a week so your "gutter oil" was 3 days old at worst. You see similar in China where restaurants get accused of using "gutter oil" all the time.
Not true Afghanistan and South Sudan are poor but a 100000 times cleaner than India
this is the same argument as poverty causes crime, yet certain groups cause more crime in poverty than others, sweden right now is a great example. onto another example, i recall an indian restaurant being shut down in england (uk) because they found literal shit everywhere. the chef didnt believe in using toilet paper, opted for his hands, and barely if ever washed his hands. he would certainly be living richer than in india at the least
@@thefutureisnowoldman7653 you do realize india has a lot more people than both of those countries combined, right? during the industrial revolution when the poor lived in slums or crowded cities, before the importance of sanitation was realized, there was filth everywhere on the streets. I'm talking about 19th century England, and I think this was the case for the U.S. too.
@@MGX93dot If you've ever watched Gordon's shows (e.g. Nightmare Kitchen), you'll know that White people can have disgusting restaurants and poor standards of hygiene/food quality too. Btw "Sweden right now is a great example" is not self-explanatory; the context of your response makes your meaning ambiguous, especially since the smaller, near-homogeneous European countries typically have better care for their populace in general, given their high taxation and social welfare. When there aren't many ppl to look after, it's easier to keep track of everyone and get what they need. Larger countries don't have that luxury -- example problems being in the U.S. (healthcare), Russia (Putin), and Mexico (cartels).
To say or imply that any one ethnic group is more "dirty" or "morally-compromised" (inferred from your brief mention of crime) than another is always a product of negative bias from a lack of adequate exposure to said ethnic groups and the understanding that no demographic is a monolith
I’ve never heard of ‘gutter oil’ but this was super engaging, really well reasoned and researched and I would welcome more of this type of content from you.
Lots of American restaurant owners chiming in as to how normal this kind of stuff is here when it's done legit and I just want to add: I've worked at plenty of small scale places with cheapskate owners who would stretch oil and do all kinds of stuff your average American consumer would puke over. Regardless of how restaurants are regulated, if there's poverty you will have restaurant owners trying to cut corners regardless of safety. Your Asian village street vendor is no different than your McDonalds in a town of 1k people
... agreed. Though you should totally be regulating it, but economic parity and pulling people out of poverty is essential to make it work.
Selling things (especially food) on the street is completely different than selling in a built for purpose building. But comparing asian street food to Mcds doesn't do it any favors.
Right? Westerners will get so racist over stereotypes, then eat a Big Mac.
I've worked in a McDonald's. I don't take cuisine-racists seriously knowing they probably feed McDonald's to their own children. There's a reason I don't eat at McDonald's anymore.
People will see an Indian street-food vendor reuse oil, and willingly say the most heinous shit with a face full of fast-food chicken nuggets.
All I can think of is how my dad, a straight up Aryan, used to own a deep-fryer for personal use as a teen, and how he openly says he never changed the oil for years.
@TheGingerMale it's crazy the amount of people I've seen talk about how gross their McDonald's were when they worked there. I worked in one and it was the cleanest kitchen I've ever been in, every reg followed to the letter. You'd think a Corp like McD's would have a lot more consistency. Though, for the record, the one I worked at is the busiest in the area, they can certainly afford to change the oil and have dedicated cleaning staff all shift.
@@TheGingerMaleyour last sentence is an absolutely hilarious standalone, no context comment.
I love it.
I worked with an oil recycling company in NYC, and the key question asked was "what is the best day of the week to change your fry oil?"
When it's dirty simple as that.
Buy clean oil sell old to a recycler/refiner
Yeah, but the idea behind changing it on a schedule would be making sure it gets done regardless of any individual's perception of cleanliness. Deciding which day would be important in that case because it would affect when in the week the oil tastes the best, but that mainly depends on the restaurant than anything the recycling company could provide input on. I have yet to work in a restaurant that changed their oil weekly, in the fast food industry, so even scheduled changes would've been an improvement. And that's not for a lack of trying, I've had managers get mad at me for asking them to change the oil too often when they let it get weeks old before bothering.
what a world, where I get a more elaborated media and publication essay from my cooking channel than from The Economist. Thanks for your work!
