Posted on 07/13/2007 5:15:55 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
At its freshest and best, garlic not only is a zestful seasoning but it's a healthy food, as well. It's our biggest vegetable import from China.
At the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, chef Andrew Brown is using tender young garlic scapes from Green Meadow Farm in Gap while anticipating the July harvest of regular, red and elephant bulbs from Overbrook Herb Farm in Lansdale.
The garlic used by chef Frank Maragos at Foti's, in Culpeper, Va., comes from nearby Campi di Sogni Farm, where owner Juliana De Santis grows about 30 kinds.
But most of us buy garlic at the supermarket, rarely knowing what kind it is, how fresh it is, or where it was grown.
Few also know that that garlic may have come from China, which produces 75 percent of the world's supply and whose exports have come under scrutiny lately with the discovery of tainted pet food ingredients, toothpaste and more.
Garlic is our biggest fresh vegetable import from China, which shipped 138 million pounds of it, worth more than $70 million, to the U.S. last year. Smaller amounts also came from Mexico, Argentina and about 15 other countries.
Americans eat a lot of garlic - about three pounds per person a year.
Though most of our fresh garlic travels halfway around the world, it's cheaper than garlic grown in California. For example, California garlic bulbs were priced at $4.99 a pound at a D.C. Whole Foods market in mid-June. At the same time, a pack of five Chinese bulbs - about a pound - was just 79 cents at Great Wall supermarket in Falls Church, Va. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says garlic prices have dipped 12 percent in a decade.
California growers think that stinks, because it's killing their business. They grew 18,000 acres of garlic last year, about 2 percent of the world's garlic, and half what it was a decade ago.
In the early '90s, U.S. trade officials found that China was "dumping" garlic - selling it below what it cost to produce. A 377 percent tariff caused imports to dip for a time, until shippers found a loophole.
Some California growers and processors say that while they don't like Chinese garlic, they buy some because buying it is cheaper than growing it - even in Gilroy, the "Garlic Capital of the World," which later this monthwill hold its 29th annual festival celebrating the vegetable.
Bill Christopher, whose 50-year-old Christopher Ranch in Gilroy is one of the largest U.S. growers, explained: "A 30-pound box of Chinese garlic is $14. Our cost [to produce it] is $26.27."
Although he says California garlic tastes better (independent lab tests show it's denser in texture than Chinese garlic), his firm uses imports in some prepared products, such as sauce.
Like Christopher, John Layous of the Garlic Co. in Bakersfield, Calif., buys Chinese imports to keep costs low. He supplies Costco, Sam's Club and food-service firms. Layous rails against what he sees as China's unfair competitive advantage, saying his 185-person company pays good wages and has health and other benefits, unlike Chinese growers.
"Then there's expense to make a safe product," he says, referring to government food-safety regulations imposed on U.S. companies.
Fresh garlic isn't the only form of the vegetable causing concern. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service says dehydrated Chinese garlic imports increased 384 percent in the last 10 years. Layous and others cite a 2002 report on garlic and garlic powder, domestic and imported, by a now-defunct coalition, Americans for Wholesome Food.
The report, using independent lab tests, found "high levels of lead, arsenic and added sulfites in two supermarket-brand imported garlic powders from store shelves."
Chinese imports in general have caused concern since U.S. pets got sick or died after eating food that contained wheat gluten spiked with melamine, a chemical used in fertilizers not approved for consumption, causing a massive pet-food recall. Then the Food and Drug Administration warned U.S. consumers not to use toothpaste made in China as it might contain a chemical used in antifreeze and as a solvent.
The FDA, responsible for inspecting some types of food from 130 countries, last year was deluged with 21 million shipments of food imports, including 199,000 from China worth about $2.3 billion. FDA inspectors refused 298 food shipments from China in the first four months of this year: catfish containing banned antibiotics, mushrooms contaminated with illegal pesticides, and others. The rejection rate for Chinese goods is about 25 times that of Canadian goods.
The FDA has 1,750 inspectors, but only 450 work at ports, notes William Hubbard, a former associate director of the agency. "There are 419 ports of entry by ship, air and land crosses," he says. "The FDA is able to staff 40 of them. Some [workers] are part-time."
Former FDA lawyer Michael Taylor says "hard data" on food safety are limited: "They have never been able to inspect more than 1 or 2 percent of shipments, and they test even fewer."
So how safe is garlic?
