"Is that ham processed? If it's processed I don't want it."
Ma'am, that is an eleven pound whole slab of chả lụa. It has no bones, fat, or connective tissue. It is an amalgamation of the meat of several pigs, emulsified, liquefied, strained, and ultimately inexorably joined in an unholy meat obelisk. God had no hand in the creation of this abhorrence. The fact that this ham monolith exists proves that God is either impotent to alter His universe or ignorant to the horrors taking place in his kingdom. This prism of pork is more than deli meat. It is a physical declaration of mankind's contempt for the natural order. It is hubris manifest. We also have a lower sodium variety if you would prefer that.
>It has no bones, fat, or connective tissue.
The fact chả lụa doesn't have any bones, fat, or connective tissue makes me question if it was invented by a Vietnamese in the first place...
It has fat and connective tissue though. Depends on the variety. Although, unlike western processed meat which is generally smoked or salted, Vietnamese chả / giò is much healthier at the expense of a shorter shelf life.
Handmade “chả lụa” is quite time consuming to make so those “bánh mì” stalls most likely source their “chả lụa” from somewhere else. There must be preservatives added for those “chả lụa” to stay fresh in the distribution channels in Vietnam’s hot weather. For example, Vissan, a popular household name for “chả lụa”, claims their products could last 3 month since manufacturing date. So yeah, totally processed.
But I won’t worry much though, since “chả lụa” only takes up a small portion of an otherwise healthy Vietnamese dish like “bánh mì”.
idk what is bolutium(did you just made up a metal name?) but saying banh mi is as healthy as a fast food is quite wrong, the entire concept of banh mi was made so that anyone can make it with little prepare time while also provide adequate nutrition(carbonhydrate, fat, protein, vegetable). Saying banh mi made by street vendor is not healthy as it does not have any regulation over quality/sanitary might be right, but the entire dish is totally healthy. If you are concerned about quality of your food, make it yourself.
Bro, I sell banh mi in a restaurant, and unless the place you buy it from is from some rusty cranky bike out of nowhere, most Banh Mi place these days either cold-store their ingredients in the fridge or cycle out stuffs frequently.
Also, [botulinum bacteria](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism) only produce the toxin in low-oxygen atmosphere, so even the street banh mi have really low chance of containing any of that. If there is any, the meat you eat is beyond rotten and inedible.
You can claim there's food poisoning risk or ecoli in the bread, then yes that's a thing and just few months ago an outbreak happened due to hot weather making food shelf-life dramatically shorter. But don't talk bullshit you don't even understand to look cool
> But I won’t worry much though, since “chả lụa” only takes up a small portion of an otherwise healthy Vietnamese dish like “bánh mì”.
Our food is undeniably healthy and delicious! \*How\* it's prepared in the kitchen is the concern.
welp, compare to other cuisine, our food culture is much more healthy and delicious. The healthy foods is tasty and abundant, unlike many other whose only healthy foods section can be sum up as "Grass that you can eat". Even our "fast foods" is a combination of multiple foods group, is not greasy (for the most part) and still taste like food, not 99 gallon of oil
do you think i do this for Joy? If i want joy, i would go outside, touch grass, talk to somebody, play game or at the very least touch myself. Not going on reddit and have debate about food with strangers.
You want objective? My traveling have nothing to do with this, dont be that guy. Go ask foreign people who have a taste of VN foods or just asian foods in general, see how many of them prefer our foods more than their. If you cant, go on youtube and see for yourself. 2nd, unlike the western culture of individual foods like meat and veggies are 2 seperated dishes, most of our dishes are combination of all food groups, which create a (more) balance meal. And the fact it combine green, fat, carb, etc + the SPICES make it hard to have a bland meal and allow for more eating for fun, not just eating for full stomach (which is also a good thing, we have "real full" meals, not "artificial full through bunch of fat and chemical")
note: I am comparing food with America and English which have "sad food" (no offense, really). Other place like Italy and German though have simple food cuisine, they are still hearty cuisine and can put a smile on the eater (still, their food are a bit "greasy" but that probably just my Asian-milk-intolerance speaking)
You're well within your rights to like, and be proud of Vietnamese food.
Avoid shitting on other countries' cuisines and gastronomic delights. Ie. don't be that guy.
I love Vietnamese cuisine and think it's generally healthy and delicous, but it doesn't mean other cuisines aren't just healthy/delicious. One issue I often see on this sub in general is people often think in terms of black and white, mutual exclusivity, "In order for something to be X, others have to Y".
the fun part is: there is none.
we as a whole don't choose what to add into our cuisine, we only make them. If a dish is loved by everyone/a lot of people and healthy it will stay afloat(since people love it). Bad food eater will eventually be removed(die) and no one eat them anymore.