I really appreciate when you guys do these kinds of videos.
Much like when you did the stuff on wet markets years ago; as an outsider it's hard to know what the truth is when these narratives spin up.
great comment! true!
can you please link the said wet market video?
@@eddephlinks in comments get deleted. You should just put “wer markets chinese cooking demystified” in the search bar
@@eddeph I guess it's this th-cam.com/video/whbyuy2nHBg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=_HOe6ASoV2hg8Zr2
A really good rule of thumb is if something gets you immediately riled up, it's probably false and designed to get you riled up. Like if something seems like it lacks nuance, then it lacks nuance 😄 If you want actual information you need nuance.
I like your podcast style content.
Obviously the cooking is the fun stuff but you just sitting there and explaining things is pretty nice too.
Unless I'm somehow misremembering it, one of the videos I watched showed a restaurant employee skimming oil out of the trash and then carrying it directly into the back of the restaurant.
Was it a video made by epoch times?
Was it a video made by epoch times?
@@Sergei_kv82 No. At least that wasn't where I saw it. It was probably one of the clips featured on The China Show.
I've seen several videos of that exact thing over the years
I saw it, too. At the time, it was a viral video.
The dig on serpentza is unwarranted, he lived in China for years and I used to watch him talk positively about China for YEARS! He only went anti China a few years ago.
He only went anti China after his business in China failed and got his visa denied due to getting a criminal record for sexual assault in South Africa. And being anti China just pays more
To add onto that, he lived in China for a long time because he loved the Chinese people. It looks more like him hating the CCP for not taking care of their citizens. I thought his criticisms came from a love for China.
This guys is a shill and is being paid. He had the gal to call SerpentZA a grifter, when the dude had to literally flee the country, fearing for his and his family safety, because the chinese government started to harrass and threaten his life, because of a minor thing.
As a dietitian who basically feels like she just spends all day fighting against the pandemic of medical misinformation, i appreciate when content creators spend time to make nuanced videos. Sometimes the tidal wave of influencers spoon feeding fear-mongering seems endless. Thank you so much and i learned a lot!
Right... because the Chinese government is a great source
Eat meat only.
What does being a dietitian have to do with this?
I've heard this rumor once or twice from people before and thought "ain't no way" and didn't even give it a second thought
This really brought a lot of information to me, some of which I'll probably mention if I hear things about this again.
This is genuinely why I love this channel. It brings a completely thought-out perspective to a lot of things, and it's one of my only sources that I use when cooking Chinese food because the recipes are so well researched and have a basis in the country itself. The Mapo Tofu recipe is practically engrained in my head, and it's all thanks to you two bringing an experience and information to an English market that's so hard to find anywhere else.
Gutter oil is old news, nowadays it's commercial cooking oil being transferred in industrial oil tankers. Also there's hotpot soup broth being frozen and reused hence spit soup lol
You love this channel because you would rather consume propoganda about china rather than facts at everyones expense
Not the video I was expecting from you guys, but very interesting and informative. It sucks you can't have any sort of dialogue about China without it resorting to jingoistic vitriol. In any case, looking forward to the next recipe!
This video didn't tell me much I didn't know about the subject, but it's just refreshing to see an educated, level-headed take on a contested topic that isn't so emotionally charged on either side of the debate that it feels the need to push the scales the other way. Usually people will react to this sensational outrage culture by treating it like a myth, or just a bygone reality.
It's a shame that the same qualities I just praised are exactly why videos like this won't end the debate and result in cooler heads. People only want to see other people getting angry at the same things they are.
