The omnivore dragon

China, one of the few cultures with complete culinary freedom

During the Vietnam war, there was a joke among the Vietcong, that in order to get rid of the Americans, you'd only need some Chinese, because they'd surely find a way to cook and eat them.

Almost all cultures are united by a certain set of culinary conventions. Muslims don’t eat pork, Americans despise offal, the jewish people has entire book of forbidden foods (see Leviticus) and Hindus taboo beef.
The Chinese menu is one of the only one without limitations.

Some sociologist believe, that this lack of culinary identity has becomes one.
The omnivore dragon is a proud one. And with growing access to foreign food, his appetite expands.

Even biological bounds seem non-substantial for Chinas taste for the new. Dairy consumption grew tremendously with the availability of fresh milk at the end of the 90s up until the mid-2000s, when an adultery baby milk scandal killed multiple infants and left dents of 80% in suppliers revenue curves.
Since then milk consumption has recovered fast and is soaring to new heights. Thomas Dubois a Professor of humanities at Beijing University has studied Chinas milk consumption and sees the distinct possibility of Chinese people maintaining production the dairy digesting enzyme since they are now consuming it more regularly since childhood.

Covering the national protein consumption is a plain-spoken goal of the CCP therefore policies endorsing this trend are more likely than not.

Not only is a secure food supply important for authoritarian regimes, there is a more direct link between nutrition and power. As such it was propagated by American author and nutritionist Adele Davis, who was considered "the most famous nutritionist” in the early to mid-20th.

The French ate white bread and drank wine and strong coffee, she said, and this was about as nutritionally disastrous as possible; the Germans, on the other hand, ate dark bread and drank beer – both nutritionally sound. Was it any wonder, she asked, that the Germans were victorious in several war?

This was obviously an oversimplification, but in any case there are if any only small downsides to a well balanced nutrition.

And it seems that China culinary curiosity won’t slow down any time soon.