Many beef products are actually pork

Of the 44 fresh beef samples tested, 35 were beef, 1 was buffalo and 8 were pork.

Recently, through proactive monitoring of raw and cooked meat samples, the National Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene has discovered many products labeled as beef but actually made of pork. Thus, not only are consumers deceived and forced to pay more because beef is more expensive than pork, but there are also potential dangers when sellers use chemicals to turn beef into pork.

Many beef products on the market are not real beef.

The samples taken by the National Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene for testing include: fresh beef, beef ham, beef sausage, beef brisket and beef in pho. The results showed that many samples did not contain beef or had negligible beef content. These samples were taken in scattered districts across Hanoi.

Specifically, of the 44 fresh beef samples tested, 35 were beef, 1 was buffalo meat and 8 were pork. Of the rare and well-done beef samples taken from 10 beef pho shops for testing, 2 were actually pork pho, while the other 8 were real beef pho. Notably, of the 12 beef brisket samples, 10 were pork, and only two were real beef.

Testing was also conducted on 20 beef ham samples and found that 9 samples were all pork, the remaining 8 samples had very low beef content, the lowest was 13% and there was a sample with the highest beef content of 60%, the remaining percentage was pork.

Notably, of the 23 beef-labeled sausage samples, 8 had no detectable beef content and the remaining 15 had very low beef content. These sausage samples included fully labeled products with production licenses and quality declarations.

According to the National Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene, the raw and cooked beef samples mentioned above, although they did not contain real beef, or had a very low amount of beef, still had a characteristic smell and color like the real thing. This requires the Food Safety Department (Ministry of Health) to conduct extensive research to clarify the flavorings, additives, and colorings used to turn pork into beef as mentioned above.

What is worrying is that the use of uncontrolled additives and flavorings, in incorrect dosages, and of unknown origin, will be harmful to users./.

According to VOV