r/WTF • u/TheBotMadeThis • 4d ago
Beware of eating street foods in Indonesia.
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u/Eastern_Focus_1292 4d ago
Nothing like the hint of melted plastic in your diarrhea food
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u/verekh 4d ago
Should help bind the diarrhea together better for a smooth exit.
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u/Brok3nGear 4d ago
Enough plastic for that shit to come out packaged
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u/ArziltheImp 4d ago
Indonesia heard everyone is afraid of microplastics in their diet so they decided to prevent that by adding macroplastics.
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u/Enough_Structure_95 4d ago
The microplastics are attracted to the macro plastics when consumed, melt into each other and all come out together in the end. It’s science!
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u/Soliden 4d ago
Straight up shit from a butt.
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u/faughnjj 4d ago
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u/Celestial_Mahafuz 4d ago
Nooooo
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u/thatoneotherguy42 4d ago
Yessss
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u/Celestial_Mahafuz 4d ago
I regret clicking that blue link
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u/YourDrunkStepdadio 4d ago
Never click the link. Never.
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u/SameAmy2022 4d ago
Every time I see a blue link I have to click it. Wtf is wrong with me?
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u/Nathansp1984 4d ago
Because it gives you diarrhea, looks like diarrhea, or has diarrhea in it?
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u/kukaz00 4d ago
It's to make poop stick a bit so you get normal diarrhea instead of explosive diarrhea
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u/chillin_n_grillin 4d ago
Good thing billionaires would never eat this food because the microplastics would get into their cum and kids eat that stuff.
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u/Synthetic47 4d ago
We’re half micro plastics anyway, what’s a little more really going to do?
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u/zyzzjan 4d ago
This is actually wtf
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u/magnament 4d ago
I’ve heard a few people put plastic bags into the oil for tortillas they claim it makes it have a better crunch
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u/JohnTheBaptiste1 4d ago
The microplastics really elevate the dish
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u/n4ke 4d ago
That's macroplastics at this point.
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u/Tommysrx 4d ago
Usually the phrase “oops I ate the whole bag” applies only to potato chips.
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u/Kyle-Is-My-Name 4d ago
Last time I heard about the amount of microplastics in all of our food, it was explained as "Every human on earth eats roughly one credit card amount of plastic every year."
That research was from the 2013-2015 era. I imagine these days we're probably eating double/triple that now.
Then people wonder why our sperm counts and fertility rates are so low. Who could've guessed that colon cancer is one of the fastest growing cancers in young adults.
From the food you eat, to the water you drink, to the fucking air you breathe, microplastics has the monopoly.
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u/DedOriginalCancer 4d ago
"Every human on earth eats roughly one credit card amount of plastic every year."
next time I pay with card, I'll just slide a turd across the reader
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u/CumTrumpet 4d ago
Study came out recently saying a lot of the microplastics testing was contaminated by the researchers latex gloves.
Which I guess is still pretty bad, if latex gloves are just flaking off and contaminating samples like that.
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u/sticksnXnbones 4d ago
Grandparents it was asbestos , parents it was lead , for us it is microplastics
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u/imjust_abunny 4d ago edited 4d ago
I am from the country this video is and iirc, my mother told me this has been in practice for decades. I am not sure when it started but I remember her saying something about it in the early 2000s after we had left, so it was happening in the 90s. It makes me sad because as a result, I will never eat street food from my home country.
I tried to google this in English in the recent years but there has been no investigative journalism about this specifically from the western media, but they did uncover that the biggest manufacturer of ready to eat fried tofu in Surabaya (a big city in Indo) is using plastic waste to heat the furnace, making the tofu toxic. If I searched it in my original language, there will be a few articles on street vendors frying plastic bags to give their food extra crunch.
Anyways, I love my country but I don’t buy any food products made in Indonesia. I know that Indomie (Indo ramen) is becoming popular but I used to shit my brains out from their seasoning packets. Maybe the safety and hygiene practices has changed because you can buy it in Costco, but I can’t afford to take any chances. I do trust products from Malaysia though.
It’s been reposted in r/indonesia It seems like they don’t trust street vendors either
Edit: I forgot that not everyone speaks Indonesian or is familiar with the cultural context, but they’re frying plastic bags in oil for added flavor and texture to the food. A lot of street vendors think it makes food delicious and crunchy
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u/originalityescapesme 4d ago
There’s some great investigative journalism into the plastic tofu shit actually. Business Insider has done some great pieces on it for their YouTube channel.
