作者：冯仍
这几天，“甲醛白菜”再次登上中国网络热搜。
事情并不复杂。2026年8月，一名叫“渔猎齐哥”的自媒体博主在河北张家口康保县调查时发现，一些白菜收购商在装车之前，把一棵棵白菜直接放进甲醛溶液中蘸一下，据称这样可以让白菜在运输途中多保鲜两三天。视频传开后，康保县政府很快发布通报，确认视频反映的情况属实，称这是收购商为了运输保鲜实施的违法行为，公安部门已经对相关人员和车辆采取强制措施，并开始追查涉事白菜流向。随后，国务院食安办、农业农村部、市场监管总局也介入，要求各地开展白菜等易腐蔬菜专项抽检和市场排查。
如果事情到这里结束，它似乎又是一则我们早已经看惯了的中国式食品安全新闻：网络曝光、舆论震动、地方通报、领导重视、成立调查组、全面排查、严肃处理，最后再来一句“举一反三”。
问题恰恰在于，这个“一”，十四年前就已经出现了。
2012年，山东等地就曾曝出商贩使用甲醛给白菜保鲜，此后河北、山东等地又陆续出现类似案件。十四年后的2026年，同样的方法、同样的白菜、同样为了减少运输损耗，甚至连新闻标题都几乎不需要修改，又重新出现在公众面前。更荒唐的是，这一次把问题重新揭开的，不是农业部门，不是市场监管部门，也不是拥有记者证、调查权和庞大采编队伍的官方媒体，而是一名原本以钓鱼、捡垃圾和曝光环境污染闻名的自媒体博主。
所以，我看完这些报道以后，真正让我不安的已经不是那几车白菜。
我更想问：十四年前就知道的事情，为什么十四年后还要靠一个路过的自媒体重新发现？
我在中国生活了四十多年，也曾经从事酒店管理。对于中国人这些年来面对食品安全问题时的那种无奈，我并不陌生。从三聚氰胺奶粉、地沟油、苏丹红、瘦肉精，到后来不断出现的鼠头、槽头肉、罐车混装食用油，再到药水杨梅、甲醛白菜，普通消费者几乎被训练成了半个食品安全专家。买菜要闻一闻，买肉要看颜色，买水果要研究是不是泡过药，买食用油还要担心装它的罐车上一趟拉的究竟是什么。
这本身就是一个非常荒诞的社会现象。
保障食品安全，本来应该是政府监管部门的责任，而不是逼着每一个老百姓回家以后自己当化验员。
更值得注意的是，就在“甲醛白菜”引起舆论震动的同时，南方又曝出了另外一件让人头皮发麻的事情。厦门一家为多家餐饮企业提供消杀服务的公司，被媒体调查发现涉嫌长期使用敌敌畏进行餐厅消杀。报道显示，有员工把敌敌畏灌进矿泉水瓶、撕掉原包装标签，在餐具、桌椅甚至附近有食材的环境中喷洒；记者在部分门店消杀后的残留液体中进行了快速检测，结果呈敌敌畏阳性。厦门市湖里区随后成立联合调查组，对涉事公司的消杀用品抽检取证、查扣库存药品，并关闭其经营场所。
一南一北，一个是甲醛进入白菜运输链，一个是敌敌畏进入餐饮消杀链。
我们当然应该追究商贩和企业的法律责任。但是，如果每次食品安全事件发生以后，我们最终都只得到一个“黑心商家”的答案，那就永远解释不了一个问题：为什么同样的违法方式能够存在这么多年？
事实上，中国并不是不知道怎么监管食品。
这恰恰是这次“甲醛白菜”事件里最讽刺的地方。
有文章梳理海关总署关于供港农产品监管的公开资料发现，供港蔬菜可以实行从种植基地、土壤和灌溉水，到农药使用记录、采收安全间隔期，再到加工企业自检、海关监督抽检的一整套全链条监管。企业要备案，生产要留记录，产品要检测，出了问题可以追溯。也就是说，只要真的想管，中国现有的行政力量、技术条件和检测能力完全可以建立相当严密的食品安全防线。
这就出现了一个极其刺眼的对比：
为什么能够严格把关送往香港、送往境外的食品，却一次又一次管不好普通中国人每天吃进肚子里的东西？
答案并不神秘。
因为出口产品的另一端，还有一个不能由中国地方官员控制的监管机构。一旦产品被查出问题，可能退货、销毁、索赔、失去订单甚至进入黑名单。违法是要付出真实代价的。这个外部力量不会因为地方政府一句“高度重视”，不会因为企业有关系，也不会因为宣传部门希望“大事化小”，就自动消失。
而国内市场最缺少的，恰恰就是这种无法被权力随意关闭的监督力量。
中国有市场监管部门、有农业农村部门、有卫生健康部门、有公安机关、有食品安全委员会，还有层层地方政府。从纸面上看，负责食品安全的单位并不少。《食品安全法》本身也明确禁止在食品中加入食品添加剂以外的化学物质；现行食品添加剂国家标准并没有允许甲醛作为食品添加剂使用。换句话说，问题从来不是“没有法律”，也不是“不知道甲醛不能拿来泡白菜”。
真正的问题是：谁来监督监管者？
这也是为什么我认为，“甲醛白菜”真正值得讨论的，已经远远超过食品安全本身。
过去，这类调查本来是新闻媒体最基本的职责。记者跑市场、蹲现场、暗访、取证、追踪产业链，然后把那些权力不愿意让公众知道的事情揭出来。但今天我们看到的荒诞场面却是：自媒体在暗访甲醛白菜，机构媒体在采访这个自媒体。
媒体人褚朝新对此说得很直接：不是机构媒体中的记者突然都不会做调查新闻了，而是机构媒体长期受到过度管控，无法正常发挥原本应该承担的公共监督职能，最后连调查能力都逐渐退化。此次“渔猎齐哥”先从市场发现问题白菜，再追踪货源、寻找现场、用无人机取证，最后设法接近收购现场，反而完成了过去调查记者应该做的事情。
这才是最值得警惕的变化。
一个健康社会不能永远指望几个勇敢的自媒体博主，开着车在全国到处碰运气。
今天他偶然看见有人蘸白菜，于是全国开始检查白菜；明天有人偶然拍到一家消杀公司，于是全城开始检查消杀企业。那么，那些没有被镜头拍到的呢？那些没有遇见“渔猎齐哥”的地方呢？那些藏在工厂、仓库、冷库、运输车和餐厅后厨里的东西呢？
难道十四亿人的食品安全，要靠几个自媒体博主随机抽奖？
更可怕的是，在这样的环境中，揭露问题的人有时反而比制造问题的人承受更大的风险。因为食品安全一旦成为公共事件，它首先影响的是地方形象、企业利益和官员政绩。于是，在一个高度重视“舆情管理”的体制里，最容易出现的冲动不是让问题充分曝光，而是先控制传播；不是欢迎记者继续深挖，而是希望热搜赶快过去。
