Food risks? What food risks? Gaps between perception and practice in Chinese food consumption

This chapter takes as its starting point the fast increasing number of food-related scandals in the People’s Republic of China that have received much attention from both traditional as well as new media both inside China as well as internationally. The outrage over these scandals and the often expressed fears by Chinese consumers of being poisoned by the food they need to survive are contrasted with the mostly unconcerned performance of food consumption at home or in restaurants that can be observed across households in China. Through the use of secondary data and ethnographic materials it will be argued that there is a disconnect between the performed outrage of scared Chinese consumers online and the appreciation of supposedly good food by Chinese people in their everyday lives.