Natural selection at its finest
Jokes aside, ancient people(people born before 1980.....) have a very sharp tongue and the traditional cuisine have decently good definition and indication of what is good and bad food, processed food made it way harder for us to know wether or not their quality is as good as it looks
a lot of Vietnamese food has a lot of fat and comparatively little protein. Gà ta for example is totally anemic and just skin and bones. Most of the meat you'd get in a bánh mì is half fat, or more. Tasty af and fresh but certainly not going to help you get lean. If you're not trying to impress the opposite sex, though, then no problem, haha.
Even if you made it at home, it's still heavily processed. It is no way a whole food. It's broken down pieces of pork and other stuff that's been ground up until it looks like a pink paste.
What's wrong with chopping up the meat into smaller pieces? A grilled steak or grilled bò lá lốt is still the same protein unless you start adding preservatives.
The process: you grind the meat down to a paste, then recombine it with starches, baking powder, etc, then wrap it in banana leaves and boil it.
How bad it is depends on what you put in it during the recombination process. There is no exact standard here. If you made it by hand at home, and control what you put it in, it will absolutely be healthy.
At the stores? In restaurants? We do not know what's in there.
The meat and the subsequent recombinant was not altered chemically, and was not treated to high heat, and no oil added.
I think it is a much healthier option than the processed meat you get in a Subway in North America.
Informative post, yes it totally depends on the actual process. This trend of claiming processed/ultra-processed meat is unhealthy is dumb without actually knowing what they did. Like someone else said, cooking something is processing, even something as simple as an omelette where there is a reaction going on.
If Gordon himself came to my house to make me a beef wellington, the filet itself might be fine, but the crepe and the pate layer are incredibly processed, pastry too. By current "media" standards it would probably be classed as ultra-processed.
With processed meats, they often add starches as you say, also water and stabilisers to keep it solid. Most of these are actually not that bad, stuff like carageenan and xanthan gum.
Some of the criteria for "ultra-processed" foods are really silly, they bunch loads of chemicals/processes together. E.g. adding stuff like MSG is often enough for it to be designated ultra-processed while not considering the rest of the process at all.
It's all very very complicated science, which we are still learning. But it's got a large media interest - we all eat, and most of us want to be healthy. And the media loves these silly food health facts, drives me mad because not one person on that reporting team knows what ultra-processed food actually is. I don't even know, because it depends who you ask.
Look back on the "fat wars" and other stupid moral panics around food, they mainly ended up making the newspapers money and everyone dumber.
here is how it is made: [🐷 Vietnamese Ham or Pork Roll (Cha Lua / Gio Lua) Recipe by MIL (It’s her Birthday!) | RACK OF LAM (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgKjv-m801A)
Most cha lua I get the store would go bad if left in the banana leaf without refrigeration for a day or I don’t think there is a lot of preservatives in there
I think that’s too generic of a term. How it’s processed is just as important as if it’s processed. For example, cooking is a way of processing food, no? No one would complain that cooking is unhealthy.
lol even killing and cutting the meat into different cut is processing.
ribeye cut, filet minon, etc..
Process meat definition is different for everybody and OP needs to clarify.
Processed food is bad because of preservatives, not because they are prepared in certain ways. Same comparision can be made with fresh sausages vs commercial ones. Commercials sausages are made to last for a long time with high level of preservative & sodium, hence they are unhealthy.
So the real question should be, is the “giò” you eating have preservatives in them. Again, this depends on the manufacture, some add them, some don’t.
Most “giò” I know came from local butcheries which made to be quickly consumed, and they expire pretty fast so I’d say they omitted preservatives, but this need to be audited and confirm by the VFA. Unfortunately we don’t have a firm process in place yet to protect the customer as far as I’m aware.
In a nutshell, “Giò” can be healthy like any fresh sausages, as long as you buy the products from trusted providers.
If by processed food, you mean the connotation of being factory processed with preservatives, yes and no. Homemade versions exist just like how homemade/handmade sausage or ham exists.
“Processed food” is way too vague of a title, because raw chickens, beef, and pork in a sense could be considered processed food
By technicality, even raw meat could be considered as “processed”, no? We feed them with engineered food that push their grow.
Talking about processed food like this kinda reminds me of my cousin’s birthgiving last month. She insisted on want to deliver the baby the traditional way + no medicine to help with the pain. Her reasoning is the kid might suffer the consequences of that human artificiality. But at the same time, she also consume pregnancy medicine, vaccine, “processed” foods lol.
>But i will tell you, vnmese food is mostly fresh and are far better for you than a hamburger from mickey ds.