I just discovered this video and channel by chance today. Great content, sir. Objectively discussed and researched. As a Nigerian who loves Chinese food and can cook some, i have many positive and negative misconceptions about China but it's so refreshing to see balanced coverage of topics like this and you cover and criticize all sides. You correctly highlight the risks pf the practice but give reasons behind them and dispell the sensationalism behind the videos while acknowledging the fear around the issue. You gained a sub
28:31 Kinda funny to put up a clip of a guy from South Africa who knows Chinese & lived in China for the line "if you believe something wildly off about China sitting there in your basement in America it's costless"; I've watched a number of his videos & he's very fond of Chinese culture, though less so of the CCP. Most of what he talks about is based on videos coming out of China often that otiginated on Chinese Social Media, which he supports with personal anecdotes in the sense that "this is what people in China are talking about & I believe them because of X personal experience when I was in China"
The bit about old oil had me thinking about how theres a place in my american city that uses about century old grease to deep-fry its burgers and brags about it...
Whaaaaaaat
US is the most loosely regulated country ever and your regulators are so ridiculously under-staffed is genuinely distressing 😄 Like if there was even e-coli found in food, nevermind anyone dying from it, where I live it would be major fucking deal and big news. I think it's been years if not a decade since I heard about an incident. Oh and we eradicated salmonella from our chicken stock in co-operation with our neighbouring countries, it's safe to use raw eggs here.
That's a good bit different though. Much of the oil used in China in restaurants is used for Hot Pot, a style of eating where flame-heated chili oil is placed in the center of the table for people to cook their own meats and food in. The problem is that it can lead to contamination from the people over and over dipping a piece of meat, taking a bite, maybe redipping it, over and over thus becoming contaminated with human pathogens, germs, ect. Presumably reused oil at a restaurant that is used ONLY for cooking will not be host to the same sorts of pathogenic contamination.
@@pbjandahighfive BREAKING NEWS: High temperature, BOILING SHIT at that, now no longer kills pathogens because pbjandahighfive said so.
ridiculous point.
@@pbjandahighfive ? hot pot is with broth, not oil. there might be a layer of oil floating at the top of the broth.
I worked in American restaurants for 10 years and I can tell you that of all the places I worked, the only one that changed their oil more than once a *week* was a KFC. And frankly, since I've moved back from abroad, I've eaten enough rancid takeout to suspect the standards these days are far worse in a lot of places, from local joints to big chains. As always, look to your own house, before you start chucking stones at the neighbor's.
Yes this 100% happens in America. Lots of Boomers think old grease is good. It is not. It goes rancid like any fat. Fryers should be deep cleaned regularly. At a place like KFC, it is possible to go through oil so fast you refill it faster than it goes rancid, and you can keep rotating oil for a long time when you're busy. The food is taking away all the old grease. But - as stated - you must absolutely drain the whole thing and deep clean it regularly. Once a week is actually fine in some situations. Buy the places cutting corners? You ever notice how a few local kitchens catch fire every single summer? Grease problems are a big factor.
Yes, in the section of the video where he mentioned restaurants perhaps pushing their oil a bit farther than they should, I definitely had the thought that restaurants of all kinds do that. It's a business thing, not a specific cuisine thing. I can also vouch for the fact that the US refines and recycles used cooking oil- my workplace has a machine to collect and filter it (it looks different than the ones shown in this video, but it does the same thing), and the resulting oil gets poured into lidded buckets, palletized, and shipped out.
There's even a restaurant in America that prides itself on deep frying cheeseburgers in the same oil they used when the restaurant was founded. They get featured on travel shows where they talk about the "unique flavor" their oil gives their burgers.
He produces a Chinese cooking channel and used to live there. Mind your own business
@@TheMultiHeadphoneYour point being?
I remember I did pest control on one Chinese restaurant and after that, I never ate there again. No mater how many god damned rat traps I set out, they would always be full the next day.
And apparently one of the cooks who didn’t speak English would take the dead rat from the trap in the kitchen and eat it. Supposedly it’s a delicacy there?
