[🇮🇳] No surprise Pakistan sounded for ceasefire’: Air war historian Tom Cooper says conflict 'clear-cut victory' for India

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Macho Xi's army going for a kill.

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Macho Xi's army going for a kill.

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Real 2-foot dalit soldier.

 

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PLA soldier: I like killing Indians very much. Take a photo as a souvenir.

 

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Killing Indian soldiers is like killing...

 

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Chinese have a great privilege of having some delicious food from thousands of years . They eat cockroach, frogs, snakes, dogs, cats and various insects. Now, Gutter oil adds to their test. From Chinese themselves.

Gutter oil: an overview of Chinese food safety issues and policies - PMC

Food safety has become a focus of attention worldwide. In China, one of the top concerns in food safety is gutter oil, known as ‘swill-cooked oil’. This Commentary summarizes the key incidents disclosed to the public by the media, and the policies ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Gutter oil: an overview of Chinese food safety issues and policies​

Jia Li 1,2, Naixue Cui 2, Jianghong Liu 2

• Author information
• Article notes
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PMCID: PMC10117420 NIHMSID: NIHMS1884130 PMID: 27056431
The publisher's version of this article is available at Glob Health Promot

Abstract​

Food safety has become a focus of attention worldwide. In China, one of the top concerns in food safety is gutter oil, known as ‘swill-cooked oil’. This Commentary summarizes the key incidents disclosed to the public by the media, and the policies regarding gutter oil at national, regional, and provincial or city levels. Several challenges the country still faces in tackling this issue are identified, including a lack of evaluation of the implementation and effect of the policies, a lack of effective technology to detect and recycle gutter oil, and the overlooking of the hazardous effect of gutter oil on health. This commentary suggests that strengthening policy implementation and evaluation, improving measurement and recycling technologies, and launching public health campaigns would help eliminate gutter oil from dining tables.
Keywords: gutter oil, food safety, policy, China

Introduction​

Food safety has gained worldwide attention. In China, one major food safety concern is the widespread use of gutter oil, also known as ‘swill-cooked oil’. According to the second Tracking Survey Report on Food Safety in China, approximately 85% of the participants were concerned about gutter oil (1). A study (2) indicated that about two to three million tons of edible oil containing cancer-triggering substances are produced and re-used in restaurants every year in China, and approximately one tenth of the meals consumed by the Chinese could be cooked with gutter oil (3).
Gutter oil is a type of cooking oil recycled from the gutter, household drains and grease traps. It may also contain other wastes including reused cooking oil from restaurant fryers and kitchens, and animal fat (e.g. leftover animal parts, chicken fat, pig skins, internal organs, and expired meat, which are mainly from slaughterhouses) (4). Gutter oil is turned into edible oil by a series of simple processes that involve mixing, filtering, boiling, and refining. The edible oil made from gutter oil is then sold on the markets by unscrupulous merchants. Not only is it distributed to low-priced canteens and hole-in-the-wall restaurants, but also to workplace cafeterias and school canteens. Gutter oil has become a lucrative business, earning as much as 200 million Chinese Yuan (about US$331m) per year (5). However, long-term consumption of gutter oil may cause many foodborne illnesses because the oil may contain cholesterol, trans-fatty acids, heavy metals, and bacteria (6).

Incidents and regulations​

The gutter oil crisis in China was first made known to the public in 2000 when a vendor was caught selling gutter oil extracted from restaurant garbage disposals (7). It did not create any heated debate because the authorities claimed that it was an ‘isolated incident.’ The public and the media started paying attention to the gutter oil issue due to an incident in 2003. People’s Daily (a newspaper in Beijing) reported that two manufacturers of gutter oil were discovered by the Beijing Industry and Commerce Bureau and that over 2.3 t of gutter oil and 97 kg of illegal food were seized (8). Nevertheless, people still believed that gutter oil was only produced by small, localized workshops. Driven by the high profits, the gutter oil industry continued to thrive and flooded the nation. Most of the major serious cases of gutter oil manufacturing discovered from 2010 revealed that the industry had diffused this product to almost all of central and eastern China (see Table 1).