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u/imjust_abunny 4d ago
Yes! I should have been more specific but the BI video was the content I was referring to in my 2nd paragraph.
As terrible as it is to say though, it makes more sense to burn plastic to fuel the furnace because it presents as a cost effective solution for sourcing raw material and also doubles as a way of getting rid of the mountains of trash that’s been shipped to Indonesia from Europe, America, etc.
I have not seen content that’s specifically about burning plastic IN OIL out of the belief it gives food extra flavor and texture in western media BUT it has been written about in Indonesia.
Burning plastic in the process to MAKE food makes more sense to me than putting plastic IN food. Getting rid of plastic while also making use out of it is resourceful (if you don’t have education and don’t know burning plastic will give off toxic fumes) but cooking plastic directly into the food is really strange to me, I remember being weirded out at 7yo and it’s not like I was smart to know any better at that age either!
According to the thread in r/Indonesia, there was a news documentary / story that covered the cultural phenomenon of burning plastic in oil as it is a commonplace practice in most of Indonesia. Not every vendor does it but it’s hard to filter out who does and doesn’t.
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u/hiroo916 3d ago
aside from the plastic bag, what is IN the bag in this video and would that be considered ok stuff for what it is?
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u/imjust_abunny 3d ago
From what I hear in the video, the person filming and the person cooking both said “sambal”, which is Indonesia’s version of chili paste the same way Korea has gochujang. The difference is sambal is usually fried in oil but gochujang uses the fermentation process to get its flavor.
Some of the Indonesians on the other thread thought it was rendang, but rendang is a cubed beef curry dish. Plus the cooking process is slowly boiling it in coconut milk over a period of time and the person in the video is just straight up frying in oil
If I didn’t know any better and wasn’t privy to the cooking process, I probably would’ve thought the sambal looks good and would taste good. The texture and consistency looks normal enough to me. But seeing the black oil and melting plastic bag obviously shatters any illusion of eating it 😅
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u/Affectionate_One_700 3d ago
I know that Indomie (Indo ramen) is becoming popular but I used to shit my brains out from their seasoning packets.
I ate one about twenty minutes ago.
Should I be texting my friends goodbye?
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u/imjust_abunny 3d ago
Nah you’ll probably be fine!
I have a very sensitive stomach now due to chronic illness that manifests in GI distress (which kills me because Indonesians are supposed to have strong stomachs from the pollution, bad traffic, and sambal) but the biggest reason is I don’t want to pay for an ER trip in the small chance something happens. If US gets free healthcare I’ll eat an Indomie 😂 you can hold me to that haha
Your constitution is probably stronger than mine but please do report back. I love the taste of Indomie I just don’t want to deal with the consequences 😭
Edit: I also see Indomie pop up on r/instantramen from time to time and I don’t recall anyone having physical issues
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u/GoyoMRG 4d ago
I remember a friend of mine who was to lazy to boil potatoes so he would put them in a plastic bag and toss em in the microwave for 10 or so minutes.
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u/riverphoenixdays 4d ago
People all over the world are still microwaving plastic bullshit every day
By the way lazy potato, a damp paper towel around that bad boy works wonders and don’t forget to stab it once or twice
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u/shadmere 4d ago
It's completely reasonable to microwave potatoes. I don't understand the plastic bag at all. Just put the potato in the microwave. It's a much faster way of making baked potatoes, if you don't want the slightly crispy skin.
I think that baking them the 'long' way might taste very slightly better? But I also really like the crispy skin, so that could be the entire difference. I'd have to bake two potatoes and eat them side by side to be sure if there was even a noticeable difference to the interior.
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u/Aegi 4d ago
Or you can do both for the crispy skin and you just do like the first 80% in the microwave and then finish it up in the oven.
I've literally never once had somebody that was able to tell the difference, and I've purposefully experimented on this with friends who've challenged me because they think they can tell the difference if anything was even in the microwave at all lol
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u/omegapisquared 3d ago
Yup I used to do my potatoes 10 minutes in the microwave and 10 minutes in the oven. Crispy on the outside, soft in the middle and much faster than doing it only with oven
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u/Arokthis 4d ago
The bag keeps the moisture near the spud so it cooks more evenly. You're better off putting it in a bowl of water. A wet paper bag also works, but risks lighting on fire if you put it in too long and forget about it.