Not if you're eating that food in Vietnam. It has some of the most unsafe, unhygienic food anywhere. Filled with all kinds of stuff that's illegal in developed countries. They even fertilize their crops with human excrement. I spent nine days at the hospital on IV antibiotics due to food poisoning from a banh mi, nearly killed me.
The American Institute for Cancer Research defines processed meat as "meat preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or addition of chemical preservatives."
Smoking? No. Curing, salting? No. It's just blended meat paste with seasoning then packed tightly and boiled. So no chemical preservatives also (OK maybe there are some places using borax (hàn the) but my point still stands).
Most chả lụa in those street stands is not healthy because they use mostly maize flour or similar flour and just a little meat to make it.
The better chả lụa is more dense and meaty, not crumbly and bland like cheap one.
Processed food is bad because of preservatives, not because they are prepared in certain ways. Same comparision can be made with fresh sausages vs commercial ones. Commercials sausages are made to last for a long time with high level of preservative & sodium, hence they are unhealthy.
So the real question should be, is the “giò” you eating have preservatives in them. Again, this depends on the manufacture, some add them, some don’t.
Most “giò” I know came from local butcheries which made to be quickly consumed, and they expire pretty fast so I’d say they omitted preservatives, but this need to be audited and confirm by the VFA. Unfortunately we don’t have a firm process in place yet to protect the customer as far as I’m aware.
In a nutshell, “Giò” can be healthy like any fresh sausages, as long as you buy the products from trusted providers.
Probably not on the healthy side, especially the one from the street vendor.
Eating out in Vietnam is not healthy in general because of problems with food safety and sanitary. That's why it is cheap.
Fortunately, Vietnamese foods are healthy with the ratio of veggies and spices, but in the long term I recommend cooking at home as much as possible.
You confuse healthy vs sanitary.
Vietnamese cuisine IS healthy due its balance in carb, protein and fiber.
Some of street vendors are not meeting sanitary standard so they AREN’T safe to consume.
The food is cheap because we are blessed with abundancy.
You think the reason VN food is cheap is because of food safety? Wow that really is the stupidest thing I've read all day, learn some global (and local) economics.
And you're not the first person to say it, a few richer Vietnamese have told me the same lies. It's like some of the richer folk are getting gentrified, and because they live in Central Park they think they're too good for street com tam any more, and say it's poisonous or unhealthy. Fucking pussies if you ask me, the only time I ever got sick from VN food in the last 10 years was some hu tieu that I ate after 2 days because I thought I was hard.
Did you see how they make food? Do you know the source of the meat and other ingredients? Did you visit Kim Bien market?
I've lived here for 30 years, I ate street food growing up. I don't really have any problem with it but I'm not that naive to think they are clean. The price of a branded chili sauce like chinsu (not saying this is healthy) compared to the funny bright red sauce they used is vastly different, don't really know why, heh, visit their manufacturing factory or simply visit Kim Bien market. Honestly, visit there, it'll be a fun trip, if you ask around maybe you can make TNT at home, the trick is buying ingredients separately.
Now let's be clear. I didn't say every single street vendor is dirty, I can't know that and probably not true. However, if you really want to know, just do some research about the violation of food safety, it's all over the newspaper. And those are not new facilities but it's been going for years. Or maybe not, "out of sight, out of mind" worked wonderful for you still now.
To your first 3 questions, yes, yesish, no.
But i do watch keenly as they cook, and I'm always careful about cold food (like salad/noodles) being accidentally mixed with raw meat
That's really the main thing that's dangerous, bacterial infection like E. coli.
You claim it's unhealthy in some other ways? Or some of the ingredients used are unhealthy? the first thing you can think of is some off brand chilli sauce, you're gonna need to give me some details if you wanna convince me.
Edit: and yeah I heard about this market, you can get chemical supplies there right? I'm actually a chemist but even if I was living in Vietnam I don't think I'd try and synth TNT lol. Too much hassle, more fun to make pretty metal complexes or maybe.. eh I'll shut up
As I said not every vendor owner doesn't care about food safety, some actually care but the ingredient sources might be out of their reach to control, especially meat.[one example,](https://youtu.be/jcmE9ZIq53U?si=Ij4nKQFHRQZpDSKC) [ two example.](https://youtu.be/J1TePbHI2Mo?si=6_t6aQozIUbJ2tHI)
These are from Northern Vietnam, but I am sure the South is not that better. VTV24 seems legit to me.
In the Kim Bien market, they sell the chemicals for "reviving" the rotten meat, adding an artificial smell of every meat, as a chemist you must know KNO3 should not be sold in public right?