Table 1.​

Key incidents from 2010 and policies of gutter oil in China.

​

[th]

Type​

[/th][th]

Time​

[/th][th]

Events/regulations​

[/th][th]

Regulators/source of report​

[/th]​

[th]

---

​

[/th]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

04/17/2002​

[/td][td]

Management of Food Production and Business on Waste Edible Oil​

[/td][td]

MOH, SAIC​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

01/01/2004​

[/td][td]

Method for analysis of Hygienic Standard of Edible Oils GB/T 5009.37-2003 (issued on 08/01/2003, executed on 01/01/2004)​

[/td][td]

MOH​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

09/01/2005​

[/td][td]

Implementation Rules for the Supervision and Administration on the Quality Safety of the Food Manufacturing and Processing Enterprise (for trial). Document no. 79​

[/td][td]

AQSIQ​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

10/01/2005​

[/td][td]

Hygienic Standard for Edible Vegetable Oil (GB 2716-2005a)​

[/td][td]

MOH, SAC​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

10/01/2005​

[/td][td]

Hygiene Standards for Edible Animal Fats (GB 10126-2005b)​

[/td][td]

MOH, SAC​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

03/18/2010​

[/td][td]

Strengthening the Prohibition of Gutter Oil in the Catering Industry. Document no. 25​

[/td][td]

CFDA​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

05/01/2010​

[/td][td]

Administration Measures for the Licensing of Catering Services. Document no. 70​

[/td][td]

MOH​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

05/01/2010​

[/td][td]

Food Service Safety Supervision Guidelines. Document no. 71. (issued on 03/04/2010, executed on 01/01/2010)​

[/td][td]

MOH​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

05/04/2010​

[/td][td]

A Pilot Program of Organizing the City’s Food Waste Resource Utilization and Innocuous Treatment. Document no. 1020​

[/td][td]

NDRC​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

07/13/2010​

[/td][td]

Strengthen the Management of Hogwash Oil and Kitchen Refuse. Document no. 36​

[/td][td]

General Office of the State Council​

[/td]​

[td]

Events​

[/td][td]

02/25/2011​

[/td][td]

134 people were arrested for producing and selling gutter oil. Two people were jailed for 10 years due to producing and selling at least 110 t of gutter oil​

[/td][td]

South China Morning Post (15)​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

08/22/2011​

[/td][td]

Operating Specifications on Food Safety in Catering Services. Document no. 395​

[/td][td]

CFDA (16)​

[/td]​

[td]

Events​

[/td][td]

09/13/2011​

[/td][td]

Over 100 t of illegal cooking oil were seized and 32 people were arrested. Two people were sentenced to life imprisonment​

[/td][td]

China News (17)​

[/td]​

[td]

Events​

[/td][td]

12/13/ 2011​

[/td][td]

Around 120 cases across 28 provinces were uncovered, and more than 60,000 t of the gutter oil were seized. More than 800 people were arrested​

[/td][td]

Hi News (18)​

[/td]​

[td]

Regulations​

[/td][td]

01/09/2012​

[/td][td]

Strictly Punishing the Crimes in Respect of ‘Gutter Oil’​

[/td][td]

The Supreme People’s court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security​