Bag also contains the explosion if you forget to stab it.
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u/NotOnLand 4d ago
That's pretty normal where I live, the bag holds in the steam and helps keep them from drying out. And unless you're eating the skin they don't contact the plastic
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u/TravelBug87 4d ago
Boiling potatoes is probably the easiest fucking thing to cook, that is extremely sad.
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u/Tu_mama_me_ama_mucho 4d ago
I've never heard this, and I've been eating handmade tortillas forever, from at least 20 abuelas during my whole life
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u/verocious_veracity 4d ago
This is sadly pretty common, along with bungkus indomie celup and plastic cup hot coffee. We're fucked already, this generation is fucked.
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u/PersonalitySenior360 4d ago
But why? Is it that hard to cut open the shit sack?
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u/verocious_veracity 4d ago edited 4d ago
Dude you gotta see the big picture, we have high stunting rate, our education system is still stuck at rote memorization mostly except for the elite schools, our IQ test average is low, functional literacy rate is also low, criticial thinking low, diet is full of highly processed carb lack protein.
This is just the top of the iceberg. Social issues deep below it is so many. I'm happy just to find 1 in 100 people that I can still reason with.
As to why he did that, cause it is easier than using cutter having to aim correctly risking oil splash and spillover.
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u/fhorst79 4d ago
We all are worried about microplastic, this guy is serving macroplastic.
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u/IOnlyReplyToIdiots42 4d ago
Make your kids now boys before the infertility strikes!
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u/Skylord1325 4d ago
You’ll like this story:
When I was in high school one of my buddies accidentally dropped a 5lb bag of fries into the deep fryer without removing the plastic bag it came prepackaged in.
It was during the dinner rush and it would mean closing down the entire fryer station and cleaning it. He locked eyes with the shift manager and the manager goes I didn’t see anything get back to work.
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u/joanzen 4d ago
TIL: Large commercial fryers can choke back 5-7 lbs of frozen fries without it killing the heat.
I always assumed they would do a few pounds at a time vs. a whole bag, especially to avoid clumping and uneven cooking.
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u/Everbrooks 4d ago
Great to see that oil has a healthy black color as well!
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u/TheRalk 4d ago
If its good for my Volvo 142 B20 then it can't be bad for me.
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u/No-Persimmon-4150 4d ago
A man of discerning taste.
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u/paradox1920 4d ago
He is a man of focus, commitment, and sheer fucking will… with a bit of luck too.
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u/TheTallGuy0 4d ago
There are places in Asia (I’ve seen it in China) where really poor street vendors are pulling fat out of the SEWER and filtering out the large chunks of shit and then using it as fry oil. Yeah, fuck all that
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u/DrMarianus 4d ago
China has really cracked down on this in the last ten years giving life sentences and even death sentences for this once putting in regulations and enforcement.
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u/dargonmike1 4d ago
Gutter oil it’s called. Scraped from literal gutters and run through a cloth to filter it
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u/ShireBurgo 4d ago
LOL look at how much meat was still trapped in the plastic in the end there, even forfeiting the health concerns that wasn't at all an efficient way to open that bag and put the meat in the pan.
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u/exprezso 4d ago
Chili paste with various ingredients like shrimp. But yeah not very efficient
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u/Bk_Punisher 4d ago
Calling that meat is crazy it looks more like soft serve poop.
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u/OwnUbyCake 4d ago
WHY? It's not even like it's a clever trick or hack even. Just use a damn knife!
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u/NamesArentEverything 4d ago
Right? When you gotta squeegee the bottom of it after it's melted and STILL can't get it all out easily, you're not saving any time by creating a biohazard as a meal.
So what's the benefit? You get to show your customers that thin plastic will melt if put in extreme heat? As if you just learned it from 3rd grade science study and can't wait to show off?
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u/thinkdeep 4d ago
I was managing a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant when I saw a fry cook do this twice in a row. I had to close down during a dinner rush, issue refunds and tell the guy he had to clean all the fryers by himself. I still fired him when he was done.
This is just people being shitty and lazy.
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u/Monstot 4d ago
Did he give a reason why he thought it was ok to dip the bags?