"Unless there's an import alert from FDA," says agency spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings, food is considered safe.
The FDA said it could not provide information on detention and refusal rates of Chinese produce and how they compare to those of other countries. But FDA records show that since 1994, fresh and processed garlic has been targeted for automatic detention and surveillance. Numerous shipments from certain companies (five Chinese, one Canadian and one Argentine) were refused due to insects or insect damage, mold or filth between 1994 and 1996. The Canadian firm repacked Chinese garlic and shipped it, peeled, in five-pound jars.
Thirteen fresh garlic shipments from China were refused at California ports.
A Washington Post search of nearly 900 FDA "refusal actions" from May 2006 to April 2007 turned up 18 shipments of garlic products from several countries. Among rejections: from China, chili garlic sauce, because manufacturing information was not provided; from Canada, garlic paste, made in unsanitary conditions and inadequately labeled; from Argentina, "filthy" garlic bulbs. In May and July 2006, 13 shipments of garlic in mango, tomato and green chili sauces from India were refused, 11 because of pesticide residue.
Since 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that three food-borne illness outbreaks (each involving fewer than five people) were caused by garlic oils. Twice, bacteria that cause botulism were found. (This after outbreaks in the 1980s linked to garlic in soybean and olive oils, and an FDA edict that oils contain an acidifying agent, and a recommendation to refrigerate.)
Experts say fresh garlic is safer than processed for several reasons, among them its natural pesticide inhibitors. And consumers can make it even safer.
Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University and author of What to Eat, says the skin on garlic also protects against pesticides. "Pesticide residues can be removed by washing," she says.
On fresh garlic, E. coli and other bacteria would likely be only on the exterior, she says.
Along with peeling and discarding the skin, the sure-fire way to kill microorganisms is to turn up the heat, she adds.
"A quick dip in boiling water would do it," Nestle says.
"Also searing or roasting."
Focusing on quality as well as safety, garlic lovers will seek out fresh garlic from local farms and farmers markets through the summer.
Well, in this case, think... of your health first and in the future; get it from other places; I’ve always gone for garlic in products like Pizza and Spaghetti sauce.
But it is something now to pay attention too.
If there is anything to be said about garlic, he is the ultimate FReeper authority.
I love garlic.
I also love garlic.
One thing’s for certain: it sure makes me stand apart from all those around me.
Repels vampires, too. I wonder how it works with Muslims.
;^)
One thing’s for certain: it sure makes me stand apart from all those around me.
Oh yeah. I love linguini with white clam sauce. Major ingredient in the sauce is GARLIC, usually about 50-50 garlic/clams. Tastes wonderful!
Unfortunately it gets in your blood and you breath garlic for 48 hours. Even smokers can smell it at 12 feet!
But it's soooooooooo good.
Me neither. I wonder if garlic is one of the products that has to have country of origin marked on it?
More often than not, garlic in the store is loose in a big basket or bin. I don’t recall any markings or tags indicating country of origin but I’ll check next time.
I am throwing away all my spices
A major consumer product rating agency states that the main contaminant in spices is insect fragments.
And how does one get out the heavy metals?
I LOVE fresh garlic!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE!
It’s good for you too;
It use to be a big deal and still around no doubt, “Garlique” and that is just a name of one brand of garlic pills.
Time to grow your own. Just get a nice big pot, fill it with rich soil/potting soil, and plant regular garlic cloves right off the head (pointy end down) about every four inches. Give them adequate care, and you'll be able to harvest about a year's worth of garlic from one pot.
Nope, but a sure sign is when it says “distributed by such and such a co. Where ever, NJ”
oops. gave you a bum steer there...the pointy end is the leaf end. The blunt end has the roots. Sorry... (blushing)
I’ll try but...I can kill a silk plant.
I love garlic but thought this would be over the top. It wasn't. Roasting a chicken stuffed with garlic cloves is just ... well, just about the most gastronimically sensuous experience I've had in a long, long time.
Ok, then, give it to someone else to care for. Check on it every once in a while (good excuse for a neighborly beer or whatever...) and when the tops start to dry, tie them in a knot to stop growth. Let the pot dry out, then carefully pull each plant, hang to dry and, voila!
I’ll give it a shot or....you could just mail me some. ;o)
Aw, come on. Anything worth having is worth working for... One little pot. You can do it!
Imported food will kill you.
