Posted on 02/10/2008 5:41:23 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Dumping Debacle Spreads Fear over Chinese Food
FEBRUARY 11, 2008 03:08
The debacle over pesticide-laced Chinese dumplings found in Japan has spread worry over the safety of Chinese food products, and promoted American and Japanese authorities to take preventive measures.
The New York Times says U.S. athletes for the Beijing Summer Olympics will have their meals shipped from their own country. The U.S. Olympic Committee has signed contracts with major American food makers like Kellogg and Tyson Foods to deliver 25,000 pounds of meat and other foodstuffs to China two months before the opening ceremony.
The committee will also make separate arrangements with Chinese suppliers to secure other foods.
Last year, caterers from the committee went to China to check the safety of the food there. A piece of chicken available at a supermarket was found to have a dangerously high level of steroids.
In addition to the committee’s findings, a series of food safety crises in recent years prompted the decision to give American athletes U.S.-made food. The food will be served at a separate facility for the more than 600 members of Team USA.
Chinese food is also under fire in Japan, with fear over their safety rapidly rising. The major Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun surveyed 100 shoppers in supermarkets or department stores Thursday and Friday. Ninety-seven percent of them said they are “uneasy about food from China.”
The dumpling incident has halved the number of customers buying food products in Chinatown in Yokohama, which attracts hordes of tourists with its mass of Chinese restaurants.
Food chains in Japan are also posting signs saying “China-free.”
Skylark has stopped using processed food from China, and J. Front Retailing, a major Japanese distributor with large department stores such as Daimaru and Matsuzaka, will pull vegetables and frozen food imported from China from shelves.
The city of Unzen in Nagasaki Prefecture has banned processed Chinese food in all of its four school cafeterias.
“athletes for the Beijing Summer Olympics will have their meals shipped from their own country.”
Good idea.
Many of our markets up here have country of origin labeling, especially fresh seafood.
More fun from the Free Trade w Commie China department....now we can deadly dumplings!
Look what a multi-billion dollar trade deficit gets ya...
I believe current law requires all seafood to have country of origin labeling.
If not, I wish it were required to reveal country of origin! I almost purchased fresh seafood, until I read the sign that it was from thailand. The rule of thumb for ‘good seafood’, from what I’ve read, is to make sure it’s wild, not grown on farms, and now we have to make sure it’s not from China. It’s getting old. Considering the fact that we already raised our kids on milk tainted with anti-biotics, and growth hormones, there is no telling what else we don’t know about. I’m sick of all of it. Food supply needs to be in its natural state, left alone. We have “enough worries” imho.
Isn’t Tyson the company that wanted permission to ship frozen chicken to China for processing, then ship it back to the US for sale?
I think so and they are close friends of the Clintons.
Ping to update.........Thanks to Tiger.
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