这也是我这些年来越来越强烈的一种感受：一个社会如果害怕坏消息，坏事情并不会因此消失。
只是坏事情没有人敢告诉你而已。
来到美国以后，我对这一点感受更加明显。食品安全真正可靠的地方，不在于消费者有多聪明，也不在于政府每天告诉人民“总体安全”，而在于生产者知道有人检查，监管者知道有人监督，媒体知道自己可以调查，企业知道消费者可以起诉，而官员也知道一个事件一旦被揭露，不能简单靠删帖和一份格式化通报结束。
监督不是给政府添乱。
监督本身就是现代治理的一部分。
同样，对甲醛白菜的危害，我们其实也没有必要为了批评而夸大。甲醛确实属于禁止用于食品保鲜的非食用物质，大量摄入可能导致急性中毒；现有科学资料同时指出，甲醛的长期致癌风险主要与吸入暴露有关。我们不需要编造“吃一棵白菜就会致癌”这样的恐怖故事，也足以追问政府责任。因为一个明令禁止进入食品的化学物质，在十四年前已经曝光、十四年后仍然出现在蔬菜运输链上，这个事实本身已经足够严重。
所以，“甲醛白菜”真正毒害的，恐怕不只是几车白菜。 它毒害的是公众对食品安全的信任，是人们对监管体系的信任，也是一个社会对“出了问题一定有人负责”的基本信念。
今天抓几个白菜收购商，并不困难；关闭一家违规消杀公司，也不困难。真正困难的是回答那句十四年都没有得到答案的话：
为什么这些事情总是先由普通人发现，然后政府才“高度重视”？
如果一个体制只能在舆论爆炸以后运转，那不叫有效监管，那叫危机公关。
如果媒体只能在自媒体曝光以后采访自媒体，那不叫新闻监督，那叫跟随报道。
如果一种违法行为十四年前已经轰动全国，十四年以后仍需要重新“举一反三”，那么真正需要被检查的，就不应该只有白菜、餐厅和商贩，而应该包括整个监管机制本身。
中国并不缺检测仪器，不缺执法人员，不缺法律条文，也不缺庞大的行政体系。中国真正缺少的，是一个不能被权力随意关掉的监督系统：独立的媒体、公开的信息、可以追责的司法、公民自由表达的空间，以及真正让官员和企业承担后果的制度。没有这些，再严厉的专项整治都可能只是一阵风。
白菜检查完了，还有别的菜；甲醛查完了，还有别的药；这家公司关门了，还可能出现下一家公司。十四年前是甲醛白菜，十四年后还是甲醛白菜。如果制度本身不改变，我们真正不知道的，不是下一次食品安全丑闻会不会发生，而只是——
下一次，被偶然拍到的又会是什么。
编辑：黄吉洲 校对：王滨 翻译：沈美花
Formaldehyde Cabbage Has Been Poisonous for 14 Years: What Is Truly Poisonous Is a System Lacking Supervision
Author: Feng Reng
Over the past few days, “formaldehyde cabbage” has once again hit the hot search lists on the Chinese internet.
Requirements surrounding this matter are not complex.In August 2026, an independent media blogger named “Yulie Qige” discovered during an investigation in Kangbao County, Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, that some cabbage buyers were dipping individual cabbages directly into a formaldehyde solution before loading them onto trucks. This was reportedly done to keep the cabbage fresh for an extra two or three days during transport.
After the video spread online, the Kangbao County Government quickly issued an official notice, confirming that the situation reflected in the video was true. They stated that this was an illegal act carried out by buyers to preserve freshness during transportation, that public security authorities had already applied compulsory measures against the relevant personnel and vehicles, and that they had begun tracing the destination of the cabbages involved.
Subsequently, the State Council Food Safety Office, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and the State Administration for Market Regulation also intervened, requiring all regions to carry out special random inspections and market sweeps targeting easily perishable vegetables such as cabbage.
