There is nothing in this world that can stand up to deep digging, and digging to the end may be all embarrassing.
This month, a century-old Hong Kong brand closed its doors due to a food safety incident, but the matter did not end there, and as it continued to ferment, more secrets surfaced.
This 100-year-old, four-generational company, which is recommended by the Hong Kong Tourism Board to tourists on its official website, is called Liu Ma Kee.
Hong Kong stars Chow Yun-fat and Cheng Yuling are frequent visitors here.
But this year's random inspection ended the longevity of this century-old brand.
On July 16, officers from the Centre for Food Safety of Hong Kong went to the shop to purchase fermented bean curd products and found that they contained 1.3 million Bacillus cereus, which exceeded the legal limit by 12 times.
As a result, the CFS issued a warning to all members of the public in Hong Kong and requested a recall of all sold bean curd.
Under pressure, Liao had to announce the closure of the course.
But that's not the end of the story.
After deciding to close the course, the fourth-generation successor of "Liu Mao Kee" Liu Huangye revealed a secret to the media, it turned out that 30 years ago, Hong Kong's sewage ordinance was updated, and Liu Mao Kee's factory could not meet the standard, and could not purify the concentrated acid water produced during the production of bean curd into clean water and drain it, so it was no longer possible to continue to produce bean curd locally. Therefore, in the past 30 years, white bean curd has been purchased from the mainland, processed and packaged in Hong Kong before being sold.
The implication is that the real source of Bacillus cereus in fermented bean curd comes from the mainland.
As soon as this remark came out, the fire burned to the mainland food safety supervision department.
Bacillus cereus, also known as cactus bacillus, is named because its body is covered with short flagella and resembles a cactus. It is widely distributed in the environment and can be caused by the bacteria themselves or by the toxins produced by the bacteria, and the poisoning symptoms can be divided into two types: vomiting and diarrhea.
In the past June, the well-known Chinese brand "Wang Zhihe" tofu was required to be recalled by the European Union. The reason for this is that there may be Bacillus cereus in this batch of "Wang Zhihe" tofu.
Why does this bacterium like to behave on tofu?
This is due to three factors.
First of all, there is the influence of the raw materials themselves.
In the process of soybean planting, microorganisms in the soil may be one of the sources of spoilage bacteria that cause the deterioration of soy products. These soil microorganisms are influenced by factors such as development, precipitation and crop rotation during soybean cultivation.
Second, it is affected by the production process.
The soybean raw materials used in the mainland soybean products factories are harvested from the ground and generally put into production without any special treatment, which will be stained with soil, feces and other pollutants, so a large number of microorganisms remain.
Because it is worried that overheating will increase the viscosity of soybean milk, which is not conducive to mixing with coagulant and affecting its hardness. Therefore, in the processing process of soy products, a milder heating method is generally used, so that gram-positive bacillus and heat-resistant bacteria will remain.
Moreover, in the process of tofu processing, coagulants such as lactone, gypsum, and salt brine need to be added, which is easy to introduce miscellaneous bacteria in production.
Third, the most common mistake for the average consumer is improper storage.
To solve the first two problems, we can only rely on the food safety supervision department, and as ordinary consumers, we can only control the third link.
Research data show that keeping hot food (above 60°C) and cold food (below 4°C) is effective in reducing the risk of Bacillus cereus disease.
Remember, cooked food should not be left at room temperature for too long (no more than 2 hours is recommended). If not eaten immediately, it should be cooled as soon as possible, stored at low temperature, and all cooked and perishable foods should be refrigerated in time (below 5°C is recommended). It should be warmed well (above 60°C) before serving again.
That's all we can do.
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