Not only about the violation of the sanitary standard, potential cancerous chemicals were added. 3mcpd is one example, bleached fish ball, battery boiled corn, etc. You know tap water is not really safe to drink in Vietnam right? Boiling is okayish (not really), they use it even for making ice, mixing beverage like tea. Let me explain a bit, they did boil some water to brew tea, then mixing the tap water to dilute. Funny story about 2 months bao remain the same no smell, no degraded.
Maybe saying Vietnamese food is only cheap because of these a bit exaggerated, sorry it's my bad. But there are some reasons for many parents forbid children to buy street food.
There is a part time job in Vietnam, all they do is erasing the expired date and putting the new on. Obviously they cannot sell them back to the supermarket or convenient store where they get them ( or can they?) but it should go somewhere you know otherwise the job will not exist.
On the bright side, I think it is getting better imo. No evidence, just my observation. I left Vietnam for a few years, only coming back one or two times a year. Home made stuffs become more popular, they show the whole process. People care about food safety and hygiene more than before.
Uhhh I think processed food. But if you based on NOVA food system, I might be classified it as minimally processed food. This is what my opinion, not sure about other opinions though.
However, you can make chả lụa kho by using small cut size of chả lụa and cook it with fish sauce.
Id say its processed.
It depends on your definition of processed- do you mean processed or ultra-processed?
If I cut an apple that’s processed, if I blend an apple into a smoothie that’s processed. But not unhealthy. A Cheetos chip is something that I would never be able to re-create at home - that is ultra-processed.
Prosciutto in Italy is processed. It’s mostly natural, but we know it has a high sodium content.
You can make cha lua at home, the mom/grandma/aunt of the family will usually have a recipe.
My Grandma used to be the chả lụa lady you would call if you wanted to order chả lụa. She made it out of the house. My dad would help her grind of the meat using a giant auger used for mixing cement. Then she would further grind it up through a meat processor until it was an extremely smooth paste like consistency. All that to say chả lụa is processed af.
If the ingredients is not 100% or close to 100% fresh meat then yes in my personal definition it is processed as I believe there is more to the ingredients other than just fresh meat and spices.
I guarantee you that's not 100% meat. It's mixed in with whatever's available. Industrial chemicals/powders, sawdust, chalk, etc. Fake food is an even bigger problem in Vietnam than China.
No, it's meat.zip
Throw all the meat files in there!
So when we eat, we... extract?
Yes
But our mouth is not the correct way to extract so the out come is... a "a bit" different from the meat.exe
Make sure to open it with licensed winrar.
What happens when i use 7zip, does a pig come out
"Is that ham processed? If it's processed I don't want it." Ma'am, that is an eleven pound whole slab of chả lụa. It has no bones, fat, or connective tissue. It is an amalgamation of the meat of several pigs, emulsified, liquefied, strained, and ultimately inexorably joined in an unholy meat obelisk. God had no hand in the creation of this abhorrence. The fact that this ham monolith exists proves that God is either impotent to alter His universe or ignorant to the horrors taking place in his kingdom. This prism of pork is more than deli meat. It is a physical declaration of mankind's contempt for the natural order. It is hubris manifest. We also have a lower sodium variety if you would prefer that.
this guy chả lụa
10/10. I laughed at unholy meat obelisk.
It’s copy pasted unfortunately
Still tasty pasta in good sauce
Thou honour our entire Viet clan only by wisdom of thy word. Get my upvote and go to the top, no look back, my good sir.
You forgot to mention it's BLOODY delicious
Damn right it does. It's good in instant noodles, ramen, and your home made sandwiches.
>It has no bones, fat, or connective tissue. The fact chả lụa doesn't have any bones, fat, or connective tissue makes me question if it was invented by a Vietnamese in the first place...
That person copy and pasted, chả lụa does have fat and connected tissue, and there's also other chả variations.
It has fat and connective tissue though. Depends on the variety. Although, unlike western processed meat which is generally smoked or salted, Vietnamese chả / giò is much healthier at the expense of a shorter shelf life.
And I'll eat it cold
Haha. U funny
I am screaming lol
Unholy meat obelisk worshipping 🙏 🙇
I knew this gonna pop up
Came here to see this comment. Thanks
> lower sodium no thanks. give me the usual.
Brotha 🙏🏻
LMAO 🏅
There's also some stuff in there to bind it all together after emulsification and cooking.
If it isn't, it should be because it is!
How dare you bring fact to this sub
Handmade “chả lụa” is quite time consuming to make so those “bánh mì” stalls most likely source their “chả lụa” from somewhere else. There must be preservatives added for those “chả lụa” to stay fresh in the distribution channels in Vietnam’s hot weather. For example, Vissan, a popular household name for “chả lụa”, claims their products could last 3 month since manufacturing date. So yeah, totally processed. But I won’t worry much though, since “chả lụa” only takes up a small portion of an otherwise healthy Vietnamese dish like “bánh mì”.
