xiongmao wrote:That's one of the reasons I left Guangzhou.
The air pollution was terrible. When walking around my apartment in bare feet the soles of my feet would usually end up black.
Goodness knows what was in the food as well, but my University had a scare with cadmium laced rice. Ha ha ha do you think that the little street stalls have biochemistry labs to check all their produce before they cook your dinner with it?
Since coming to Thailand I've been impressed by generally how clean it is. And the quality of the food here is outstanding. Tesco Lotus doesn't sell old fruit and vegetables, unlike the Tesco in Guangzhou did. And from the plane, Thailand looks clean and ordered (much like England), China looks like an environmental catastrophe.
My bowels have also been much better here. I reckon the cheap noodles in China were probably 40% wheat, 60% plaster board!
I'm trying to figure out if you accidentally went to Taiwan or something lol. Thailand is anything but clean. The streets are filthy, the streets flood all the time, and i've had food poisoning from the food stalls before. The reason why the food doesn't always make you sick is because of product turnover. Thais bumrush the same popular food sellers and they usually sell fast enough so prepared food isn't just sitting around all day in the hot sun. However, look at those food stalls closely sometime the prep is disgusting. They grab money in the same hand that they grab the cooked chicken on your plate. Raw meat and fresh vegetables are mixed often in storage bins and or on display. You'd be even more frightened if you knew what went on behind the scenes at some of the chain restaurants like Oishi. Cockroaches everywhere etc..
Btw, Tesco Lotus and Villa regularly relabel expired meat products. I've seen them do it before at the Tesco that I used to live within walking distance of. The good thing about Tesco is that they have a pretty good membership program and if you don't need any special ingredients you can find most of what you need. The best place to shop is Home Fresh Mart in the Mall chain of department stores. They have better quality and lots of foreign products. It's a more upscale Thai supermarket but with way higher standards and the prices are comparable with Tesco. The owner is trying to copy Whole Foods with the quality presentation.