If the story ended here, it would seem like just another Chinese-style food safety news story that we have long grown accustomed to: online exposure, public outrage, local official announcements, leadership attention, the establishment of an investigation team, a comprehensive inspection, stern handling, and finally the phrase “drawing lessons from this case to prevent similar ones.”
The problem lies precisely in the fact that this “one case” already appeared fourteen years ago.
In 2012, vendors in places like Shandong were exposed for using formaldehyde to keep cabbage fresh; after that, similar cases kept surfacing in Shandong, Hebei, and other regions. Fourteen years later, in 2026, the exact same method, the exact same cabbage, the exact same motive to reduce transit spoilage—and even headlines that barely require editing—have once again reappeared before the public eye. What is even more absurd is that the party who uncovered the problem this time was not the agricultural department, nor the market regulation department, nor official state media equipped with press credentials, investigative authority, and massive editorial teams, but rather an independent media blogger originally known for fishing, collecting trash, and exposing environmental pollution.
Therefore, after reading these reports, what truly unsettled me was no longer those few truckloads of cabbages.
What I want to ask even more is: why does something known fourteen years ago still rely on a passing independent blogger to be rediscovered fourteen years later?
I have lived in China for over forty years and used to work in hotel management. I am no stranger to the sense of helplessness that Chinese people feel when facing food safety issues over all these years. From melamine-contaminated milk powder, gutter oil, Sudan Red dye, and lean meat powder, to the later recurring scandals involving rat heads, lymph-node pork, tanker trucks interchangeably carrying fuel and edible oil, chemical-dipped waxberries, and formaldehyde cabbages—ordinary consumers have been trained into being half-baked food safety experts. When buying vegetables, one must smell them; when buying meat, one must inspect the color; when buying fruit, one must study whether it was soaked in chemicals; and when buying cooking oil, one must worry about what the tanker truck carrying it hauled on its previous trip.
