Yes and No

(Baonghean) - Every year-end, no one makes an appointment with anyone but mostly meets acquaintances at restaurants and drinking tables. Eating together and celebrating has become a typical "cultural feature" of Asians in general and Vietnamese in particular. Especially in this cold winter weather, there is nothing warmer and happier than a cup of strong wine next to a hot pot or a fragrant grilled food...

Street food - Illustration photo, source Internet

I am a person who likes to hang out and eat at restaurants, so I just wait for friends or colleagues to invite me and then… nod immediately. Today, after eating grilled food, my body still smelled of smoke and burnt meat, when Bim greeted me at the gate with a serious expression, his tone like an interrogation:

- You're going out to eat grilled food again, aren't you? Out of 7 days a week, you're eating out 5 days a week. You're so bad! Eating a lot of grilled food is like eating out, and if it accumulates over time, it can lead to cancer. Not to mention, the ingredients people use to prepare it are not necessarily fresh, and are their origins clear and guaranteed? Are there any additives or preservatives used for seasoning?

I was spun around like a top by the girl, before I could “refute” she dragged me into the house and showed me a newspaper that reported that the authorities had just confiscated tons of expired frozen animal organs from a food processing company. There were blackened pig hearts, expired chicken feet, chicken gizzards that smelled bad… After reading the news and seeing the photos, I suddenly felt nauseous, thinking about the delicious chicken feet I had just eaten, I suddenly felt creepy. I knew I couldn’t compare “all kinds of fish in the same batch”, but the potential risks and dangers in familiar dishes still made me feel “uneasy”.

In fact, it is not until now that I or any consumer have known the risks of using processed foods at restaurants, especially sidewalk restaurants. Affordable prices, flavorful food, convenient locations and popular spaces suitable for gatherings with friends are the advantages of sidewalk restaurants. However, the downside of street food is that food hygiene and safety conditions are not guaranteed, there is no verification and it is difficult to manage and control by authorities. Although no one dares to confirm and has solid evidence of the limited food hygiene and safety conditions of sidewalk restaurants, given the huge consumption of special dishes such as chicken feet and animal organs, it is understandable to raise questions about the origin, source and safety of unprocessed food sources.

Everyone knows, everyone talks about it, but everyone… lets it go. That is a common reality among Vietnamese consumers today. Stories and complaints about poor food quality are not rare in everyday conversations and social debates, but to conclude, there is always an exclamation: "Eating is not good, but not eating is also not good, so what should we do?". In fact, when saying that, consumers themselves have an attitude of disrespecting themselves, disrespecting the rights they deserve. Accepting to spend money on unsatisfactory products and services, even those that have negative effects on them, is a paradox that is difficult to accept in a healthy economic development model. The reason is because they have no other choice but to buy poor quality products from the supply side.

These are signs of a fragile economy, because in a healthy, sustainable economy, both supply and demand have the right to choose the most optimal options, ensuring their own interests, instead of depending on a single source. The problem is, that choice sometimes lies in our hands: do buyers have the courage to say no to poor quality products to put pressure on suppliers and do sellers have the courage to say no to small immediate profits to choose for themselves a long-term, reputable development path?

Hai Trieu