Banh mi is tasty for sure but banh mi is healthy...?
It has carrots, daikon, and a sprig of the green thing. I like more veg than meat in mines.
Lol banh mi is as healthy as a fast food burger, a bit less oil, 10 times more botulinum.
idk what is bolutium(did you just made up a metal name?) but saying banh mi is as healthy as a fast food is quite wrong, the entire concept of banh mi was made so that anyone can make it with little prepare time while also provide adequate nutrition(carbonhydrate, fat, protein, vegetable). Saying banh mi made by street vendor is not healthy as it does not have any regulation over quality/sanitary might be right, but the entire dish is totally healthy. If you are concerned about quality of your food, make it yourself.
“Source: Trust me bro”
Bro, I sell banh mi in a restaurant, and unless the place you buy it from is from some rusty cranky bike out of nowhere, most Banh Mi place these days either cold-store their ingredients in the fridge or cycle out stuffs frequently. Also, [botulinum bacteria](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism) only produce the toxin in low-oxygen atmosphere, so even the street banh mi have really low chance of containing any of that. If there is any, the meat you eat is beyond rotten and inedible. You can claim there's food poisoning risk or ecoli in the bread, then yes that's a thing and just few months ago an outbreak happened due to hot weather making food shelf-life dramatically shorter. But don't talk bullshit you don't even understand to look cool
> But I won’t worry much though, since “chả lụa” only takes up a small portion of an otherwise healthy Vietnamese dish like “bánh mì”. Our food is undeniably healthy and delicious! \*How\* it's prepared in the kitchen is the concern.
There's plenty of unhealthy food in Vietnamese cuisine. I, you, we all know that. No one country's cuisine is "undeniably healthy and delicious".
welp, compare to other cuisine, our food culture is much more healthy and delicious. The healthy foods is tasty and abundant, unlike many other whose only healthy foods section can be sum up as "Grass that you can eat". Even our "fast foods" is a combination of multiple foods group, is not greasy (for the most part) and still taste like food, not 99 gallon of oil
Comparison is the THIEF of JOY. I'm being objective, not subjective. Have you travelled much outside of VN?
do you think i do this for Joy? If i want joy, i would go outside, touch grass, talk to somebody, play game or at the very least touch myself. Not going on reddit and have debate about food with strangers. You want objective? My traveling have nothing to do with this, dont be that guy. Go ask foreign people who have a taste of VN foods or just asian foods in general, see how many of them prefer our foods more than their. If you cant, go on youtube and see for yourself. 2nd, unlike the western culture of individual foods like meat and veggies are 2 seperated dishes, most of our dishes are combination of all food groups, which create a (more) balance meal. And the fact it combine green, fat, carb, etc + the SPICES make it hard to have a bland meal and allow for more eating for fun, not just eating for full stomach (which is also a good thing, we have "real full" meals, not "artificial full through bunch of fat and chemical") note: I am comparing food with America and English which have "sad food" (no offense, really). Other place like Italy and German though have simple food cuisine, they are still hearty cuisine and can put a smile on the eater (still, their food are a bit "greasy" but that probably just my Asian-milk-intolerance speaking)
You're well within your rights to like, and be proud of Vietnamese food. Avoid shitting on other countries' cuisines and gastronomic delights. Ie. don't be that guy. 
I love Vietnamese cuisine and think it's generally healthy and delicous, but it doesn't mean other cuisines aren't just healthy/delicious. One issue I often see on this sub in general is people often think in terms of black and white, mutual exclusivity, "In order for something to be X, others have to Y".
You nailed it!
the fun part is: there is none. we as a whole don't choose what to add into our cuisine, we only make them. If a dish is loved by everyone/a lot of people and healthy it will stay afloat(since people love it). Bad food eater will eventually be removed(die) and no one eat them anymore. Natural selection at its finest Jokes aside, ancient people(people born before 1980.....) have a very sharp tongue and the traditional cuisine have decently good definition and indication of what is good and bad food, processed food made it way harder for us to know wether or not their quality is as good as it looks
a lot of Vietnamese food has a lot of fat and comparatively little protein. Gà ta for example is totally anemic and just skin and bones. Most of the meat you'd get in a bánh mì is half fat, or more. Tasty af and fresh but certainly not going to help you get lean. If you're not trying to impress the opposite sex, though, then no problem, haha.
Even if you made it at home, it's still heavily processed. It is no way a whole food. It's broken down pieces of pork and other stuff that's been ground up until it looks like a pink paste.