This in itself is a deeply absurd social phenomenon.
Ensuring food safety should inherently be the responsibility of government regulatory bodies, rather than forcing every ordinary citizen to act as a home chemist after going back home.
What is even more noteworthy is that right as “formaldehyde cabbage” caused a shockwave of public outrage, another hair-raising incident was exposed in the south. An investigation by the media revealed that a pest control company in Xiamen—which provided disinfection services to multiple catering enterprises—was suspected of using Dichlorvos for restaurant pest control over a long period. Reports indicated that employees poured Dichlorvos into bottled water containers, tore off the original brand labels, and sprayed it on tableware, tables, chairs, and even environments near food ingredients; reporters conducted rapid testing on residual liquids at some stores after disinfection, and the results came back positive for Dichlorvos. Huli District in Xiamen subsequently established a joint investigation team to perform sampling and evidence collection on the company’s supplies, confiscate inventory, and close down its business premises.
One in the north, one in the south: one involved formaldehyde entering the cabbage transportation chain, and the other involved Dichlorvos entering the catering pest control chain.
We should, of course, hold vendors and enterprises legally accountable. However, if after every food safety incident we ultimately end up with only the explanation of “unscrupulous merchants,” it will forever fail to answer one question: why have the exact same illegal methods been able to exist for so many years?
In fact, it is not as though China does not know how to regulate food.
This happens to be the most ironic part of the “formaldehyde cabbage” incident.
An article reviewing public documents from the General Administration of Customs regarding regulations on produce supplied to Hong Kong found that vegetables supplied to Hong Kong implement a complete, whole-chain regulatory framework covering everything from growing bases, soil, and irrigation water, to pesticide usage records and harvest safety interval periods, all the way to processing enterprise self-checks and customs oversight inspections. Enterprises must register, production must be logged, products must be tested, and issues can be traced back if they arise. In other words, as long as there is a genuine will to regulate, China’s existing administrative power, technological conditions, and testing capabilities are fully capable of establishing quite a rigorous defense line for food safety.
This creates an extremely glaring contrast:
Why is it possible to strictly gatekeep food sent to Hong Kong and overseas, yet impossible time and time again to manage the things ordinary Chinese people put into their stomachs every day?
The answer is not mysterious.
Because at the other end of export products, there is a regulatory agency that cannot be controlled by local Chinese officials. Once a product is found to have issues, it may face returns, destruction, damage claims, lost orders, or even blacklisting. Breaking the law incurs real costs. This external force will not automatically vanish just because a local government states it “attaches high importance to the matter,” nor because an enterprise has connections, nor because the propaganda department wishes to “minimize a major issue.”
What the domestic market lacks most is precisely this kind of supervisory power that cannot be arbitrarily shut down by authority.
China has market regulation departments, agricultural and rural departments, health departments, public security organs, food safety committees, and layers of local governments. On paper, there is no shortage of units responsible for food safety. The Food Safety Law itself explicitly prohibits adding chemical substances other than approved food additives to food; current national standards for food additives do not permit formaldehyde to be used as a food additive. In other words, the problem has never been “a lack of laws,” nor “not knowing formaldehyde cannot be used to soak cabbage.”
The real problem is: who supervises the regulators?
This is also why I believe what is truly worth discussing about “formaldehyde cabbage” goes far beyond food safety itself.
In the past, these types of investigations were the most basic duty of news media. Journalists visited markets, stayed on-site, conducted undercover investigations, gathered evidence, and tracked supply chains to expose the things power was unwilling to let the public know. But the absurd scene we see today is: independent media is conducting undercover investigations into formaldehyde cabbage, while institutional media is interviewing that independent media.
Media veteran Chu Zhaoxin put it very directly: it is not that reporters in institutional media suddenly forgot how to do investigative journalism, but rather that institutional media has long been subjected to excessive control, making it impossible to perform the public oversight function it should carry out, ultimately leading to the gradual atrophy of even its investigative capabilities. This time, “Yulie Qige” first discovered the problematic cabbage from the market, then traced the source, found the site, gathered evidence with drones, and finally managed to approach the acquisition site—thereby completing the very work investigative journalists should have done in the past.