[/td]​

Open in a new tab​

Note: MOH: Ministry of Health; SAIC: State Administration for Industry and Commerce of the People’s Republic of China; AQSIQ: China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, Inspection and Quarantine; SAC: Standardization Administration of China; CFDA: China Food and Drug Administration; NDRC: National Development and Reform Commission.
In reaction to these incidents, the Chinese government has established a series of policies and laws to regulate the oil market, ban gutter-oil-related activities, and punish those who violate the laws. The policies and laws have been enforced by different authorities at three levels — national level (i.e. national law), regional level (i.e. special rules), and provincial or city level (i.e. local ordinance) (9). The Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China is one of the first laws that deals with gutter oil at the national level, in which Article 28(a) states that gutter oil is banned. It provides radical principles of gutter oil issues that both special rules and local ordinances must observe. It also stipulates the establishment of The Food Safety Committee under the supervision of the State Council to analyze the food safety situation, and guide and coordinate the functions of other departments in the food safety system (10). In March 2013, The Food Safety Committee merged with The State Food and Drug Administration to form The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA). The CFDA is in charge of coordinating food safety policies in mainland China at the regional level. In addition to the CFDA, The National Health and Family Planning Commission of China (created from the former Ministry of Health and National Population and the Family Planning Commission in 2013), The Standardization Administration of China, The China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, Inspection and Quarantine, and The State Administration for Industry and Commerce of the People’s Republic of China collaborated to regulate the manufacture, transaction, and recycling of edible oil and its market. The Supreme People’s Court, The Supreme People’s Procuratorate and The Ministry of Public Security are also involved in this system, punishing those who engage in the gutter oil business (see Table 1). Furthermore, the local ordinance published by municipal governing authorities is responsible for enacting regulations of food safety at the provincial or city level. All the administrative divisions in China have their own role in regulating and supervising the local edible oil market. For example, on 11 September 2011, the Shanghai City Council enacted a local ordinance to prevent the use and collection of restaurants’ waste oil (11).

Comments​

Gutter oil has become one of the major food safety issues in China. As aforementioned, Chinese authorities have made efforts to ban the production, transaction, and use of gutter oil and to regulate the cooking oil market by publishing a series of policies and regulations as well as establishing the food safety supervision system. However, the gutter oil business is still ongoing, even though the death penalty has been implemented in some severe criminal cases of gutter oil (12), indicating that the country still faces challenges in dealing with gutter oil issues. Above all, there is a lack of impactful evaluation of the policies and laws. In societies with food safety risks like China, policies and laws have become a tool for managing food safety, but whether the policies are effectively reaching the people for whom they were originally intended is still questionable. Moreover, due to the multiple levels of government and other authorities, the enforcement gap is a crippling issue. For example, only 60% of local authorities actively implemented the national policy ‘Strengthen the Management of Hogwash Oil and Kitchen Refuse’. published by the General Office of the State Council (13).
In addition, the lack of effective measurement technologies to distinguish gutter oil from qualified cooking oil is a principal barrier to patrolling the gutter oil market. For instance, only two out of 10 gutter oil samples inspected by the police were identified as ‘gutter oil’ based upon the current standard of gutter oil (14). In addition the current effort to recycle gutter oil for biodiesel production is far from adequate due to the high cost of this process. Finally, merchants involved in the gutter oil business neglect the possible hazardous effects of gutter oil on health in pursuit of high profits.
To fully eliminate gutter oil from Chinese people’s dining tables, both the government and the public must be engaged. First, the government should persistently perform strict oversight of the food industry. In response to the food scare in China, as a public health association, the Chinese Safe Food for communicating and sharing cutting-edge Association built a bridge between the public and the technology or policies. In addition, the latest news government, including some training and meetings related to food is published and updated daily, so that the public can find out about any reported food safety issues via the Internet, for instance, at www.cfqn.com.cn. More importantly, the implementation of policies and its outcomes should be evaluated to further improve food safety policies. Cost-effective new technologies should be developed to inspect and determine how to make use of gutter oil. Public health campaigns are also warranted to raise the public’s awareness of the detrimental effects of gutter oil and to empower them in monitoring the oil market.

Acknowledgment​

JL, sponsored by the Education Department of Zhejiang Province China, was a visiting scholar at University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing during the time of the development of this manuscript. NC thanks China Scholarship Council for scholarship support. JL effort was supported by NIEHS/KO2 K02-ES019878.

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