I think the person in the original video was witnessing oil theft like you suggest. I worked in a fast food restaurant that was part of a truck stop type complex off a major US interstate in the 90's. We had people steal our fryer oil fairly often. When I first stared working there I thought the lock on the fryer oil container was to keep pests out, but I was told later it was mostly to deter the casual theif. From what I understand someone would come by in the middle of the night with a pump truck, cut the lock, empty everything out, and then hop on the highway before anyone could stop them. It was such a bummer since we sold our oil to a local person who made biodiesel. Any waste product that has even a little value like used fry oil, scrap metal, aluminum cans, and bottles will have shady gleaners and not-so-legit recyclers.
This is such a high quality and well made video! You approached it from such a nuanced perspective, without relying on sensationalism like so many clickbaiters.
chris. you have such a way with words, it blows my mind. thank you for this video and playing your part in helping ppl like me who have “no skin in the game” educate myself on topics such as this. videos like this help us realize how intertwined culture, politics, and even food are with one another and yet, you explain everything so clearly with grace and eloquence. thank you man
I like the informative video. However, can't say I agree with the "Don't take a stance on something if you don't have skin in the game" argument. You might as well say "Ignorance is bliss" to anything not squarely in your wheelhouse of skills or education.
Theoretically lets say China never did anything about it and it started becoming a practice in the US (I know it wouldn't, but I'm using this an example). International criticism on universal practice that like say, something in Europe or America is valid if you don't want that bad practice spreading or becoming accepted or tolerated by people elsewhere.
If this guy were truely concerned, he would call the cops quitely. I can't think of one reason cops will cover for "gutter oil producers". Yet he choose to confront in an insulting way. Don't think there's anything these online "influencers" wouldn't do to grab attention.
As a student studying recycling oil in other contexts, this video is fascinating. Thank you so much for making this!
Having seen news about gutter oil for years from the outside, I have indeed been practicing the sentiment from the wise Bunk to this point. So it's great to finally have the situation explained in such a an astute way, thank you. This video is certainly a great addition to your catalogue of 'demystifying' Chinese cooking.
This doesn’t explain all the videos of restaurant employees taking gutter oil out of other restaurants used oil receptacles in China.
Tianamen square 1989
😂when you said mountains are high emperor is far away, I was shocked
山高皇帝远
Old Chinese saying. Kinda similar to "When the cat's away, the mouse go play."
Thanks for taking time to explain what you think is going on, and not jumping directly to the idea that gutter oil is re-used not recycled via purification standards.
Idk if this is still an issue but there was a study showing some brands olive and avacado oils consisted of rancid old oils or cut with cheaper vegetable oils. Companies cutting corners to increase profits is just a human thing not unique to any specific country or ethnicity.
Wasn't this a huge scandal a few years back in Italy? There was counterfeit olive oil being exported out of the country by the mafia.
Italian olive oil is particularly bad for this vs other origins, but it does happen elsewhere.
@@szurketaltos2693 hmmm really? Here in the U.S. we only have either Italian EVOO or domestic produced flavorless garbage
@@szurketaltos2693 When "the Godfather" said he's in the olive oil business he wasn't just kidding.
Restaurant manager in the US here. We recycle our old oil,we have a dedicated oil dumpster for it when we change it. I'm not sure what happens to it when the recycling company comes to take it away, but I'm pretty sure you're just seeing a small Chinese operation doing the exact same thing over there, taking it away to be recycled into something else - *not* food oil.
Unfortunately, another commenter running Chinese restaurant business in Chinatown in the US was talking about how they're still bothered by this kind of sterotype, even their business is in the US.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Yeah, sadly, there's a growing tide of Sinoracism here in the US, egged on by the same politics driving the current trade war. It's stupid and atrocious, but there you have it. These recent gutter oil videos are just a symptom of that.
@@jeremiahmiller6431 That laowei influencer that filmed the drain cleaners was aiming his rage in the wrong direction and effecting badly the wrong people. If the lax of proper supervision is from unregulated gray area of businesses then the main problem is with the administration of the city itself, not the people that try to comply with the lax Laws.
