Half and half-truths

I'd prescribe a healthy dose of scepticism

I’ve been moving house, so labels have sure come in handy. Without having to open the box, I know what’s inside. That’s the same idea with packaged foods you see at supermarkets. In most places (including Hong Kong), food is required by law to be labelled with such basic information as: ingredients, use by date, weight, nutrition and so on. The main thing to remember is that everything else on it is marketing, at least in Hong Kong. And I mean everything – organic, non-GMO, vegan, low carb, sustainable, natural, free-range, cage-free, high-fibre, no added sugar, and so on. With common claims such as low sodium, low fat, low sugar, and vitamin content, there are a scant few laws in Hong Kong with minimum requirements, but a study by the Centre for Food Safety found that 6 out of 11 samples of drinks labelled as “low sugars” or “no sugars” were non-compliant anyway. As I’m writing this, my husband has just told me I got fibbed by a bottle of coconut water. I was in a rush and bought a bottle that said “natural coconut water” without checking the ingredients list. Looking at it now more carefully – it contains 98% coconut water, sugar, acidity regulators and a bunch of other stuff I never asked for. Lesson: always read the ingredients, even when you’re in a hurry!

Industrial food is a cut-throat business – even taking out 2% coconut water and replacing it with sugar gives the manufacturer a slightly higher margin. But that’s not the only problem – ingredients lists themselves, often thought to be watertight because of their legal necessity, are a breeding ground of marketing half-truths.

Take “sugar” – in Hong Kong, this is defined as “all mono-saccharides and di-saccharides”, so whether a manufacturer is using high fructose corn syrup or honey, it can be labelled as “sugar”. On a similar vein is “vegetable oil”. A quick search reveals that nowhere in the world requires this term to be further defined by the plant source(s) – unbelievable, right? There are, in some countries, restrictions on levels of harmful substances such as erucic acid, and residue limits of solvents used in extraction, but generally speaking, whether it’s 100% olive or 100% palm, it can be called “vegetable oil”. This is particularly annoying when you’re trying to avoid industrial palm oil, for instance.

The lack of transparency worldwide, plus the different standards in each country, make Hong Kong particularly vulnerable, as we import almost all of our food. Hong Kong’s laissez-faire legislation doesn’t help – essentially, it says that if it doesn’t contain poison, it’s allowed to be sold as food. I don’t think it’s the role of government to legislate every single ingredient, rather, transparency should be the all-encompassing rule. As the sugar and vegetable oil examples show, we’re far from transparent food sources, but with food scandals breaking out on a daily basis, I think it’s one of the very few things where consumer demand will actually make it a reality.

As food manufacturing – from sourcing to logistics – becomes ever more complex, there are people trying to tackle this problem through technologies both old (RFID) and new (blockchain). As I’ve discussed before, blockchain can only do so much. The initial entry of data still has to be from a trusted source (thereby negating the trustless nature of blockchain). But if we can overcome this one step, the full, inalterable transparency of blockchain is a powerful tool. If anyone reading is working on this, I’d love to hear from you.

What I wrote

A few picks for where to find great char siu, including a bunch of nerdy details on why they’re great, in Hong Kong Tatler Dining. I have an unhealthy obsession with char siu, and this article was a great excuse to ask questions such as, “WTF is ‘pluma’ anyway?” a question that sent me down a Google black hole of dissected pig fetuses. 90% of the food-making process is not “pretty” (physically and metaphorically); it’s important to be reminded of that from time to time. Anyway, there are no dissections in that article, it’s all about the other 10%, so go ahead and salivate all over your keyboard/phone!

What I ate

It was last week, but I forgot to mention it – I had dinner courtesy of Date By Tate – Tate Dining Room’s fine dining home delivery service. It was a full-on 6-course tasting menu that came in a beautiful wooden box, with proper cutlery and flatware, that you can return or have collected (or keep for HK$500). It was the closest thing to zero-waste I’ve seen, and to me, the quality of the food, and the thoughtfulness of the delivery and collection service set a new standard for fine-dining deliveries.

Coronavirus cases in Hong Kong have decreased, so I’ve started to venture out a bit more. Restaurants have been allowed to open for a little longer – till 9pm, at present. I haven’t been out for dinner yet, but I did go to a media lunch at Aria, a newish Italian restaurant in California Tower. Chef Andrea Zamboni is originally from Bergamo but had worked in China for a while – his excitement over being able to get amazing Italian produce again in Hong Kong is contagious (and he does get some great stuff). It brought me back to this time last year, when I was on an epic trip in Italy with the formidable team at Italian F&B ambassadors Certa, but simultaneously made me depressed about the state of local agriculture. The tiny drop of candied lemon peel served with their veal milanese (which is thick like a pork chop) is genius.

On the day the new dining hours extension came into effect, I didn’t go to a restaurant as I’d booked to be back at Leonard Cheung’s house/private kitchen for a Mexican feast. I’ve never been to Mexico, and pickings for Mexican food have always been slim in places I’ve lived, so I can’t say I have any expertise at all, but the amount of work that goes into the sauces alone gave me the confidence I needed to go with some friends who know and crave Mexican. Suffice to say we rolled out of dinner like stuffed quails (just much more alive and much happier).

I had a delicious dram of a single cask malt from legendary Tasmanian distillers Sullivan’s Cove (which is constantly sold out) thanks to Victoria Chow, while we were at her place discussing Add Oil, the book we produced together. We recorded our tasting (flavours stuck around for sooooo long) and a little thank you while we drank – we’ve sold over 300 copies in pre-orders already! – which I’ll link to when it’s released! I walked off the alcohol going to Okra, where I picked up an El Pollo fried chicken sandwich for dinner – it’s still the best FCS in Hong Kong, imo.