Part 4: Be careful when buying buffalo and beef meat

(Baonghean) -At the family-run buffalo and cow slaughterhouses in Do Luong and Yen Thanh, we witnessed horrifying "tricks" to make beef fresh and delicious. Many slaughterhouses use water injection into buffalo and cow meat, causing serious impacts on human health...

"Boycott" beef

Ms. Nguyen Thi Huyen in Xuan Thanh commune - Yen Thanh confided: "The other day, I went to Roc market in Trung Thanh commune - Yen Thanh and bought 1 kg of beef for 140,000 VND. When I brought it home to cook, it smelled bad and I couldn't eat it, so I had to feed it to the pigs.

Later, I heard people say that that restaurant slaughters cows at home and specializes in injecting water into the cows before slaughtering. Bringing this type of meat home is truly a "waste of money and a burden". Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thoi in "Yen Thanh Town" was upset: Beef is a delicious dish, not cheap at all, but they always tricked us into injecting water into the meat, when we eat it, it is pale, has no beef flavor. Recently, we have had to switch to fish, shrimp and chicken because we are very afraid of...beef.

Ms. T, who has been selling beef for more than 7 years at Dinh market, Hoa Thanh commune, Yen Thanh, explained: "Recently, many customers have complained that beef injected with too much water has no taste. To be honest, there are many people who inject water to make a profit. My restaurant does not inject water, but the slaughterhouse owners directly inject water into the cows while they are still alive to increase their weight. It is sellers like us who suffer the first loss, because when we take the meat, we weigh it with water, and when we sell it at retail, the water gradually flows out all day, and sometimes we even lose money. Slaughterhouse owners would rather keep the beef of good quality and sell it at a higher price, so customers will still accept it." Ms. T lamented: "These days, beef shops have fewer customers. Doing business like this may mean having to quit the business because many customers have "boycotted" beef."

Beef for sale at Vinh market

At Vinh market (Vinh city), from early morning, people hang fresh beef legs everywhere. Tran Van T, a resident of Nghi Lien commune - Nghi Loc, who has been a butcher for 10 years and has now retired, "revealed": "If you want to know which piece of meat has been injected with a lot of water, you can tell right away. You have to touch it to see if it is dry or not. If it sticks to your hand, it means the meat has not been injected with water." T added: "Don't think that a piece of beef that is still bright red is "genuine", it is easily soaked in chemicals. When I went to slaughter buffalo and cows for hire in Do Luong, the buffalo and cows were sick and about to die after being slaughtered, the butcher used Chinese chemicals mixed with cold water to soak the beef for about 10 minutes, and when he brought it out, the meat was very fresh and delicious. Sick beef when butchered is often rare, and is displayed in the hot sun. Without using this "trick" to make the meat "red", how can you fool people? If you don't believe me, just go to a few establishments in Do Luong and you will see, they have a whole system of freezers for buffalo and cow meat. The type of meat soaked in chemicals and stuffed with ice can be kept for more than 3 months. Around Tet, the demand for beef is high, here people sell beef stuffed with ice from Tet until after January".

Quarantine is still lax

Quan Lau Market (Vinh City) and Vinh Market (2 markets with a large amount of buffalo and beef meat traded in Vinh City). It was just after 5:30 a.m. but at the stalls, buffalo and beef meat was already being sold haphazardly by the vendors.

Ms. Hoa, a trader specializing in selling buffalo and beef, said: "Every morning, they (veterinary officers - PV) come to collect money and then do a cursory check. I bring meat from a slaughterhouse in Nghi Xuan (Ha Tinh) to sell here and it has to go through several quarantine checks." When we wanted to see the quarantine stamp on the meat, Ms. Hoa said there was no stamp. "How can beef be stamped? Moreover, I have been selling here for many years, they know me so why do I need a stamp?" Ms. Hoa explained. There is no stamp, but most traders do not have a certificate confirming that the meat has passed quarantine.

It is known that every day Quan Lau market provides consumers with hundreds of kilograms of buffalo and beef. But absolutely, this amount of meat does not have any legal proof to ensure that the meat is not infected with disease. "Every time they go for inspection, they collect 20 thousand VND. From the time the meat is taken from the slaughterhouse to the hands of the people, they have to pay the quarantine fee 3 times", Ms. Hoa shared. At Vinh market, according to Ms. Lai, the owner of the meat stall, said: "They come to inspect every morning. They come again in the afternoon, if they find the meat is spoiled, they will not allow it to be sold anymore". However, when we mentioned the issue of stamping the quarantine or writing a certificate confirming that the meat has passed quarantine, Ms. Lai said: "They have already checked the meat at the slaughterhouse, we only take it to sell, so there is no certificate".

In fact, during the process of checking slaughtered pigs, buffaloes and cows sold at markets, veterinary technicians find it very difficult to determine whether the livestock and poultry are sick or not (except for some easily visible diseases such as anthrax in pigs, rice pork...). Therefore, the risk of disease spreading in livestock and poultry is very high, even the risk of disease spreading from livestock and poultry to humans. Currently, in Vinh City, there are 24 large and small markets, not to mention the amount of livestock and poultry meat sold sporadically on inner-city roads... On average, slaughterhouses in Vinh City slaughter about 100 buffaloes and cows each night, plus the amount of meat from the districts pouring in an average of 30 to 35 buffaloes, cows, calves... Meanwhile, the veterinary staff is too thin, so the inspection work is like "kidnapping and abandoning the plate".

Meat traders do not care whether there is a quarantine stamp or not. But consumers themselves when buying buffalo and beef often do not pay attention to this issue. Most people choose meat based on experience and by eye when buying. Ms. Nguyen Thu Hien, a resident of Truong Thi ward (Vinh city) said that every time she buys buffalo and beef, she usually chooses meat based on experience and does not care whether the meat has a stamp or not. "I just buy any piece of meat that is red and fresh and delicious. I do not know about the quarantine stamp. I often buy from the same store so I trust it," Ms. Hien said.

According to word of mouth from some butchers, there is a medicine on the market that can keep meat fresh and not spoil for 5-7 days. I pretended to buy the medicine to use, but the stalls all shook their heads and said they did not know!

Reporter team