Posted on 04/24/2007 8:04:13 AM PDT by dawn53
Lost amid the anxiety surrounding the tainted U.S. pet food supply is this sobering reality: It's not just pet owners who should be worried. The uncontrolled distribution of low-quality imported food ingredients, mainly from China, poses a grave threat to public health worldwide.
Essential ingredients, such as vitamins used in many packaged foods, arrive at U.S. ports from China and, as recent news reports have underscored, are shipped without inspection to food and beverage distributors and manufacturers. Although they are used in relatively small quantities, these ingredients carry enormous risks for American consumers. One pound of tainted wheat gluten could, if undetected, contaminate as much as a thousand pounds of food.
(Excerpt) Read more at sptimes.com ...
Unbelievable, (or not) the democrats answer to the ineffectual FDA is to create a BRAND NEW BUREAURACRACY.
Interesting
http://www.elegantnutri.com/products/food-additives-catalog-1.html
http://www.21food.com/offerdetail/67543/Supply—Natural-Herbal-Ingredients.html
Are we getting scared yet?
I posted this on another related thread......I would at least like to know where things come from and have the opportunity not to buy something that contains ingredients from certain countries (specifically China), so I just wrote the following to Steve Buyer, my congressman:
“In light of the recent pet food contamination that resulted in the poisoning and death of thousands of America’s pets with melamine-laced wheat and rice gluten products from China, I respectfully request that Congress REQUIRE ALL HUMAN AND PET FOOD MANUFACTURERS to LIST ALL OF THE COUNTRIES that contributed ingredients to any product (including vitamins, minerals, and nutritional supplements) sold in the United States ON THE PRODUCT”S LABEL.”
Your own name is on your own ping list?..................
Arizona Carolyn and I are both managing the same ping list.
BTTT
One of the main reasons US businesses move plants to other countries is the lack of regulations.
Keeping foods safe costs money.
Pharmaceuticals imported from Canada may be cheaper, "but we cannot guarantee their safety therefore we will not let you buy them" .
But don't worry about your food!
OH, okay..........
As if MSG wasn’t bad enough.
> Organic food imports into the U.S from foreign countries, including China, totaled 1.5 billion in 2002.
Once again, some liberal ideas are good (for the wrong reasons)... in particular, the “within XXX miles” (usually 150) movement, eat and use local products. They do it for the “low carbon footprint” (oh please) we would do it for safety and supporting US markets.
The Whole Foods near me has started to label local products. And though I am trapped in liberal land and this is horrible for many reasons, at least we get really good fresh local produce. If only there was a place with great weather and produce without all the liberality!! :-)
Agreed. I too am a free trader, but not a free-for-all-trader. Food safety and inspection is one of the few things I expect to remain in a limited government along with police, fire fighters, and a strong military.
Wow, that’s an amazing article about organic foods. Silk, Cascadia Farms, Organic Valley, etc. all importing foods from overseas! These are brands I use. I thought I was getting food from small organic farms here in the US. I guess not.
The risks pale when compared to the risks to the companies that choose to use these "cheap" ingredients. Haven't these avaricious asses heard of trail lawyers? Pockets get deeper hour-by-hour over in Big Cheap land.
And who are the trial lawyers' partners who have virtual unlimited power? The states attorneys general who discovered that "settlements" are a bottomless source of revenue.
What did I draw from my musing? We are very, very lucky something worse than 911 hasn't happened. Our Gov is TOO big and too inefficient... we are on our own.....
Where did she buy them? I saw something in Walgreens I really wanted last night, looked at the label — made in China — placed back on the shelf... I’m going on a anti-China strike where possible... our new washing machine, dryer and dishwasher were all make in South Korea (LG) so fat the best appliances we have ever owned...
Breaking News on Food & Beverage Development - Europe
DSM talks vitamin quality with Quali-C brand
By Jess Halliday
27/03/2007- DSM Nutritional Products is emphasising quality as the crucial point of differentiation between the vitamin C it produces in the green hills of Scotland - now known as Quali-C - and cheaper material from Asia.
DSM Nutritional Products (formerly Roche Vitamins) has a 70-year track record in vitamin C production. It became the only bulk vitamin C producer in the West in late 2005, when BASF ceased production at its plant in Denmark in response to price pressure from Chinese suppliers, and opted instead to source its supplies under contract from Asian companies.
Now it is leveraging that position with an ingredient brand that speaks to its industry customers of known quality, traceability and supply reliability.
Gareth Barker, head of global marketing, human nutrition and health, told NutraIngredients.com that Quali-C is not simply an ingredient branding exercise. It is an exercise in building awareness that opting for the cheaper material of uncertain provenance could have catastrophic consequences for a manufacturer and its brand further down the line.
The quality of the product is intrinsically linked with perceptions of the customer's consumer brand - and with wider, serious implications such as sustainability, the environment, and water supply.
Increasingly, consumer concerns about such matters are shaping markets, and it is down to ingredient manufacturers to respond by addressing the industrial aspects of safety, said Barker.
Part of the assurance comes down to traceability. DSM boasts the ability to trace right back to the corn field the non-GMO sugar that is the raw material for the fermentation process.
Control systems, quality management, environmental sustainability, safety management, and training are also said to be integral to total quality management.
Quali-C does come at a higher price than Chinese material, but Barker and Martjin Adorf, global marketing manager, declined to expand on the precise mark-up. They said they could not put a price on differentiation, since "the market decides the price, and customers are prepared to pay a premium."
By contrast, with a lot of the vitamin C on the market, they added, there could be a hidden price to pay.
While at a chemical level the vitamin C may be the same, it is important for customers to look beyond this to "what happens if" their material should prove to be contaminated or sub-standard in some other way.
Concerns range from down times to product liability, recalls, damaged relationships consumer uproar - all of which could result in considerable expense that would outstrip the costs of sourcing product of a know quality in the first place.
While there have not yet been any issues with vitamin C, other health ingredients have been hit by quality problems, contamination, and counterfeiting.
"It could be just a matter of time before it hits vitamin C as well".
Ultimately, it would be damaging to the nutrition industry as a whole if, as a result of a problem in consumer products caused by low quality vitamin C, the message should be that vitamin C is bad for you.
DSM has not been immune to the price pressure exerted on the vitamin C market by China. Until late 2005 it had a vitamin C production plant in Belvidere, USA in addition to its remaining facility in Dalry, Scotland.
But despite DSM referring to its unique position as the only vitamin C producer outside Asia in its marketing materials, Barker said this is not the main reason the company is highlighting quality assurance.
"We are in the business of selling high quality nutritional ingredients to all markets around the world. It is more of an evolution," he said.
Adorf added that DSM does not view the present situation as healthy. While overall supply of vitamin C is outstripping demand, it seems there is an undersupply of quality material. DSM says its Dalry plant is utilising its full capacity, and Quali-C is "all taken out of [its] hands every day". Adorf would not disclose the production capacity at Dalry.
As for the potential for future expansion, should current demand continue, he said that is not a decision that would be taken lightly.
But DSM evidently remains wholeheartedly committed to vitamin C.
So much so, in fact, that it has invested heavily in R&D for new, breakthrough production technology.
While it is still too early to say when the new technology will go into production, Barker described it as "a radical innovation".
I just looked at my bottle of milk thistle tabs. The links posted in the post above(first one specifically), lists milk thistle among quite a few herbal remedies imported from China. All it said on my label was the US manufacturer/distributor.
I agree that listing the country of origin for the raw material should be done immediately. I live in CA, so you know who my reps are :(
I would be willing, in light of China’s refusal to let us inspect their plants/operations, to pay more for inspected products.
I would as well....
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