Is Chinese food really too hot? Or do they lack adequate safety standards for food additives?

Apparently in part of China there is a bit of an epidemic of "hot" food sending people to the hospital. One thing that stands out in this article -- but wasn't questioned by the journalist -- is that it seems they are not spicing it with real food items but with chemical additives.

So be careful what you eat in China, maybe stick to fresh dogs from the market and natural spices.

UK Daily Mail: Spiciest soup on the menu burns hole through Chinese man's stomach lining

• The 26-year-old male vomited blood after eating traditional mala soup
• Doctors at hospital in Wuhan decided soup had burned through stomach
• Man had no history of ulcers or other gastrointestinal disorders

The traditional Chinese dish is prepared using Sichuan pepper, a local spice, and chilli pepper. The combination is known to cause a numbing sensation when consumed. Most restaurants serving the dish offer it with varying degrees of spiciness.

According to local reports, many Chinese restaurants have begun to replace the natural, more expensive ingredients in hot pot dishes for cheaper, synthetic additives that replicate the spiciness.

 

Yeah, it wasn't the peppers. More likely chemical additives. Capsaicin, the active "hot" part of the peppers, is actually beneficial to people otherwise predisposed to ulcers thanks to helicobacter pylori: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17760719

 

I understand capsaicin is the component of peppers that give us the heat but it does seem to irritate the mouth if overdone. Is that just a perception or does the tissue get irritated? Would that not happen in the gut if the amount of capsaicin was extremely high?

 

The key to avoiding irritation is to have sufficient amounts of melamine in the appetizers.

 

Melamine?

mel·a·mine (ml-mn)
n.
1. A white crystalline compound, C3H6N6, used in making melamine resins and for tanning leather.
2. A plastic made from such resin.

Perhpas you mean with sufficient amounts of agave juice.

 

A big scandal in 2007-8 and again in 2010, used as an emulsifier in China, in all sorts of food products that went around the world. A friend's cat died from the additive in petfood. Especially popular as a milk-extender, baby formula makers in China couldn't resist the temptation. 300,000 children were sickened.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/world/asia/02milk.html?scp=1&sq=shanghai panda&st=cse
Perhaps I should have hit the agave after the melamine scandal broke, having consumed whole bags of "White Rabbit" candy I purchased as a goof in Chinatown. I figure my stomach is "dishwasher safe" from that coating.

 

The take their food scandals seriously in China:

New York Times: 2 Executed in China for Selling Tainted Milk (Nov 24 2009)

KrazyKat, if you don't have a new countertop forming in your kidneys by now, you're probably ok.

 

Silver or gold agave?

 

100% blue! As it all starts out in Mexico, where they take their agave standards seriously, and are less discriminating in their executions.

Additives-wise, I read recently that the US poisoned alcohol during prohibition, causing many deaths.

Indeed. Nothing says 'yum' like a hot pot of Chinese industrial chemicals!
Telling that the writer missed the problem. More reasons not to travel to China, if any were needed.

 

Meant the finished product.
http://www.patrontequila.com/bottles

 

Is one tequila a better solvent and anesthetic than the other for burning foods? No idea. I've always understood that bread works best on natural heat.
I meant that avoidance seems best in the case of "mala" Chinese ingredients.

 

Depends on how much you have, have enough you won't care.