Amid the cooking oil safety crisis, consumers are disappearing

The uproar over cooking oil safety seems to have vanished from the evening news. Looking back at the time when the incidents broke, we criticized unscrupulous manufacturers, we blamed incompetent government agencies, and we dragged out and condemned everything and everyone that could be criticized. Yet in a modern society built on commercial operations and consumer supremacy, when it comes to food safety issues, no program or pundit has had the courage and wisdom to discuss "consumer responsibility." Are consumers forever victims? Do consumers bear no blame at all as accomplices?

Now let us think about the problem from a different angle. Consumers pay for products, so which company makes money and which food product sells well is, to a large extent, chosen by consumers. That is why horses and donkeys disappeared, replaced by cars and motorcycles: because travel sped up, we lost the chance to leisurely take in the scenery. Traditional mobile phones and laptops declined, replaced by smartphones, making us spend (and sometimes, one could say, squander) more precious time (life) on these tiny electronic products.

Precisely because every choice in life carries many effects, both positive and negative (like buying a lottery ticket, you might win, but you might also come up empty; when you travel, you may find surprises, but you may also run into an accident), isn't the emergence of the cooking oil safety problem also one of the unfortunate effects our consumer choices may create? When we only want to pay 200 yuan rather than 500 yuan for a bottle of oil, we have already quietly been creating "eating" risks for ourselves.

I think I can boldly say that most consumers do not have the ability to test products, but by contrast, there is also a very "practical" way of thinking that lets us easily understand the cooking oil safety problem, namely: "One kilogram of peanuts absolutely cannot yield one kilogram of oil." So if buying one kilogram of peanuts costs 200 yuan, then what on earth could a bottle of peanut oil priced at 200 yuan be made from? On the one hand we demand 100% purity, but on the other hand we do not think about what something might actually cost.

Recognize Your Own Consumer Responsibility

True, it is easy to push responsibility onto the government and manufacturers, but it is very hard to assign responsibility to consumers. Yet if we never think about where food comes from, never learn to understand the importance of agriculture, never empathize with farmers' hardships, never try to cherish and protect the land that produces our food, or never do even the relatively simple thing of spending a little more money and time to support good production and farming friends, then food safety problems will never be solved, and they will keep emerging one after another.

Look back at the education we ourselves received: have we ever planted vegetables or fruit in the soil with our own hands? Or raised chickens and ducks? Think back to the trips we have taken: have we ever, when visiting a farm, rolled up our sleeves to help turn the soil and pull weeds, instead of eating and drinking heavily and making a racket?

It is true that black-hearted manufacturers are detestable, and it is true that government incompetence is lamentable, but if most consumers could work harder on their own knowledge and practical experience, try to get closer to agriculture, understand food, do "food education" together with their children, and encourage schools and teachers to do more nature experiences and visits to production sites, then the food we eat would surely be safer, our health would surely be better, and we might even live happier lives because of it.

I Insist on Making Only One Kind of Bread

I recall that when I was selling wood-fired oven bread at a stall at the "Linkou Plateau Farmers' Market," consumers often asked how many flavors of bread there were. When I answered that there was only one kind, a "white" bread with no filling at all, some would frown, and some would turn and walk away. Yet after tasting it, these white breads were often snapped up in no time.

Although I myself sometimes wonder whether such a small white bread selling for 35 yuan is too expensive, at the same time I cannot help thinking that many of the consumers who support my white bread, after buying and eating it, besides offering praise, often grumble slightly that I should make a little more. Of course, there is not the slightest ill will in these complaints, but apart from that, few consumers (or, to put it cruelly, almost none at all) have thoughtfully asked: is making wood-fired oven bread very hard and difficult to do? At the same time, few have asked "why do I only make white bread?"

Because my wood-fired kiln is set up outdoors, when the weather is cold I freeze miserably while baking bread, and when the weather is hot, besides being roasted by the kiln, I am also baked by the sun until I am almost faint, and every so often I get burned by a baking tray. But even so, I still make bread happily, because I hope more people can truly understand that "simple, clean, healthy food," as long as it is prepared in an appropriate way, will be a kind of deliciousness.

Sometimes I use a chisel to carve wooden spoons and wooden chopsticks one stroke at a time; sometimes I use a wood-fired kiln to bake white bread again and again. This is my way of promoting food education; this is my way of understanding and shouldering consumer responsibility. So I very much hope you will also join me in thinking it over: in your own life, how much effort are you willing to put into "food safety" and "food education"?