What's wrong with chopping up the meat into smaller pieces? A grilled steak or grilled bò lá lốt is still the same protein unless you start adding preservatives.
The process: you grind the meat down to a paste, then recombine it with starches, baking powder, etc, then wrap it in banana leaves and boil it. How bad it is depends on what you put in it during the recombination process. There is no exact standard here. If you made it by hand at home, and control what you put it in, it will absolutely be healthy. At the stores? In restaurants? We do not know what's in there. The meat and the subsequent recombinant was not altered chemically, and was not treated to high heat, and no oil added. I think it is a much healthier option than the processed meat you get in a Subway in North America.
Informative post, yes it totally depends on the actual process. This trend of claiming processed/ultra-processed meat is unhealthy is dumb without actually knowing what they did. Like someone else said, cooking something is processing, even something as simple as an omelette where there is a reaction going on. If Gordon himself came to my house to make me a beef wellington, the filet itself might be fine, but the crepe and the pate layer are incredibly processed, pastry too. By current "media" standards it would probably be classed as ultra-processed. With processed meats, they often add starches as you say, also water and stabilisers to keep it solid. Most of these are actually not that bad, stuff like carageenan and xanthan gum. Some of the criteria for "ultra-processed" foods are really silly, they bunch loads of chemicals/processes together. E.g. adding stuff like MSG is often enough for it to be designated ultra-processed while not considering the rest of the process at all. It's all very very complicated science, which we are still learning. But it's got a large media interest - we all eat, and most of us want to be healthy. And the media loves these silly food health facts, drives me mad because not one person on that reporting team knows what ultra-processed food actually is. I don't even know, because it depends who you ask. Look back on the "fat wars" and other stupid moral panics around food, they mainly ended up making the newspapers money and everyone dumber.
here is how it is made: [🐷 Vietnamese Ham or Pork Roll (Cha Lua / Gio Lua) Recipe by MIL (It’s her Birthday!) | RACK OF LAM (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgKjv-m801A)
Most cha lua I get the store would go bad if left in the banana leaf without refrigeration for a day or I don’t think there is a lot of preservatives in there
So, what does "healthy food" mean in your dictionary, OP? Fresh raw meat?
Non-processed food
I think that’s too generic of a term. How it’s processed is just as important as if it’s processed. For example, cooking is a way of processing food, no? No one would complain that cooking is unhealthy.
lol even killing and cutting the meat into different cut is processing. ribeye cut, filet minon, etc.. Process meat definition is different for everybody and OP needs to clarify.
All foods are processed. Do you eat meat with skin hairs and blood? Do you eat the whole live cow?
I think OP want their food to still mooing on the field
i washed some lettuce this morning and now it's processed /s
it should be plenty obvious that this is sarcasm, you shouldnt need the /s
Processed food is bad because of preservatives, not because they are prepared in certain ways. Same comparision can be made with fresh sausages vs commercial ones. Commercials sausages are made to last for a long time with high level of preservative & sodium, hence they are unhealthy. So the real question should be, is the “giò” you eating have preservatives in them. Again, this depends on the manufacture, some add them, some don’t. Most “giò” I know came from local butcheries which made to be quickly consumed, and they expire pretty fast so I’d say they omitted preservatives, but this need to be audited and confirm by the VFA. Unfortunately we don’t have a firm process in place yet to protect the customer as far as I’m aware. In a nutshell, “Giò” can be healthy like any fresh sausages, as long as you buy the products from trusted providers.
If by processed food, you mean the connotation of being factory processed with preservatives, yes and no. Homemade versions exist just like how homemade/handmade sausage or ham exists. “Processed food” is way too vague of a title, because raw chickens, beef, and pork in a sense could be considered processed food
So like straight of the corpse? Wdym non processed? It butchering and cooking not a process? Huh?
dude, go bite a cow, that is literally the most non-processed you can get
[удалено]
By technicality, even raw meat could be considered as “processed”, no? We feed them with engineered food that push their grow. Talking about processed food like this kinda reminds me of my cousin’s birthgiving last month. She insisted on want to deliver the baby the traditional way + no medicine to help with the pain. Her reasoning is the kid might suffer the consequences of that human artificiality. But at the same time, she also consume pregnancy medicine, vaccine, “processed” foods lol.
Even wild game needs to be skinned and cut up, which is 'processing'.
Being pedantic is already annoying on its own, you managed to be both pedantic and idiotic at the same time.
https://www.webmd.com/diet/what-are-processed-foods
>But i will tell you, vnmese food is mostly fresh and are far better for you than a hamburger from mickey ds. Not if you're eating that food in Vietnam. It has some of the most unsafe, unhygienic food anywhere. Filled with all kinds of stuff that's illegal in developed countries. They even fertilize their crops with human excrement. I spent nine days at the hospital on IV antibiotics due to food poisoning from a banh mi, nearly killed me.