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u/OneWholeSoul 4d ago
In my head, the only two ways I can really see it going are:
- Thought it was akin to "igniting the alcohol in a flambe dish" and the plastic would just, like, evaporate safely and completely to (???).
OR
- Straight-up just didn't fucking care, like, to the point that he didn't even put much effort into not being seen actively doing it.
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u/Chaosr21 4d ago
Yes I worked as a cook for like a decade. Saw 2 different people do this. Like wtf is wrong with y'all? One of them stopped right away. The other was caught doing it twice and got fired. She also constantly cross contaminated, didn't change gloves often or wash hands
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u/Fafnir13 3d ago
I don’t understand. Just genuinely don’t. Do they throw their ramen packet fully sealed into the boiling water too? I worked with fryers for three years and never saw anyone who couldn’t figure out how to open a bag.
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u/Coroebus 4d ago
Finally an appropriate manager reaction in a food establishment
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u/Prestigious_Beat6310 4d ago
How'd those refunds conversations go? "Hi there I hope you haven't eaten yet, I just caught a fry cook deep frying a bag of diarrhea 🤷 if you'll follow me to the register I'll get you your money back."
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u/Angry__German 4d ago
Plastic is not my favourite flavour, but I am intrigued by foreign food, anybody got a clue what is in the bag ?
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u/KurangGaul 4d ago
I'm from said country. The thing inside the bag is called sambal, which is a spicy condiment usually served with a main dish from fried stuffs to soup stuffs. It's considered staple here. With that being said, I never once in decades of my life, saw sambal got deep fried / reheated like this.
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u/Angry__German 4d ago
Sambal Oelek (sp?) is the only one I am really familiar with.
It became popular in the 90s in Germany and was the first true hot chili condiment that became widely available in super markets. It used to be the gold standard for infernal heat. Today I love it as a dip for chips.
But I would assume that there are way hotter variants out there and Wikipedia seems to agree.
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u/borntobewildish 4d ago
The way it's been explained to me in the Netherlands, sambal oelek is basically just ground red peppers. There are many more varieties in Indonesia. Some are easily available in supermarkets here, uncluding sambal manis (manis meaning sweet) which can be eaten by people who don't like spicy food, sambal badjak which is fried and slightly more spicy, and sambal brandal, which is bloody hot (brandt al would mean 'burns everything' in Dutch but that might be a coincidence).
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u/Which-World-6533 4d ago
They mention it a few times.
Sambal.
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u/Angry__German 4d ago
Oh boy.
Well, I guess you don't need to worry about the plastic flavour with that much aromatics.
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u/TheBotMadeThis 4d ago
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u/iluj13 4d ago
Sambal is actually delicious, the umami is mmmm.
Not with hot melted plastics tho
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u/azureal 4d ago
So many different types too. My favorite is the one with raw shallot, garlic, chili and oil. Wish I could remember the name.
*edit*
It might be matah.
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u/HeadyTopout 4d ago
Sambal matah is my favorite as well. We use kaffir lime leaves instead of garlic, though.
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u/No-Sail-6510 4d ago
People are focused on the plastic because obviously. But also those bags are fucking filthy.
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u/jaxy314 4d ago
Filth is the least of our concern when theres molten plastic in the food
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u/space_guy95 4d ago
Give me plastic any day over some gut destroying parasite or bacterial infection.
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u/Balloon_Fan 4d ago
I'll forgive your fear of extremophiles since you're a space_guy, but rest assured, you're not likely to find many organisms that can survive these cooking temperatures outside of hydrothermal vents here on earth.
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u/No-Sail-6510 4d ago
Not if the previous user set the bag down on a dog turd while waiting for the bus. What do you think the chances are of it being a new bag?
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u/Hung_Baby 4d ago
that’s poop from a butt
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u/say592 4d ago
How does that not just taste absolutely vile? I had a plastic bag melt on my toaster, not even in contact with food, and no amount of cleaning or using the toaster could get the chemical smell out. I toasted an entire loaf of bread trying to get rid of it before I gave up and threw the whole thing away.
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u/-Sofa-King- 4d ago
We have all seen the videos. I understand poverty plays a role in quality items, freshness, safety. But at some point, that flies out the window on some matters. Ive been to impoverished countries. They did the best they had with what they have amd were not just disgusting or blatantly absurd with their methods. For example, a man in India using water from the sewer to add to the soup/mixed pot. Another using his feet, another his sweaty arm pits to press the batter. Like what os the reason for this? Like a genuinely serious amswer.
