Posted on 07/14/2007 8:01:44 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
......Why is China having these problems? In a span of 15 years, China has gone from a country that struggled to feed its population to a major food exporter. Domestic food-borne illnesses have plagued China for years, but the rest of the world has become aware of the problem only recently as China began exporting its products......
• Food for Health International, a Utah-based company that makes nutritional supplements for people and pets, will begin labeling its products "China-free" to allay contamination concerns.
• Twelve different U.S. federal agencies are responsible for implementing 35 primary food-safety regulation laws.
• China grows half of the world's vegetables.
• A June poll conducted by Consumer Reports magazine found that 92% of Americans support labeling meat and produce with "country of origin" labels.
• One challenge facing Chinese food safety: poor logistics. China has two refrigerated trucks per 10,000 middle-class residents, compared with nine trucks per capita in the U.S., according to consulting firm A.T. Kearney.
• More than 20% of Chinese toys and baby clothes are substandard, according to the country's consumer safety watchdog. China accounts for 80% of the U.S. toy market by value, according to the Business Roundtable.
• China has to feed 10 people per hectare of arable land, twice the world average of 4.4 people per hectare, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
• Food-related illnesses cost the U.S. economy about $6.9 billion annually, according to the USDA.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Food: Risk factor High. Avoid it if you can. But it’s hard. It’s everywhere, and very hard detect with current US labeling laws.
The question should be, “Has food from China ever been safe?”
I’d say “NO!”
Quite right.
• China has to feed 10 people per hectare of arable land, twice the world average of 4.4 people per hectare, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
???? They feed their citizens? Thought most of them were captive slaves working in underground factories and beaten for being lazy, then sent to prison and having their organs sold to the highest bidder?
Are Chinese Export Products Unsafe?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BWAhahahahahahaha...Ya’ Think ?!?!!...;0)
Bridge for sale.
I would absolutely buy products labeled “China free” if more manufacturers would label them as such.
It almost seems like the FDA has been bought and paid for by corporate interests. Every time someone proposes better labeling requirements - country of origin, pesticides used, GM status - they have an allergic reaction. They want consumers to shut up and eat from the trough without complaining.
Demand labels documenting product and ingredient country of origin.
The corporations are doing everything they can to avoid this, using every excuse in the book.
The FDA, like the USDA, FAA, FCC and other alphabet-soup agencies, is charged with both regulating and promoting the business of the companies it oversees. It really is the fox watching the henhouse.
One of my kitchen hobbies is making sausage. It's nice to know what goes into the stuff (in my sausage, nothing but I-grind-it meat).
I've often thought that some hot-dog/sausage company should come out with an ad campaign that basically says "If you knew what was in our competitor's product, you wouldn't give it to your dog."
” nine trucks per capita in the U.S.’
Let’s see. Three hundred million Americans, nine trucks per capita, equals 2,700,000,000 trucks. One driver per truck equals ... almost a billion drivers.
I guess we need to import some Mexican drivers after all.
Paid close attention to the country of origin labels when shopping today. Anything marked made in China stayed on the shelf. The problem was that a lot of food simply says “distrubuted by” and lists a US company. That’s not good enough. If companies want me to buy it, they will have to also say “made in ...” Let those distributors know you will not purchase their merchandise until they adopt country of origin labeling. Let the market lead the way.
Thanks so much for posting these articles.
I don’t susbscribe to the WSJ, so couldn’t read the entire article. Wonder if it said that only about 40% of China has sewer treatment plants.
I had read a couple of years ago that garlic is fertilized by humans. Yuk! And I’m sure that lots and lots of other stuff is fertilized the same way.
Glad to see that this is finally being discussed. However, there are still too many people who are totally ignorant about this.
Those distributed by labels are a tipoff that the stuff was not made in the USA.
Another way to scam the consumer is being practiced by Mission Foods, according to some freeper. Mission makes tortillas, and lots of them. They're practically the only tortillas on the shelves. Label only says Mission Foods, San Diego, CA. But Mission is a Mexican company that purchases its wheat from China. Neither Mexico nor China is listed on their products.
Mission is certainly not the only company trying to pull the wool over the consumer's eyes.
Yeh...and that's only the reefers. ;)
Good catch, BTW.
Groupo Bimbo of Mexico is Mexico's, the US's, and the world's largest baker(wheat).
The US produces extremely large amouts of wheat and corn and exports extremely large amounts.
Are Chinese Export Products Unsafe?
is the pope catholic...do wild bears go in the woods???
what a stupid question!!
I understand there's some legislative - "open comment" - activity in the House, but they're by nature too damned slow. God, how did we ever come to this?
Thanks for the details. Are you saying that USA wheat and corn are purchased by Mexican companies?
75% of mexico’s wheat imports are from the US and the remaining 25% from Canada. 100% of Mexico’s corn imports are from the US.
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