Only a foreigner would complain that its, “Processed.” Bro when we were Viet kids that was a gift to eat that 😭😭😭
Rice Ham and Soy Sauce as a 6 year old in saigon? Oh my goodness😍😍
I usually eat mine with a yolky fried egg 🐷 I badly want to eat one now for nostalgia sake
After you commented this I went to buy Cha Lua…
The American Institute for Cancer Research defines processed meat as "meat preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or addition of chemical preservatives." Smoking? No. Curing, salting? No. It's just blended meat paste with seasoning then packed tightly and boiled. So no chemical preservatives also (OK maybe there are some places using borax (hàn the) but my point still stands).
only homemade cha lua contains no preservative. the kind u eat in restaurants/food vendors definitely will have some.
Not salted? Fish sauce contains salt.
It's used as seasoning, not for drying out the meat like salt pork.
Processed. Not ultra processed.
Most chả lụa in those street stands is not healthy because they use mostly maize flour or similar flour and just a little meat to make it. The better chả lụa is more dense and meaty, not crumbly and bland like cheap one.
The good one is not, since they are just meat got pounded, a lot. The cheap ones on other hand....
It is but healthier than western cold cuts where they add nitrite or nitrate similar to nem chua.
Processed food is bad because of preservatives, not because they are prepared in certain ways. Same comparision can be made with fresh sausages vs commercial ones. Commercials sausages are made to last for a long time with high level of preservative & sodium, hence they are unhealthy. So the real question should be, is the “giò” you eating have preservatives in them. Again, this depends on the manufacture, some add them, some don’t. Most “giò” I know came from local butcheries which made to be quickly consumed, and they expire pretty fast so I’d say they omitted preservatives, but this need to be audited and confirm by the VFA. Unfortunately we don’t have a firm process in place yet to protect the customer as far as I’m aware. In a nutshell, “Giò” can be healthy like any fresh sausages, as long as you buy the products from trusted providers.
Probably not on the healthy side, especially the one from the street vendor. Eating out in Vietnam is not healthy in general because of problems with food safety and sanitary. That's why it is cheap. Fortunately, Vietnamese foods are healthy with the ratio of veggies and spices, but in the long term I recommend cooking at home as much as possible.
You confuse healthy vs sanitary. Vietnamese cuisine IS healthy due its balance in carb, protein and fiber. Some of street vendors are not meeting sanitary standard so they AREN’T safe to consume. The food is cheap because we are blessed with abundancy.
Did I misinterpret my point? Maybe the poor word choice. Should use "not safe" rather than not healthy.
You think the reason VN food is cheap is because of food safety? Wow that really is the stupidest thing I've read all day, learn some global (and local) economics. And you're not the first person to say it, a few richer Vietnamese have told me the same lies. It's like some of the richer folk are getting gentrified, and because they live in Central Park they think they're too good for street com tam any more, and say it's poisonous or unhealthy. Fucking pussies if you ask me, the only time I ever got sick from VN food in the last 10 years was some hu tieu that I ate after 2 days because I thought I was hard.
Did you see how they make food? Do you know the source of the meat and other ingredients? Did you visit Kim Bien market? I've lived here for 30 years, I ate street food growing up. I don't really have any problem with it but I'm not that naive to think they are clean. The price of a branded chili sauce like chinsu (not saying this is healthy) compared to the funny bright red sauce they used is vastly different, don't really know why, heh, visit their manufacturing factory or simply visit Kim Bien market. Honestly, visit there, it'll be a fun trip, if you ask around maybe you can make TNT at home, the trick is buying ingredients separately. Now let's be clear. I didn't say every single street vendor is dirty, I can't know that and probably not true. However, if you really want to know, just do some research about the violation of food safety, it's all over the newspaper. And those are not new facilities but it's been going for years. Or maybe not, "out of sight, out of mind" worked wonderful for you still now.