This is the change that warrants the most vigilance.
A healthy society cannot forever rely on a few brave independent media bloggers driving around the country trying their luck.
Today he happened to see someone dipping cabbage, so the whole country started inspecting cabbages; tomorrow someone happened to film a pest control company, so the whole city started inspecting pest control businesses. What about the things that were not captured by cameras? What about the places that did not encounter a “Yulie Qige”? What about the things hidden inside factories, warehouses, cold storage facilities, transport trucks, and restaurant kitchens?
Is the food safety of 1.4 billion people supposed to rely on a random lottery run by a few independent media bloggers?
What is even more terrifying is that in such an environment, the people who expose problems sometimes bear greater risks than the people who create them. Because once food safety becomes a public event, it primarily impacts local image, corporate interests, and officials’ performance records. Thus, in a system that attaches high importance to “public opinion management,” the impulse most prone to arise is not allowing the problem to be fully exposed, but rather controlling its dissemination first; not welcoming journalists to dig deeper, but hoping the trending search topic quickly passes.
This is also a feeling I have developed more and more strongly over the years: if a society fears bad news, bad things do not disappear because of it.
It is simply that no one dares to tell you about the bad things anymore.
After coming to the United States, I felt this even more clearly. The place where food safety is truly reliable lies not in how smart consumers are, nor in the government telling people every day that things are “overall safe,” but in producers knowing someone is inspecting them, regulators knowing someone is supervising them, the media knowing it can investigate, enterprises knowing consumers can sue, and officials knowing that once an incident is exposed, it cannot be ended simply by deleting posts and issuing a boiler-plate notice.
Supervision is not causing trouble for the government.
Supervision itself is part of modern governance.
Similarly, regarding the harms of formaldehyde cabbage, we do not actually need to exaggerate for the sake of criticism. Formaldehyde is indeed a non-edible substance banned from being used in food preservation, and large ingestions can lead to acute poisoning; existing scientific data simultaneously points out that the long-term carcinogenic risk of formaldehyde is mainly related to inhalation exposure. We do not need to fabricate scary stories like “eating one cabbage will cause cancer” to question government responsibility. Because the fact that a chemical substance explicitly banned from entering food was exposed fourteen years ago and still appears in the vegetable transport chain fourteen years later is serious enough in itself.
Therefore, what “formaldehyde cabbage” truly poisons is likely far more than a few truckloads of cabbages. It poisons the public’s trust in food safety, trust in the regulatory system, and a society’s fundamental belief that “if something goes wrong, someone will certainly be held accountable.”
Arresting a few cabbage buyers today is not difficult; closing down a non-compliant pest control company is not difficult. What is truly difficult is answering that sentence that has gone unanswered for fourteen years:
Why are these things always discovered by ordinary people first, and only then does the government “attach high importance” to them?
If a system can only function after public opinion explodes, that is not called effective regulation—that is called crisis PR.
If the media can only interview independent media after exposure by independent media, that is not called news supervision—that is called follow-up reporting.
If an illegal act already shocked the entire nation fourteen years ago, and fourteen years later still requires “drawing lessons from this case” all over again, then what truly needs to be inspected should not only be cabbages, restaurants, and vendors, but the entire regulatory mechanism itself.
China does not lack testing equipment, does not lack law enforcement personnel, does not lack legal clauses, and does not lack a massive administrative system. What China truly lacks is a supervision system that cannot be arbitrarily shut down by authority: independent media, transparent information, an accountable judiciary, space for citizens’ free expression, and a system that truly makes officials and enterprises bear the consequences. Without these, no matter how severe a special rectification campaign is, it may just be a passing wind.
When the cabbage inspections are finished, there will be other vegetables; when formaldehyde is checked, there will be other chemicals; when this company closes, the next company may still appear. Fourteen years ago it was formaldehyde cabbage, and fourteen years later it is still formaldehyde cabbage. If the system itself does not change, what we truly do not know is not whether the next food safety scandal will happen, but simply—
What will happen to be randomly caught on camera next time?
Editor: Huang Jizhou Proofreader: Wang Bin Translator: Shen Meihua
