JC3

I have seen rats on two occasions running between the aisles in Tesco Tanjung Tokong. I just wonder what goes on in the middle of the night. Is all the fresh fish etc. left out on open display for PYO by the rats?

JC3

SushiFan

We sometimes go there but hardly ever find anything that we are interested in.

I've seen birds flying in Tesco during daytime. Meat and fish is not protected or covered against the possibility of bird droppings.

InVinoVeritas

Well you can't get fresher chicken than that

ex reg

Do you think the kitchens in restaurants you eat in are any cleaner than wet markets???
If you do then don't go into the restaurant kitchens either.
And Hawker centers????

And behind the scenes in supermarket butchers and fish counters ...

columbine

I've seen a rat running along the corridor between Daiso and the 2 eateries, then zig zag about and disappeared under the shelves in Daiso ( 3rd floor Gurney Plaza).I'm sure it will reappear with the families to Look for food in the whole mall!
I've also seen cockroaches at Dragon-I walking along the glass by our table. Informed the manager, he looked at us with a puzzled look on his face like " what's the big deal".
Then another time eating in the basement of Gurney Plaza, noticed a roach crawled up a chair onto the back of a customer. It was having a great time exploring up and down the back, then crawled off to back of chair and floor. I didn't say a word but kept a close watch in case it came towards me!

InVinoVeritas

And not just Malaysia but the UK too!

JC3

Do you think the kitchens in restaurants you eat in are any cleaner than wet markets???

Yes, much cleaner.

If you do then don't go into the restaurant kitchens either.

Why not?

One of us is losing the plot ex reg. Is it me, or is it you?

JC3

Gunnar45

A question could be where the supposedly clean restaurants get their raw materials from.....

I don't quite agree with the statement that the wet markets stink and are dirty.
On the contrary, given that they sell fish poultry and meet I find it reasonably clean and acceptable. (You should see the fish market in Dar Es Salaam :-))

Anyway, as we don't eat the produce we buy in the wet markets raw, I see no problems with buying fruit, pork, fish and some vegetables when it is cheaper there.

By the way, I bought 400 grams of sliced cooked ham in the pork dept in Tesco Tanjung Bungah a while ago.
Then I found the package still in my car a week after I had bought it.
Strangely it did not have any bad smell at all, apart from being a bit 'soapy' on the surface, it looked OK. Needless to say, I did not eat it but I wonder what made it keep so long. Also with milk one can notice that it gets bitter before getting sour.

My wife gets rashes over her body a day or so after eating mass produced chicken or chicken eggs.
But she is OK with kampung chicken and eggs sold at the wet market.
(But NOT with the supposedly antibiotic free chicken they sell at cold stores!)

teejaydee

No thank you .

True. The produce is certainly fresh and as long as any meat or fish is refrigerated shortly after purchase there's no problem. My problem is more psychological. I have read many newspaper reports about poor hygiene in these places, and these come to mind whenever I consider venturing inside.

teejaydee

That's the problem - the locals seem to regard this sort of this as normal and acceptable. It's even worse in Thailand, but that for me is no consolation.

Now I'm worried in case that customer was me .

Gunnar45

Yes, I can understand psychological constraints, I have a few myself even though in theory the items are perfectly safe. Like 'balut'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(food)
Haven't seen it in Tesco though :-).

Regarding the hygiene, I think that organic contamination in general is less hazardous that chemical.

NeonHippy

Ham is a cured meat. That means that it has been treated with salt and other chemicals to preserve it. This process of curing dates back to before we had refridgeration and allowed meat from a slaughtered animal to be kept for a while rather than all being consumed at once.

There are two basic curing processes, wet or dry cure. Dry cure works best for small cuts such as pork belly for streaky bacon or individual muscles for specialist charcuterie such as the pig's cheek muscle for Guanciale. Wet cure is more common in larger cuts such as ham because it works faster, although dry curing is used for the production of air cured Parma Ham and Iberico Ham, a process that can take >1 year.

In either case the main curing agent is common salt, sodium chloride. Salt is added to sausages at about 0.5% to help preserve them. But you will notice that sausages go brown when cooked whilst bacon and ham go pink. This is due to a second chemical that is added to the salt, sodium nitrite. These two salts are mixed at a ratio of 93.75% chloride to 6.25% nitrite to form what is commonly referred to as Prague #1 cure. This cure is used for meats that will be consumed fairly quickly. For meats that will be consumed after some considerable time a different cure is used. This second cure contains 89.75% chloride, 6.25% nitrite and 4% sodium nitrate. Over time the nitrate slowly degrades to nitrite and thus helps to keep the meat for longer. This second mix is commonly known as Prague #2 cure.

The worst enemy of cured meat is not the temperature but humidity. If you were using the car reasonably often with the a/c on you might have been helping to maintain a dry atmosphere to preserve the ham.

But, without knowing what curing process had actually been followed I would have done the same as you and thrown the ham out.

Gunnar45

Yes, I know about the curing processes, I have actually been considering to cook my own christmas ham and to bring salpeter (sodium nitrate) from Sweden for keeping its nice colour.
One can find it in the spices dept of the supermarkets there.
But it could be difficult to get on a plane due to its dual use possibilities, I think the security has special sniffers for this. So I ditched the idea.

Regarding sodium nitrite, there has been discussions about its health hazards (British Journal of Cancer - Red and processed meat consumption and risk of pancreatic cancer: meta-analysis of prospective studies)
Even if still allowed in small doses, it is at least in Sweden not very popular and many cured meat products there do not contain at all today.

So, my main concern was not so much the bacteria and the toxins they may produce, but the quantity of potentially health hazardous additives in the processed meats.
I guess regulations for this are not so stringent here.

Again, I am not so worried about the 'hygienic contaminations' as one can smell and see them directly or how the products are handled.
But that a pack of meat, not packed airtight or so doesn't smell after over a week here in a car (it was not in daily use) worries me a bit.

NeonHippy

Ah now I understand what your concern is. I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. I'm afraid medical research and politics make very poor bed fellows.

T
Firstly the research is suspect because it draws on retrospective evidence, that is it relies on people's memory of how much they consumed years before. The effect is very small, a relative risk of 1.3%. This means that if your risk of pancreatic cancer were 1 in a thousand then the risk would increase from 1000 in a million to 1013 in a million. And finally, one of the healthiest diets in the world is generally considered to be the Mediterranean diet which includes copious quantities of processed meat.

But a researcher finds some 'evidence' of a cancer cause and it results in sensationalist press which politicians then act upom. Perhaps the worst case of this that I can think of was the MMR vaccine scare. Before it was proven to be wrong many mothers refused the vaccine for their child leading to a measles epidemic in South Wales a few years back.

I feel a new thread coming on, rather than hijacking this one.

ex reg

Then you can't have heard of the Michelin 3 * restaurant in UK which was closed for a month or so because of bad food hygene.

Maybe you don't eat in Mich 3* though

I was also thinking that if you look at the sea in many beaches around UK and Europe the water will look very clear and clean.
But if you test it to Blue Flag standards it will fail.

It's not the dirt and germs that you do see, it's dirt and germs that you don't see.