地沟油

地溝油
dìgōuyóu
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 gutter oil
  2. 2 illegally recycled waste cooking oil (scooped from drains, grease traps, or slaughterhouse waste and resold as fresh oil)

Examples

Lùbiān xiǎotān de yóu kěnéng shì dìgōuyóu.
The oil at roadside stalls might be gutter oil.
Zhèngfǔ yán dǎ dìgōuyóu fànzuì.
The government is cracking down hard on the gutter oil trade.

Tips

culture
Hit Chinese headlines around 2010 when investigations revealed waste oil from sewers and restaurant grease traps was being filtered and resold to small eateries. Today it's a stock symbol of food-safety anxiety — 地沟油?('Is this gutter oil?') is a half-joking complaint about cheap, suspicious-tasting food.

Stroke Order

gōu
yóu