A Chinese man has been banned from an all-you-can-eat restaurant after the owner accused him of eating too much.
A Chinese man has been banned from an all-you-can-eat restaurant after the owner accused him of eating too much.
The food live-streamer, known as Mr Kang, told Hunan TV he was banned from the Handadi Seafood BBQ Buffet in central China’s Changsha city after several binge-eating visits, the BBC reported.
Mr Kang said he ate 1.5kg of pork trotters on his first visit and around 4kg of prawns on another.
He said the restaurant was “discriminatory” against people who can eat a lot.
“I can eat a lot – is that a fault?” he said, according to the report, adding he didn’t waste any of the food.
But the restaurant owner said the man was costing him money – and that he was banning all live-streamers.
“Every time he comes here, I lose a few hundred yuan,” he said.
“Even when he drinks soy milk, he can drink 20 or 30 bottles. When he eats the pork trotters, he consumes the whole tray of them. And for prawns, usually people use tongs to pick them up, he uses a tray to take them all.”
The story has gone viral on Chinese social media, racking up more than 250 million views on Weibo.
It comes amid a broader crackdown by the Chinese government, after President Xi Jinping last year called on people to “fight against food waste”.
“Waste is shameful and thriftiness is honourable,” President Xi said in a speech last August, The Guardian reported.
Under a campaign dubbed “Operation Empty Plate”, local authorities last year introduced measures to reduce waste, including encouraging food outlets to limit the number of dishes to one less than the number of diners in the group.
In April, China officially adopted new laws against food waste, banning excessive leftovers and mukbang videos – a popular genre of video, originally from Korea, which often involves binge-eating.
Under the new laws, vloggers who make binge-eating videos face fines of up to 100,000 yuan ($21,500), and restaurants can now charge diners extra if they leave an excessive amount of food uneaten.
Food providers that induce or mislead customers into ordering excessive amounts also face fines of up to 10,000 yuan ($2150), and restaurants that waste large amounts of food face a maximum fine of 50,000 yuan ($10,800).
Around 18 billion kilograms of food is wasted every year in China’s catering industry, the Global Times reported.
