{"id":6585,"date":"2013-10-27T23:40:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T06:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/?p=6585"},"modified":"2013-10-27T23:40:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T06:40:44","slug":"food-scare-in-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/2013\/10\/food-scare-in-taiwan\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Scare in Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The news industry in Taiwan is beyond sensationalism. For an island of 20 millions or so population, there are nearly a dozen news TV channels and half a dozen newspapers. The competition for eyeballs has been a blood sport. As the result, the waves of sensational news stories wash the island constantly.<\/p>\n

It turned out a cooking oil manufacturer, having about 10% of the market, has been grossly misleading the consumers on exactly what’s the contents of the oil. The one labelled “peanut oil” has no peanut what-so-ever. It was cottonseed oil with peanut flavor additive and food coloring. The investigation soon revealed that their “extra virgin” Olive oil is the same scam. As I left the island, the CEO of the company was facing criminal indictment for gross fraudulence.<\/p>\n

Few months prior, a large bakery chain was brought down for using synthesized addictive, instead “all natural” ingredients as they advertised. The spokesperson, a celebrity, bowed to the public. The government fined them with false advertisement. The controlling company now faced insider stock-trading charges. Clearly they profited handsomely selling their own stock at the opportune time.<\/p>\n

And earlier this year, a major starch manufacturer was indicted for bleaching their products with questionable chemical to make the starch more appealing. Then a food container manufacturer was found cleaning their boxes with the wrong chemical that can be toxic.<\/p>\n

I love to eat in Taiwan: so many childhood goodies and so many gourmet restaurants. I am not alone. Delicious and exotic tropical fruits and dogged competition on innovation and flavoring made the food industry a primary attraction for tourists.<\/p>\n

Sigh… Should I take this seriously? Maybe ignorance is the bliss? How about turning off the TV, at least the news channels?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news industry in Taiwan is beyond sensationalism. For an island of 20 millions or so population, there are nearly a dozen news TV channels and half a dozen newspapers. The competition for eyeballs has been a blood sport. As … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[77,4,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6585"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6590,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions\/6590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nomadicminds.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}