WITH the fast-paced living environment of Shenzhen, a lot of busy bees sometimes choose to eat fast food instead of proper meals. A recent survey found that over 30 percent of Shenzhen residents name instant noodles as their favorite fast food, sznews.com reported.

    The Shenzhen Municipal Food and Drug Administration recently released a survey of Shenzhen residents’ fast food eating habits. The administration collected 7,814 questionnaires and conducted an examination over several categories of fast food including instant noodles, ham and sausage, bean products, and canned and frozen food.

    According to the survey, instant food was not Shenzhen residents’ top choice for meals. Only 12.5 percent of the respondents replied that they eat instant food every day, while most of the people choose to have instant food once a week or only occasionally.

    The rankings for the most favored instant foods were as follows: instant noodles, frozen food, dried meat, ham, canned rice or porridge, bean products and canned food.

    Over half of the respondents said that they purchase domestic brands of instant food, while products made in Hong Kong and Taiwan ranked second. Instant food produced in European countries, Japan and South Korea followed.

    In terms of where to buy instant foods, as much as 58.5 percent of residents choose to shop at large supermarkets and others prefer convenience stores and online shops, while the last place was taken by street vendors.

    Apart from Shenzhen residents’ consumption habits regarding instant foods, the administration also carried out research on food safety between March and October last year.

    The results showed that all of the smoked ham, frozen foods and instant noodles qualified for consumption, but 11 out of 837 batches of bean products and six out of 395 batches of canned foods that were tested failed to meet the standards for qualification.

    The unqualified soybean products were mainly dried bean curd sheets, bean curd skins and salted soybeans. Two poisonous substances were found on some of the tested products. The substances had been added to the products to make their texture harder and their color lighter so that the products would seem fresher.

    (Zhang Qian)