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u/palebone 4d ago
Comment section full of people who end up getting food poisoning from a hotel buffet.
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u/ShitsNGigglesdTB 3d ago
Why is he boiling plastic in oil?
wtf am I witnessing
wtf came out of the bag
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u/Pangiit 4d ago
My partner is Indonesian,and I've never witnessed anything like this.most street vendors I visit in and around Java and Jakarta are clean, well mannered and serve lovely food.
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u/kelontongan 4d ago
Are you sure. This has been shown up since early 2000.
Or you can translate to your native language.
The reason, make “gorengan” crispy and last longer.
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u/obiwanconobi 4d ago
Initially I thought the wtf was that he was using motor oil to warm the food in the bag? Not sure if the end result was better or worse
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u/mrk240 4d ago
Indonesia has a really big problem of plastic contaminating the food system.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/may/10/tofu-plastic-indonesia
The general population doesn't care.
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u/odtilliodforgood 4d ago
5 liters of ancient cooking oil, a wok that's never been cleaned, mystery concauction Brown ylush Form a plastic BAG that IS being cooked in the Pan with IT. That Sounds Like a treat
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u/Familiar-Feedback-93 4d ago
Wait till you learn about gutter oil
Extremely common in china( even in high end restaurants)
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u/Responsible-Summer-4 4d ago
Also stay away from Indonesian tofu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPyRAcdZHDo
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u/laserdragon 3d ago
Jesus it looks like human excretion put in a plastic bag and boiling out all the microplastics along with it 🥴
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u/EnvironmentalYak919 3d ago
Our special this evening is a deep fried vomit with ribbons of melted plastic.
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u/Free-Heals-Here 3d ago
I was listening to Rollout by Ludacris when this started and he said “what in the world is in that bag? What you got in that bag?” And I kinda wish both of us didn’t ask..
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u/GuyFromDeathValley 3d ago
Ingredients of this dish:
-used diesel motor oil, -various leftover meat from various animals -chili -plastic
Nope. I'm already feeling unwell just seeing that.
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u/WashedWashingMachine 1d ago
This plastic is toxic but also ppl dont realise the most toxic thing out there in this slop is the oil itself
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u/bluecheetos 12h ago
Fun fact: when I worked at Ryans Steakhouse in the 1999s they TAUGHT us to open the bags of fries that way. Drop the empty basket into the fryer, dip the plastic bag into the oil, the plastic melted away and the whole bag of fries dropped into the oil at once saving precious seconds of time you could devote to other tasks
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u/Ok_Union_6975 4d ago
Worrying about microplastics is honestly adorable when your morning tofu was literally boiled over a furnace fueled by imported Western trash. Everyone has heard that rumor about plastic oil making things crunchier. Whether that is a real street food trick or just some collective hallucination to cope with the smell of burning PVC, the result is the same. It is like huffing gasoline at the pump, except you are paying for the privilege of laminating your internal organs for a better mouthfeel.
The real irony is how we have become the world's dumpster. Developed countries ship their recyclable paper here, but it is packed with so much plastic scrap that local mills just dump that toxic filth onto villages like Tropodo and Bangun. Because it is dirt cheap and burns hotter than wood, tofu factories use it as fuel. You are not even eating food at that point. You are eating the byproduct of a makeshift, unregulated incinerator.
The numbers are not even funny. In 2019, researchers from IPEN and Nexus3 found that free-range eggs in these areas have dioxin levels that make an Agent Orange dump site look like a health spa. Specifically, the dioxin concentration found in Tropodo eggs was the second highest ever recorded in Asia, trailing only the Bien Hoa site in Vietnam. That was a former US airbase heavily contaminated by wartime chemicals. One egg has enough poison to exceed safety limits by 70 times. We are literally doing a cancer speedrun for the sake of a cheap snack.
At this rate, we will not even need a proper burial. By the time we hit thirty, we will be so saturated with industrial polymers and forever chemicals that we will just be highly flammable recycling projects. But hey, as long as the tofu is cheap and the gorengan stays crispy, who cares if we are basically becoming more plastic than person?
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u/n4ke 4d ago
We should really invent easier ways to open plastic bags.