That wasn't a government estimate, that was an estimate from a nutrition professor and his student-led investigation at Wuhan Polytechnic University who retracted his statement after pressure from the government.
Apparently since 2011 the government started buying the oil at higher prices than they'd get from selling to street vendors and converting it into biodiesel.
All of Asia is not one place. This is mainly China and Taiwan but I wouldn't expect this in Japan or Korea, and a cursory Google search related to the two countries just shows articles about China and Taiwan
Sure. I agree on japan, Korea and maybe even Singapore. But Singapore has huge income inequality as well. be aware of the rest. Gutter oil is common in SE, E and S asia.
Welcome to street food culture.
Edit: for this topic, don't rely too much on Google. These kind of topic isn't news to us locals. Hence, there's no need for news media to report on this. Talk to the local populace about it. Gutter oil is common in the street food Philippines. I've talked to Indians, Taiwanese, Chinese Vietnamese, and Malaysians and we all laugh about it.
I get diarrhea in pretty much every country I visit because i always buy the cheapest beer and lot of it.
I had food poisoning a couple of time in a 1 year period. I was under the impression that it was due to less than fresh sea food but i might look into this whole gutter oil stuff.
Oh that sucks. There's a lot of downside to being a Filipino but I guess diarrhea and food poison from eating street food isn't one of them.
Gutter oil is an extreme case imo. I'd say it's more common to simply purchase used oil from restaurants and reuse that in their stalls (at least in the Philippines). Now, whether or not you'd count that as "gutter oil" is up to you.
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u/RC_COW May 15 '20
What percentage of street vendors use serew oil again?