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Today's video is some food for thought. The label "Made in China" usually gets a bad rap. People think that almost everything in China is of poor quality: their electronics, their buildings and even their food. Yes, food can be hazardous when excessive pesticides are used to treat them. I think most people consider the produce coming from China to be toxic or of inferior quality.
I wanted to make this video to show Lillian and I going to an organic strawberry farm to pick some juicy strawberries. They are in season and this activity really got me into thinking about whether people outside of China know about these places.
This video and post highlights that China does have good quality good available. Sure, there are some vendors you shouldn't trust when buying your meats and produce, but this place for instance is only 15 minutes away from my apartment and offers some really high quality strawberries that you can pick yourself!
What's more, the price is only 20 RMB per 500g ($3.18 USD)! In order to get the same quality in Western countries, you would have to pay an arm and a leg. Many people in the West don't like to buy organic produce because it is so much more expensive and usually smaller than produce grown in conventional farms.
This farm does not use an pesticides, is protected from animals and pests and has a shield above to protect from the elements.
The produce in China is usually more fresh than what you might be used to. Whenever you go to the wet markets, you are buying vegetables that were harvested very recently. It could have arrived that day or the previous day. When you shop in supermarkets in the West, you are often buying vegetables that were shipped from long distances and are over a week old. That seems to be the trade-off. Most food you buy in China is very fresh but the downside is that it may have been treated with more and harsher pesticides than in other countries.
As a result, I'd like to say that the produce here is of high quality due to it being so fresh. There are special soaps on the markets that are inexpensive where you can soak your vegetables in order to get rid of some of these pesticides. That's a huge plus because it allows you to have a highly nutritious meal and the food is less hazardous to your health.
But let's go back to these organic strawberries.
Lillian and I took a taxi and arrived in a rural part of my city, Qinhuangdao. It isn't so far away but looks drastically different to my district. I felt like I travelled for 3 hours out of the city based on the way this place looked.
We went in the morning because if you don't, you'll miss out on the best and juiciest strawberries to pick. We made that mistake last time; we called the farm last week in the afternoon and they said we shouldn't come because all the good strawberries are gone. So that's my advice to you all: don't come to these farms late because you'll have nothing to choose from!
We were earlier and we were happy to see all the beautiful, ripe strawberries. They were a deep red colour and tasted very sweet!
The farm was organized in rows. We looked at each row, picked whichever strawberries we wanted and then checked out the other rows for more. There was definitely enough to choose from!
This goes to show you that you can find some high quality food in China. It's not all bad. Whenever you go shopping in China, check out the wet markets and organic farms like these. One thing that I would like to advise you on is that you can definitely find some low quality meat here. Often times, the vendors keep the meat sitting unrefrigerated for long periods of time. It's also tough to know how well the animals were treated!
Fortunately, I have found places to sell very high quality eggs. These eggs are from chickens that live freely on the mountaintops in a rural county of my city. The aren't injected with any hormones and are fed a natural diet. The yolks of these eggs are a nice orange colour, their shells are strong and the eggs are a little bit smaller than the conventional ones. I don't mind at all because they are still inexpensive! You can buy like 30 eggs for $8. I don't even know the actual price because I just load as many as I want and pay the price the clerk tells me. It's definitely cheaper than back in Canada.
There are services that can deliver grass fed beef and pasture raised chickens as well. Some friends I know use it. The company will simply deliver the meat to your home every week and you pay for it that way. Also, I am sure you could find some farms around here that raise and treat the animals properly.
But seriously, let's get back to these strawberries!
After some time, we finished picking our strawberries and went to the front to pay for them. In total, it costed us 55 RMB, which is about $8.75 USD! Not bad, eh?!
If you look at the picture above, we were able to fill that box to the top. The picture does not show the total number of strawberries we bought. We picked more and by the time we were done, the strawberries were bulging at the top of the box.
That about wraps this post up. I wanted to emphasize that not all the food in China is low quality. You can easily find some awesome spots like this place and get very high quality food for a fraction of what you would pay in Western countries. Food is usually more fresh as well because of how quickly the harvest and deliver it to the vendors. Another plus is that it is all grown in China. Almost all of their food is produced in one country and doesn't need to be shipped long distances, thereby ending up with aged produce that isn't so fresh. The Chinese believe that fresh food has more "Qi" and is therefore better for your health.
Every morning, you can see the senior citizens shopping at the markets and buying food from the vendors. It isn't like in the West where people buy food once a week in large quantities and have it last several days. Here, people frequently buy food in order to make sure that the food is as fresh as possible.
Thanks for reading & watching!
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