Oil is recycled into FUEL in the US. Not food. Seriously, dude. It IS sold for food oil in China.
@@toomanymarys7355 Got a source for that?
I drive my diesel car with HVO100, which is hydro-treated vegetable oil, so the basis for my fuel is exactly the stuff that is being collected here.
I loved the video (and always love to see your handsome mug)!
LOL, didn't know about this, if these oil can be treated to become fuel, I am sure they will be sold for more, than selling back to restaurants.
@kusazero we actually do have similar done in small and large operations. Bio-diesel is oil which has been treated to remove glycerine and break down fatty chains into shorter, more readily combustible hydrocarbons. Most fuel producers will have it make up about 10% of your diesel, because it does a fantastic job of replacing sulfur as the main lubricant inside diesel engines. Alternatively, if you make it yourself, you can run most diesel engines with 100% bio-diesel with no problems
@@jacobbrown7367 I am an urban Asian, can’t do shit with my hands, hahahha, but thanks for the explanation, I am now more prepared for the apocalypse
@@kusazero there are some videos you can look up that show the process on small scale. It may not be doable for you, or maybe you will find it's easier to do than you thought.
Fuel aside, you can make a lot of glycerine as well, a key ingredient in many soaps and moisturizers.
I really appreciate your effort to put context around this topic. I have seen how misinformation perpetuated by videos like the one you showed make their way to elderly overseas Chinese by way of Chinese language radio in the U.S. This is often a population not savvy with internet media or the idea that you can't believe everything. There is no one talking to this population in a balanced way. I had heard a little bit on the topic from an elderly relative. Most recently, this relative advised me to not consume Chinese made chili crisps because trucks used to transport industrial oils would also be used to transport food grade oil. I guess implying that food made in China is contaminated with non-food grade inputs. Not being familiar with it, I am glad you spent the time to share factual information in a even handed presentation.
Thank you for the video, it was definitely something I needed to see. I try and be mindful of disinfo online but admittedly I have a blind-spot when it comes to Chinese affairs. Unfortunately both my wife and I were in HK during that period in 2012/2013 and were affected by a big gutter oil scandal that spread across Taiwan and HK at the time, so I was predisposed to believing the crazy videos on the subject without giving it too much thought. This video was brilliant in helping me recontextualise some of the things I've seen online in the past 10 years whilst being very entertaining and educational. Looking forwards to the new recipes, you guys have taught me how to cook from zero :)
I worked for a chicken restaurant here in the states. We served steak biscuits as well and the GM would use oil so old and reused to cook the steak biscuit patty that the oil was black. The only time that the steak fryer got actually fresh oil was when I accidentally changed it, and once when the health inspector was coming by. That was twice in over a year. You would put the steak on a biscuit and if you looked under it the biscuit would be stained black.
Can you not taste the staleness from the oil? (hard to describe, plasticky) Or does the flavor cover up the foul taste?
@@dan339dannot op but I've worked in kitchens 20 years, mostly in NZ. You notice it in things like french fries first, but soon you'll notice the bitterness and plasticky rancid taste in anything.
Most places strain the oil & wipe out the deep fryers every day and top it up with fresh oil. One day a week is the full clean and fresh oil.
The old stuff sits in a drum out the back for recycling into non-food uses....
Given how 90% of olive oil is "fake", it doesnt surprise me places all across the world would also sell and buy refined used oil not meant for human consumption cos "it's refined, right? How bad can it be? It doesnt have any bad taste"
But going back to the flavor of unchanged dark oil? Yes you'd definitely notice. I've sent food back before...
Once, very embarrassingly, I had a customer send their food back to me with a note "tell the chefs they need to change their fry oil"... and that was only 4 days old!
