”Made in China” Ping.
(Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.)
Posted on 01/19/2008 6:29:45 AM PST by JACKRUSSELL
One Sunday after church, Rich Miller headed to a local Chi-Chi's restaurant in Beaver, Pa., where he dipped into the house salsa that came with the meal.
That simple act in 2003 changed his life forever. What Miller didn't know was that imported Mexican green onions in the salsa carried a deadly passenger: hepatitis A.
A few days later, as Miller recalled recently, "I couldn't even get out of bed. It was like the worst case of flu that you could ever imagine."
His health quickly deteriorating, the 57-year-old railroad superintendent was diagnosed with rare fulminant hepatitis A disease -- in which the virus destroys the liver -- and was rushed to a Pittsburgh hospital for a liver transplant.
Placed in a medically induced coma for a month, Miller eventually returned home, frail and unable to return to work. To this day, he said, he has mobility problems and neurological difficulties.
Still, Miller considers himself lucky: Four others who ate the salsa and developed fulminant liver illness died. Overall, more than 600 people around Pittsburgh were sickened during what became the largest hepatitis A outbreak in U.S. history.
The story is just one of many over the past few years that have swung the spotlight on the dangers of imported foods, which now comprise 13 percent of the American diet, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Imported Disasters
Perhaps the most high-profile examples of these potential dangers come from last year's tainted pet food scandal and the halting of questionable food products from China.
The pet food disaster, which slowly evolved into the largest recall of pet food in U.S. history, involved exported wheat gluten from China that contained the toxic chemical melamine and was used as an additive in......
(Excerpt) Read more at health.usnews.com ...
My advice would be to look at those labels carefully. Sadly, though, the label doesn’t always tell the complete story.
Global economy - at work.
It’s not just the imports. Time to go back to the family farm.
Pretty simple. The ‘Free Trade’ implementation of our federal government is “to bolster economic ties between our MFTP (most favored trading partners, provide low-cost food products to the US consumer (cheap illegal labor) so we can take more from the US taxpayer in taxes as their incomes rise ever so slowly. Sick citizens from un-inspected food, food derivatives and food additives? I have no data at this time to indicate that to be a problem. We will look into it, however. Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.”
I’m seriously considering that too. I think I’ll need a greenhouse. Here we have lots of bug, snakes and sand. Rather than fight all that I could just use a greenhouse. I’ll have to look into it.
Did you see the George Lopez comedy act on tv? He was joking about illegals here wiping their e-coli-ed behinds with veggies. IMO, it wasn’t funny at all but quite serious.
Another horror story but not here: on a visit to Bali, my husband consumed a chicken sandwich to his very regret, got violently ill. To which I remind him: any plans to go back to Bali - to which he replied: no way!!!!!!!! He got out of that incident without going to the hospital, if it was me I would be in serious trouble. His cast-iron stomach saved him./Just Asking - seoul62.......
That’s why I’m growing more and more of my own. This year I’m doing sauce tomatoes so I don’t have to buy (as much) of the canned stuff. None if I can help it.
We don't have enough sun to grow much, but we've joined a community sponsored agriculture (CSA) group for the season. We'll get a share of the farm's produce at a fixed price for the season. It's all locally grown about 5 minutes away, and we pick some of it ourselves.
We live far enough in the country that what we don’t have enough room to grow ourselves, we can get pretty inexpensively. I like growing it myself because then it’s just in the back yard. I don’t have to drive for it and waste gas.
I like that idea, though. Farm fresh, pick your own so close.
I wish I could do more on my own, but every little bit helps. Plus, I’m glad we don’t have to live on what I produce out of my garden. I’d be tough to stretch it to last all winter.
I always look for the place of origin on produce. If it says “Mexico” or if I can’t determine it, I don’t buy it. It’s not good enough to say it was packaged in the USA. It has to say grown.
There are only a few Community Sponsored Agriculture farms in our area south of Dallas. We pay about $350 per family to join, but get fruits and veggies for about 5 month.
We will likely join the CSA this year. Its a new concept in an area where 40 years ago everyone had a farm or garden. Now we are becoming a bedroom community.
Today it is cheaper to go to the farmers market, but the foods can be from anywhere.
The CSA seems to be a great way to go.
That's about the going rate for our farm. I don't have the figures handy, but I believe that's the price we're paying for a half-share. We can select 6 items per week, while a full share member can select 10. Each item is pretty generous, such as a quart of fresh peas, bunch of carrots, 3 zucchini, etc. We were offered a week's trial last year when a friend was out of town and unable to use their share. It was a lot of food. This summer one son will be away for 7 weeks, so a half share should be plenty for the three of us remaining. I'm looking forward to it. The food is wonderfully fresh, and I love supporting local agriculture. We usually have good growing seasons here in SE Pennsylvania - just not on our heavily wooded property!
*
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.