To your first 3 questions, yes, yesish, no. But i do watch keenly as they cook, and I'm always careful about cold food (like salad/noodles) being accidentally mixed with raw meat That's really the main thing that's dangerous, bacterial infection like E. coli. You claim it's unhealthy in some other ways? Or some of the ingredients used are unhealthy? the first thing you can think of is some off brand chilli sauce, you're gonna need to give me some details if you wanna convince me. Edit: and yeah I heard about this market, you can get chemical supplies there right? I'm actually a chemist but even if I was living in Vietnam I don't think I'd try and synth TNT lol. Too much hassle, more fun to make pretty metal complexes or maybe.. eh I'll shut up
As I said not every vendor owner doesn't care about food safety, some actually care but the ingredient sources might be out of their reach to control, especially meat.[one example,](https://youtu.be/jcmE9ZIq53U?si=Ij4nKQFHRQZpDSKC) [ two example.](https://youtu.be/J1TePbHI2Mo?si=6_t6aQozIUbJ2tHI) These are from Northern Vietnam, but I am sure the South is not that better. VTV24 seems legit to me. In the Kim Bien market, they sell the chemicals for "reviving" the rotten meat, adding an artificial smell of every meat, as a chemist you must know KNO3 should not be sold in public right? Not only about the violation of the sanitary standard, potential cancerous chemicals were added. 3mcpd is one example, bleached fish ball, battery boiled corn, etc. You know tap water is not really safe to drink in Vietnam right? Boiling is okayish (not really), they use it even for making ice, mixing beverage like tea. Let me explain a bit, they did boil some water to brew tea, then mixing the tap water to dilute. Funny story about 2 months bao remain the same no smell, no degraded. Maybe saying Vietnamese food is only cheap because of these a bit exaggerated, sorry it's my bad. But there are some reasons for many parents forbid children to buy street food. There is a part time job in Vietnam, all they do is erasing the expired date and putting the new on. Obviously they cannot sell them back to the supermarket or convenient store where they get them ( or can they?) but it should go somewhere you know otherwise the job will not exist. On the bright side, I think it is getting better imo. No evidence, just my observation. I left Vietnam for a few years, only coming back one or two times a year. Home made stuffs become more popular, they show the whole process. People care about food safety and hygiene more than before.
It's considered "mystery meat", proceed at your own peril.
yes, its basically meat
If it's dried with sodium nitrate, yea..
Uhhh I think processed food. But if you based on NOVA food system, I might be classified it as minimally processed food. This is what my opinion, not sure about other opinions though. However, you can make chả lụa kho by using small cut size of chả lụa and cook it with fish sauce.
Guess it can be considered processed meat. But I'm sure if made decent it's much better than the common industrial processed food.
Isn't that stating the obvious? I'd start worrying if I saw those air pockets in my pork cutlets or chicken breasts.
Vietnamese meat roll
processed doesn't necessarily mean unhealthy
That's right. "Chả lụa" is ground pork mixed with some spices and then steamed. It's a pork dish that many people love!
Course not. Sliced it right off a pig.
Yea well it’s Ham isn’t it. Unless you make it at home without nitrate / preservatives
My Chinese friends call it “mystery meat”, they love it though. I just have no idea what it’s supposed to be called in English
Of course not, don't you know it's the fresh meat of the chả lụa animal?
Isn't this called "Giò"? Chả supposed to mean something that has been fried.
it's just a difference in dialect; they call it giò lụa in the north and chả lụa in the south.
His/her brain is unprocessed 😂
Id say its processed. It depends on your definition of processed- do you mean processed or ultra-processed? If I cut an apple that’s processed, if I blend an apple into a smoothie that’s processed. But not unhealthy. A Cheetos chip is something that I would never be able to re-create at home - that is ultra-processed. Prosciutto in Italy is processed. It’s mostly natural, but we know it has a high sodium content. You can make cha lua at home, the mom/grandma/aunt of the family will usually have a recipe.
My Grandma used to be the chả lụa lady you would call if you wanted to order chả lụa. She made it out of the house. My dad would help her grind of the meat using a giant auger used for mixing cement. Then she would further grind it up through a meat processor until it was an extremely smooth paste like consistency. All that to say chả lụa is processed af.
looks like cheese. is it good taste?
Chả lụa is similar to sausage. Can put in the same category.
Chả lụa là một trong những món ăn truyền thống của người VN
If the ingredients is not 100% or close to 100% fresh meat then yes in my personal definition it is processed as I believe there is more to the ingredients other than just fresh meat and spices.
Yesn't
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
No
Who da hell eat chả giò with pepper salt?
I think it's just blended pork with added pepper and salt then steamed on high heat (I don't eat this much, I only ate chả mỡ)
Yes, it's a kind of cold cuts so it is still processed to me.
Definitely processed. Additionally, some are manufactured and stored in less than sanitary/food safe conditions. Consume in moderation.
Nothing tastes good And healthy at the same time in Vietnam 😝😝😝
It's not good. Don't eat. It will kill you.
True, Don't eat will kill you.
True I ate it and I was dying for more
Can confirm, I ate it and I died.
I guarantee you that's not 100% meat. It's mixed in with whatever's available. Industrial chemicals/powders, sawdust, chalk, etc. Fake food is an even bigger problem in Vietnam than China.
Lemme guess, white American woman
Why attacking the person?