@@dan339dan the GM said that people didn’t taste it. Before I worked there I used to eat steak biscuits. My dad would stop by get breakfast and the steak biscuit was my go to. Then I noticed that yeah they started tasting bad and when I worked there years later I found out why. They had a Cajun steak biscuit for a bit. I thought it was that that made me nauseous because they smelled bad.
I'm sorry but if you're alluding that old and reused oil is the same as gutter oil. That's just false equivalency.
Sure it's disgusting. But not as disgusting as oil in sewers.
What the actual fuck, that's actually going to give someone cancer, how the fuck did anyone eat that and enjoy it.
as a film buff i really appreciate the clips from the Zha Zhanke films
I have been watching your videos for years. Not one time did I think you weren't a Chinese dude. Like, I never questioned it.
lol my face shows up every now and then
Basically just don’t want people to get the impression that this is “that expat white dude’s channel”, when Steph’s by far the more important part of the whole operation. Like, this whole channel is very much the product of the weird mind-meld the two of us have going on, but I’m definitely the more replaceable of the two brain hemispheres
@@ChineseCookingDemystifiedwe still love you both!! ❤
his chinese is quite american accented
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Nice! Love the attitude, love the channel! Oddly enough, I've seen her before, but not you. Keep up the good work!
@@MrNoipe Neat! I don't speak Chinese, but maybe some day.
Instead of worry, fear, hatred this video is one of the rare ones that develops empathy, understanding and clarity. Simply amazing. Big respect to you for taking time to make this great video. Subscribed.
It was really great to see an informed and considerate take on the whole affair. I've only seen one sort of pseudo-documentary video on gutter oil street vendors, and I'm sure it's very easy to manipulate footage and subtitles to create a narrative. And even with the example you brought up - good intentions or no, the speaker was putting his own ideas onto what was going on. I had no other context. It's far better to understand what could be happening so I can actively think for myself.
I know it's not your usual video but don't feel bad for making it. This is an interesting topic that touches on that fuzzy area where business and culture intersect. I learned a lot and I'm always excited by anything eco-friendly and love knowing that used oil can be recycled for industry use, used in biodiesel and even partially composted - all better than mere trash.
that opening video was really uncomfortable. I never knew about gutter oil, but you're absolutely right. It's better to mind my own business than to be ignorant about someone else's business. Thank you for this great video.
@@minhuang8848 Fr, as soon as I heard him call them inhuman dog monkeys that deserve to die the next day I was like 'well there's no way this person isn't a total piece of shit'.
Personally, if something like this happens in my neighbourhood I wouldn't mind my own business. I'm that person who reports unattended luggage and calls the emergency number when I hear someone shouting "Help!"
However, I would probably watch these guys, maybe take a picture or video so I can ask other people what they're doing, and also ask them what they're doing. I wouldn't start swearing at them, that's unnecessary.
@@julesverneinoz That's because food safety has become the number 1 (non-economic related) issues in China. Counterfeit baby formula, chemically bleached food, counterfeit alcoholic drinks, counterfeit food products... the list is endless, and news and rumors spread like wildfire about a new scandal every month, the latest being cooking oiling being transported by trucks used to move chemicals without being cleaned in between. To simply put, Chinese people don't trust the food industry, they don't trust the government regulators who kept promising food safety and they don't trust the Chinese media to report honestly. So they're taking matters into their own hands in whichever way the system allows them to.
@@julesverneinozNot only was he yelling at them, he was dehumanizing them, calling them names that imply they're not human. This looks especially bad coming from a non-chinese person. Even if these people are operating illegally, it's absolutely inappropriate to treat them that way for doing something discreetly that doesn't directly harm anyone.
He also has no idea what they're actually doing, why they're there, if they have permission etc. He's jumping to conclusions based on the same prejudices those videos push, except instead of making nasty comments on the internet about people, he's abusing and threatening them to their faces. A lot of people are just looking for an excuse to attack others and it sure has that vibe
This is why I really love this channel. Very thoughtful and nuanced when discussing both recipes and more political issues like this. Great work
Thank you so much for this video! I remember hearing my parents talk to their friends about gutter oil as a kid (in the 00s), and I've always wondered about it to some degree. I'm glad to hear more of the story!
