Police and health officials in Dong Nai Province inspect the goods of a local distributor of imported frozen meat.

Frozen meat imports lack nutrition and contain more harmful elements that cause diseases, especially animals’ bowels, nutrition experts said.

Doctor Tran Van Ky from the Vietnam Association of Food Science and Technology said an extensive period of freezing will transform some kinds of nutritious proteins into toxins.

After being kept frozen for too long, “only 30 percent of its content is nutritious and the rest is toxic,” said Ky, in charge of overseeing cooking hygiene and safety in the south.

Customers who purchase meat before the mandatory waiting period are buying from unofficial distributors.

Frozen meat imports enjoy brisk sales because prices are only about half of those that are produced domestically.

The meat is usually frozen at 20 degrees Celsius below zero to keep it from rotting.

“Even if the low temperatures can guarantee that the meat is fine, it will lose many vitamins, minerals such as zinc and magnesium and fatty acids,” said Le Kim Hue city, a doctor from the Ho Chi Minh City Nutrition Center.

Hue advised consumers who buy frozen meat from the market to use it immediately after thawing. If refrozen, the changes in temperature will create ideal conditions for bacteria to reproduce.

Cattle and livestock bowels contain harmful bacteria that take advantage of such temperature shifts, she said.

People in developed countries don’t often eat animal bowels, according to Hue, because those parts have a high concentration of cholesterol that could cause heart conditions.

Animal bowels, heads and feet are usually used as ingredients for special dishes in Vietnam, but Ky said those parts in developed countries “are not used for people but only to make animal feed.”

Animal bowels are pathogenic bacteria holders while the heads and feet have no nutrition, he said.

Ky suggested the Vietnamese government ban the import of animal bowels, heads and feet as those are “the discarded leftovers of other countries.”

In March, the Ministry of Finance raised the import duties on beef to 33 percent from 17 percent. Recently, the import value from frozen meat dropped 21-24 percent month on month.

Reported by Quang Thuan – Thanh Tung