Barbara Demick suggests that kimchi critics are keeping silent:
Kimchi is a matter of great national pride, and much of the research has been government-funded.
“I think kimchi practically defines Korean-ness,” said Park Chae-lin, curator of the museum.
Understandably, perhaps, dissenters on the topic of its healing power are circumspect.
“I’m sorry. I can’t talk about the health risks of kimchi in the media. Kimchi is our national food,” said a researcher at Seoul National University, who begged not to be quoted by name.
Among the papers not to be found in the vast library of the kimchi museum is one published in June 2005 in the Beijing-based World Journal of Gastroenterology titled “Kimchi and Soybean Pastes Are Risk Factors of Gastric Cancer.”
The researchers, all South Korean, report that kimchi and other spicy and fermented foods could be linked to the most common cancer among Koreans. Rates of gastric cancer among Koreans and Japanese are 10 times higher than in the United States.
“We found that if you were a very, very heavy eater of kimchi, you had a 50% higher risk of getting stomach cancer,” said Kim Heon of the department of preventive medicine at Chungbuk National University and one of the authors. “It is not that kimchi is not a healthy food — it is a healthy food, but in excessive quantities there are risk factors.”
Kim said he tried to publicize the study but a friend who is a science reporter, told him, “This will never be published in Korea.”
Well, Ms. Demick, you’ve got the Korean media’s attention now.
25 Comments
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that all that gochujang rips a hole in your stomach.
Do other countries get so rabid about making health claims for food items? I don’t hear Germans saying “Spaetzle! Makes a blind man see!” Actually, what other country fetishizes one kind of food like this?
Let ‘em die for their pride. They haven’t figured out that smoking causes lung cancer, either.
QUOTE Actually, what other country fetishizes one kind of food like this? UNQUOTE
Well, in Russia excessive patriotism is sometimes described as “kvas patriotism”, after a fermented drink. For Korea, it would be “kimch’i patriotism”, of course. But I am not aware of too many eulogies to kvas in recent days. Russian ultra-patriots prefer to glorify missiles, novels and ballet. In Korea things are different. Recently I re-read some works by Yi SOng-u, a prominent historian of Korean cuisine, active in the 1970s and 1980s, and was surprised to see how many patriotic observations she managed to embed into a narrative about history of fried meat, sweat potato and fermented cabbage.
But it will be such a great topic for a research: how kimch’i came to be perceived as the cultural symbol of Korea. Long time ago (at least ten years, if not more) I read an article by a Korean anthropologist on this topic. Do not remember the title, though. It was in Korean, in the collection of works of the Korean Anthropological Society.
I wonder if this is because of the pepper irritating the stomach lining or something else at work but I do not think that any epidemiology will ever be done on this either. Perhaps water kimchi or white kimchi would be somewhat better.
Michael, I would consider that Korea’s food culture is older than Germany’s — as is other countries in Asia — thus they are going to have a different attitude towards it. They do seem to be stuck on advertising the healthiness of anything when trying to market it though, except cigarettes. I did see a Korean pack of cigarettes with a taeguk on it last night! That is really sick, IMHO.
R.Elgin, there was no such thing as “kimchi” (with the gochujang etc.) in Korea until what, about 100 years ago…you can thank the Portuguese for that. Also, I don’t see Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese et al. going on about any one food the way Koreans do with the kimchi.
Obviously there is a lot of hoo-ha over 김치 in Korea but I think there is more dissention in the general public than this article gives credit for.
I base this statement on the fact that a significant number of my (admittedly younger) Korean friends would warn me of the dangers of eating too much of the stuff when I’d tell them how much I like it.
Indeed a girl I once knew told me Korea has the higest rate of stomach cancer in the world and the generally accepted reason for this is a lfetime of eating kimchi (I’ve never looked into/discussed the truth of either of these claims any further so I’m not saying they’re true, just that people are saying it).
peace.
Sorry Michael, I guess I meant the whole of the food culture but thanks for the information about the Portuguese addition.
This kimchi cult may be yet another cultural fixation upon “why Korea is so unique” ™.
I do remember that there is a Kimchi Museaum at Coex Mall as well — too close to the electronic arcade too.
I also just ran into this mention of this at boing-boing:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006....._migh.html
Koreans just have a deeply-rooted desire to be recognized on the world stage (not that there’s anything wrong with that in and of itself). There’s little more explanation needed.
Also, I find it encouraging that there are actually Korean researchers who are pointing out the potential danger of kimchi. Evidence that it is not entirely “group-think” here. Now if we could just get the media to play along.
Lankov:
한경구, 어떤 음식은 생각하기에 좋다: 김치와 한국 민족성의 정수 [Some foods are good to think: kimchi and the essence of Korean national character] (한국문화인류학 26호, 특집: 음식과 현대 한국 사회, 1994)?