Thank you for the time and effort you put into this. In these current times of rampant disinformation and xenophobia etc, influencers/people with online followings taking the time to provide good quality information is really vauable and appreciated.
This was a really thorough, thoughtful and educational video. Excellent work, and I'm sorry to see that you've had to deal with the onslaught of comments about it. Just wanted to say thank you for making it.
dang, beautiful. i hope you guys keep videoing for a long long time.
There's a reason I love watching you and Steph. Thank you for being so fair to China. Much love from Texas, y'all.
I frequently quote the “My retirement grease!” line from the Simpsons so I’m familiar with grease thieves.
Makes even more sense when said grease can be collected outside the restaurant. Pretty interesting.
One of my dreams is to open a self-reliant restaurant, a garden-to-table kind of operation, and recycling oil to make biodiesel, soap or other products is one of the key elements I want to implement. There’s no waste, only raw materials for something else.
I've watched your vids for just cooking purposes but, this was very well put together, thank you!
Incredibly well said advice at the end there. Thanks for being one of the people out there putting in effort to educate and make a difference within their circle of influence.
This video sat in my google tabs for 2 weeks before I managed to watch it, I really appreciate the nuanced and educational take you presented as I was expecting some frothing "Uncensored" take on the topic. I should have known better from your channel!
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I saw the grease videos and was very worried because I will travel to China next year. This does give me some peace of mind, but your overall philosophy is good too. I also love the cooking videos too. So keep it up.
This is the first time I’m not hungry after watching you videos
thank you for shedding light on the gutter oil. we hears things and rumours every now and then, your video provided the necessary link to the whole story. Many thanks.
You are right and have changed my mind on a lot of the stuff that's on the internet. I'll try to take a step back as you've suggested on stuff that I don't have a stake in. And you've earned a sub.
I generally agree with what you are saying. But I would also point out (not necessarily applicable in this case) that marginalized groups often need to rely on people without "skin in the game" to have an opinion and care about the issues affecting them.
Every restaurant in the US where I have worked has a smaller grease interceptor inside, usually under or near the dishwashing machine or sink. Depending on how oily the rinse is, we can often get away with using a digestor enzyme, but that stuff is only so effective. At the BBQ place I worked, I had to personally empty the thing a few times a month, and it was the foulest smell I have ever experienced. Also, here on the west coast a pretty sizeable part of the population rides around on "salvaged" bikes collecting cans. The trash bin outside my apartment gets picked over a dozen times a day. As long as they don't make a mess, I much prefer the can collecting over the catalytic converter and bike theft that also occurs with some regularity.
This exactly. But I was speaking with someone who moved here from the UK, and they mentioned seeing this as something crazy that you only see late night. So I guess it's less common in some cities, and seeing laws against it makes some sense as to why.
Your cooking videos are definitely what bring me to the channel, but i also love when you cover some of the other aspects of China and Chinese daily life. Like the video done on Wet Markets back during strong Covid times its great to hear about all sides of the situation instead of just what the normal algorithm allows us to see. Thanks for the great video and information.
Thanks for the high-effort work you guys do.
Thank you for this very interesting perspective! Your angle and tone are both very pleasant.
I am a Hawaiian speeding jaywalker that is happy to see your face for the first time after all these years of watching your videos. I have to say that TH-cam watchers need this video. Period.
I just wanted to say great job on the video, and trying to help people understand the situation (and their own attitudes and how they develop too) while managing to be decently even-handed about it! I feel like if you're trying to reach the most people you struck a nice balance
Toronto Canada 🇨🇦 uses gutter oil waste recycling method too. Restaurants pour oil in chamber in ground, another company comes in and pumps the oil out. Even McDonald's is famously known for this to this day.