If a DIM supports COO, ask the GOP candidate why he doesn't. Tell him you're considering changing your party affiliation. The reverse should also apply.
Immigration, and this poisoned food, are the bane of our free society and free trade.
Again, deamnd COO labels with every breath. Support US farmers.
Thanks for that garlic growing tip (and for the “which end is up” correction). Bump for trying that!
People who eat lots of garlic get fewer colds.
Because everyone stays away from them.
I’ve tried growing it outdoors a couple years in a row. But it never cloves. All it does is end up giving me a big garlic bulb! (one was bigger than a golf ball!)
LOL!!
Heh, heh!
After watching the “Godfather” trilogy on AMC, I did a lot of cooking with garlic. Co-workers complained to the boss about my `liquor breath’.
I quit with the garlic, for now. Nobody complains.
I still enjoy my nightly cocktail. Nobody notices.
I agree with you. Aw crap.
I’m in........took notes too............in the piece it mentions Gilroy.........been there, thru there and down wind of there. That may be the only place in California a sea gull won’t crap
It’s a start.
Leave it in the ground over winter. This may be why more people don't grow more than a head or so in pots. leave it in over the winter. Here's a good page on how to grow it.
It just occurred to me...perhaps this long growing season is what gives garlic a lot of its medicinal and nutritional qualities. It takes a long time to concentrate those nutrients and minerals. Yay, GARLIC!!
Been there. Tried that.
Maybe I need a change of location where I’m trying to grow it...
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
I am definitely picking up a chicken and a bunch of garlic tomorrow.
Will that work? I always plant pointy end up. :)
Keep readin'...
Oh man! Did you have to tell us? LOL! That REALLY blows! I use lots of garlic. I will gladly pay more for US garlic. Just thinking about the Chinese using raw sewage to grow things make me sick.
Not By The Hair Of My Chinie Chin Chin !!
Mine grows fine next to the east side of the house,,,;0)
I once unwittingly got garlic from China. It was the spongiest, dullest garlic I have ever had the displeasure of tasting, along with God knows what toxins.
American Garlic, people!!! Fresh, firm, pungent, tasty, safe. Get yours at a local farmers market if you can’t grow it yourself.
I’m surprised no-one has mentioned Gilroy, California yet.
They are/were the biggest garlic producer in the US, and don’t quote me on this, but I think they have a garlic festival every year. Or had?, till imports made significant inroads on the market. Never been to Cali, but it’s nice knowing they grow garlic out there, cuz I love it.
There (surprise) are a couple of good websites about garlic, how to grow and use.
Surprisingly, a whole clove won’t make food overly garlicy, but when it is baked in the flavor is totally different, it’s there to kind of infuse.
When it is diced and chopped finely though it becomes much stronger. One of the web sites offers this way - just chop up fairly coarsly, then cover with salt. Use a very wide blade knife and chop, then drag the blade over and smash/cut. Makes a nice thick paste, the salt keeps all the juices. Best with anything, though it helps to use with unsalted butter if you can find it.
Roasting whole heads of garlic - wash and remove excess paper, slice off the pointy end a bit if you want and drizzle with olive oil or what have you and roast for a few hours in some sort of container. It’s easy and your friends will love you.
mark
All Chinese food imports should be banned. 100%. Until and unless they can make the systemic changes that are necessary.
Garlic Ping!
Not at this house!
If you want garlic that’s NOT grown in China, please order it from The Seed Savers Exchange. I worked for them for seven years. They have over ten acres of awesome, tasty, heirloom garlic. Eat some and plant some this fall. My favorite is the German Extra Hardy. :)
It’s almost time to order (for fall planting zones), so don’t dilly dally, LOL!
I now work for Jung’s. We sell garlic in the fall, too. NO IMPORTS, all is locally grown.
http://www.jungseed.com (Garlic isn’t posted yet, but check back often!)
Do ANY of your ingredients come from China?
Until I am sure of this, I am fear eating any of your products and will not buy them.
If none of your ingredients are sourced from China, could you please state so on your web site and on product labels?
As I write this I am consuming my last [Enter product name here] until I am SURE nothing from China is it it.
I don't know, but I hope it will be soon.
I was at my local Sam's Club last week and checked the fresh garlic. It came in a bag far bigger than I can use in a month, but it said "Product of Argentina." At Meijer, however, there was no posting a to its country of origin. The low price made me think it was China, so I didn't buy any.
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