If Koreans are trying to be recognized on the world stage for having invented kimchi as the Ice Man says (and I agree) they really picked a difficult item to win people over with. There’s fermented food in a lot of cultures, so it’s not unusual, but it just seems to have a limited appeal built into it.
The Netizens are going nuts over that article. Anyone who wants to see unadulterated Korean racism and hatred, just take a look. This is why my opinion of Koreans is what it is.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that eating Kim Chi can be harmful.
However, Koreans grew up eating Kim Chi since they were a child. I would expect that through biological evolution of some sort that they would be less prone to the harmful effects of eating Kim Chi. In fact, the opposite may be true, their body learns to build up this resistance that help them fight the ill effects of Kim Chi that also fights other harms. So I am surprised by that finding.
Generally I do not like preserved food. The last time I was forced to eat preserved food like that was when I was still living in a village with my grandma. We didn’t have refrigerators so everything we ate were preserved and salty food. Once we got refrigerators, we migrated to fresh food and left the “poor man’s food” behind - never wanting to eat them ever again.
dogbertt,
I just made a cursory glance at that site (gotta run somewhere), but it seems there are quite a few people supporting the findings of the LA Times article too.
m_fan,
Biological evolution??? Over the course of one’s lifetime? Please stop. M_kay?
Sorry if this is a little off-topic, but what happened to that fiasco over Chinese imported kimchi containing roundworm eggs? When I left Korea, some Korean labs had found parasite eggs in domestic kimchi as well. Any updates to this?
Sambek- the update is that nobody buys Chinese kimchi anymore.
Mahathir Fan,
Evolution takes a lot longer than the amount of time Kimchi’s been around to work on critters as complex as us. Many many lifetimes. People can build up a resistance to some things, but I think carcinogens are not the sorts of things resistance can be developed for.
Sambek_ZX/Max,
Wasn’t the update also that Korean kimchi was found to be adulterated with roundworm? For a while there nobody was eating kimchi in restaurants and then it passed. Have kimchi imports (from China) really halted? I find it hard to believe…
Sodium nitrite and nitrate, used in cured meats and pickled vegetables, have been linked to stomach cancer in many studies, including this one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/en.....t=Abstract
Asians have much higher stomach cancer rates than Westerners. In fact, the disease has shown a decline in the US over the last 60 years as refrigeration has reduced the need for using salt as preservative (http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_2X_Can_stomach_cancer_be_prevented_40.asp?sitearea=)
Milk is North America’s equivalent of kimchi. It is both healthful and unhealthful. A majority of Americans of African, Asian, Hispanic, and native heritage have some degree of lactose intolerance, yet milk is served on every kid’s lunch tray. The rich and powerfu dairy industry continues to promote milk as essential to good health, and stories linking milk consumption to disease get little attention in the media.
Sonagi, interesting stuf. I was thinking more along the lines of beef as being America’s kimchi, though.
Beef? That’s way too universal to be America’s anything.
If there’s anything that could be considered to be America’s kimchi, it’d be the hot dog. Both are preserved, both contain parasite eggs on occasion, and both will make you sick if you eat too much.
America’s kimchi? That’s easy - crack.
there was no such thing as “kimchi” (with the gochujang etc.) in Korea until what, about 100 years ago…you can thank the Portuguese for that.
Not all kimchi contains kochu. A lot of people still eat mul kimchi during the summer months.
Also, I was under the impression that the Japanese were responsible for the introduction of South American chili pepper to Korea? (as a chemical weapon or trade item, you pick) Unless you meant the Portuguese were indirectly responsible? In that case, so were the native peoples of South America…
Umetaro: yes, kimchi has been in Korea forever, but not with gojuchang as I said.
The Portuguese brought the pepper to Asia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimchi
Sorry about that Michael, I seem to have misunderstood you.
As to the Portuguese thing, I trust wikipedia about as far as I can throw the clustered hardware it resides on. I skimmed through the Korean history articles one day and came up with a handful of factual errors (facts, not viewpoints or interpretations) within the first ten minutes.
Anyway, from mr. lankov:
“In the 1540s the first European sailors (overwhelmingly Spaniards and Portuguese) reached Japan and introduced the then new spice there as well. From Japan it was transferred to Korea. In all probability, this happened during the devastating Imjin War of 1592-1598 when Korea was invaded by the Japanese armies. At least, the first references to chilli pepper in Korean books appear soon afterwards.”
also, another korea times article…
“Portuguese traders brought the peppers to Asia and the vegetable arrived in Korea during a Japanese invasion in 1592. One historical account says pepper powder was used as a crude form of tear gas during the fighting.”
Of course, I could be wrong as none of these are primary sources, but from what I’ve read of his material, I tend to trust Mr. Lankov if not the kimchi museum.
Oh, one more thing… isn’t kochujang the bean paste? I’ve never made kimchi before, but I’d imagine you’d just use the kochu and not the paste…
고추 가루…