China is not stupid.. they have 20 years ago sent its people to the West to study and research methods, and bring that home to do it even better.
thank you for this. it was the first video of yours I have ever seen but I do plan to watch more. I quite enjoyed your prospective on this issue as well as your thoughts on the internet in general. again, thank you.
We love you guys. This type of video is your best content. Keep up the good work. ❤
As an American, this makes a lot more sense to me than grainy stock-footage of vaguely Southeastern-Asian looking people moving buckets of anomalous liquids from street-hatches to trucks with an overly dramatic voiceover whining nonsense about "gutter oil IN CHINA".
Wdym? Its proven that this is and was in fsct happening. Restaurants getting the gutter oil and using it to cook with it. Its a fact. The thing that is the question is how often does thst happen and thats what the video talking about esdentially. Your comment makes it seem like you think its just completely made up thst restsjrants used it
@@Ahayeahishere The problem is the channel owner's "clarification" in his list.. his firstt few points sorta say it is untrue and people don't read beyond and jump in to go "
AH HAH it's fake!"
@@darrencheong2231 yeah thats true, you got 100%
@@Ahayeahishereamerimutts made it up lmao, yall amerimutts put roaches in your burgers btw, all beyond meats and fast foods do it as filling
People use it for fuel you fools
Your materialist approach is admirable, I really enjoyed this video .
This was very informative, thank you for sharing your time and expertise on this.
Love this channel. Wisdom and balance. Well done that man. 👍
I absolutely love this discussion format. Thank you Chris.
The perception/culture/regulation/misrepresentation\etc aspects are very interesting, thank you.
I really appreciate people posting videos like this, as well as your earlier video about wet markets to combat what is frankly just sinophobia. People in the West are quick to believe anything negative posted about China and completely ignore similar health scandals committed by companies in other nations.
The social media landscape can be a nightmare. Full of clout chasers and grifters like Serpentza that you referenced, but also Falun Gong fronts like China Insights, etc. that people in the West just unquestioningly believe. Even mainstream news will often cite back to these same super disreputable sources, both for the monetary incentive that outrage creates, and as part of the propaganda model Chomsky and Herman talk about in Manufacturing Consent.
The one part of the video I might push back on is the implication that the Western media is in fact any more free. Consider first, and most overtly the findings of The Church Committee, which revealed huge CIA influence in many major publications. But even beyond that we can look at the way the vast majority of media that reaches Americans is curated by one of a handful of giant corporations with a vested interest in protecting the interests of capital. It is one of the greatest achievements of American propaganda that Americans seem to think they are uniquely immune to it while reciting some of the most ridiculous lies ever told that just so happen to make America's enemies look monstrous or backwards.
Who knew 2024's most sane English-language take on China-West cultural relations was going to come from cooking youtube! In our era where the most respected US and European newspapers struggle to summon more than a zero-research hitpiece, this was refreshingly reasonable. I learned stuff and had fun. If you ever have the mental resources to wade into additional morasses for future videos, we will appreciate it.
Thank you for not pivoting from media literacy into an ad read!!
Thank you. I really appreciated the nuance and the extra effort in the video. Thank you, thank you, thank you
Well balanced discussion. Thanks for taking the time to do this interesting video!
I don't care what anyone says. You are a thoughtful and honest person, and unlike tourists you understand how local infrastructure works. In much of the rest of the world grease and oil is handled at a water treatment facility, so the practice of cleaning the sewage grease trap is generally unknown.
Here in Jakarta (Indonesia), we have 'Pemulung', doing basically the same thing with plastic/cardboard trash + used electronics and furniture. They're a lot more open with what they do though. In the past, they'd buy your trash for the price of some pot ash (to clean the underside of your pot/woks) and resell it to a recycler for tiny marginal profit compared to the hard work
Pemulung are different though, people generally respect them more as they function more as a proto-recycling company. They don’t work with consumables like cooking oil. As someone who loves to cook the Indonesian way, a more similar concept would be to stretch out the minyak jelantah (reused oil) until longer than usually advised