Posted on 05/25/2007 4:48:21 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
SHANGHAI, China — As the tainted pet-food recall mushroomed into an international scandal, two of the largest U.S. food manufacturers put out a blanket order to their American suppliers: no more ingredients from China.
The directive from Mission Foods Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc., made quietly earlier this month, underscored consumers’ and manufacturers’ fears about the safety of imported food ingredients after contaminated wheat products from China killed and sickened cats and dogs in the United States.
The problem is, what Mission and Tyson want is next to impossible.
In the last decade, China has become the world’s leading supplier of many food flavorings, vitamins and preservatives. Like fingernail clippers, playing cards, Christmas ornaments and other items, some food additives are available in large quantities only from China.
China exported $2.5 billion of food ingredients to the United States and the rest of the world in 2006, an increase of 150 percent from just two years earlier, according to Chinese industry estimates. It is now the predominant maker of vanilla flavoring, citric acid and varieties of Vitamin B such as thiamine, riboflavin and folic acid — nutrients commonly added to processed flour goods such as Mission tortillas and Tyson breaded chicken.
“It would be somewhat difficult to move away from all the vitamins in China,” said Monte White, president of Research Products Co., a large supplier of nutrients for flour mixes. He said his Salina, Kan.-based company was stepping up its testing of imported goods, despite having had “very consistent results” from China in the last five years.
China’s overall food safety record is poor. Use of chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides is heavy. Fraud and corruption often thwart what lax controls exist. In recent years, U.S. officials have issued alerts about Chinese honey tainted with a harmful antibiotic; Chinese candy containing sulfites that can cause fatal allergic reactions; and infant formula missing vital nutrients, which in China left a dozen babies dead in 2004.
A small group of large manufacturers dominate the production of food ingredients in China, but hundreds if not thousands of small, virtually anonymous businesses — like the two linked to the pet-food scandal — operate in an industry lacking tough standards and enforcement.
“Some of them are driven by profits; you can see dollar signs in their eyes,” said Jan Willem Roben, head of Vision Ingredients, a Shanghai-based trader of food additives.
TAINTED PET FOOD RAISED AWARENESS
In the U.S., major food manufacturers often don’t know where all their ingredients originate. Mission, a Texas-based unit of Mexican food giant Gruma, would not comment about that or its directive, but said it was working with its suppliers to ensure the products were safe. Arkansas-based Tyson, one of the nation’s largest providers of beef and chicken, did not respond to interview requests.
Many packaged foods contain dozens of items from around the world, acquired through complex networks of traders and brokers, before reaching manufacturing plants where companies have more direct oversight.
“Until now, companies just didn’t care about commodity additives,” said Laszlo Somogyi, an authority on food sciences in Kensington, Calif. “But that might be changing now. This was a warning,” he said, referring to the pet-food debacle.
Somogyi believes tainted food additives pose a relatively low risk to humans because such ingredients are used in tiny amounts in any given product. Still, it wasn’t until the pet-food poisoning that people learned that melamine, an industrial chemical banned in foods in the U.S., had been widely added to animal feed in China to artificially boost its protein level.
“The same thing could have happened in the human food chain,” said Somogyi.
Chinese-made ingredients are likely found in every aisle of American supermarkets. Consider that American favorite, the Hostess Twinkie. Of its 39 ingredients, at least a half-dozen — such as Vitamin B compounds, the preservative sorbic acid and red and yellow colorings — are mostly likely made in China, says Steve Ettlinger, author of the book “Twinkie, Deconstructed.”
TRACING INGREDIENTS CAN BE COMPLICATED
David Leavitt, Interstate Bakeries’ vice president of snack marketing, said he wasn’t aware of any Twinkie ingredients made in China. But in a brief e-mail statement, he said Interstate was polling some of its smaller vendors to determine whether they obtain any products from China.
The complicated process of verification could eventually lead to a company like Ningbo Wanglong Group, the world’s largest maker of sorbic acid — a preservative made from natural gas that helps keep mold off baked goods and other products. The 14-year-old private company, located about 120 miles south of Shanghai, produces 1,000 tons of the white crystals every month. About one-third of that is exported to the U.S., said Li Ming, the company’s office director.
Li welcomed visitors to tour his company’s 80-acre campus, where he said 400 employees, many of them wearing white gloves and gray uniforms, work in 20 high-tech facilities. Seventy percent of workers have advanced degrees, he said proudly.
But for every additive maker like Ningbo Wanglong, scores of small operations compete in China, offering cut-rate goods in food industry journals, at trade fairs and on the Internet.
To make many ingredients, people need only basic knowledge of chemistry and simple equipment: a kettle, a scale and a dryer.
“The problem is that many small companies don’t register their products as food additives, thus avoiding supervision,” said He Jiguo, director of the food nutrition and safety department at China Agricultural University in Beijing. Instead, he said, these companies classify their goods as nonfood items. Many food additives also have industrial applications; citric acid, for example, is used to clean boilers and etch concrete floors.
He says Chinese government officials should boost enforcement and penalties.
“There is no clear food-classification system, no distinct definition for the range that the food includes, no related regulation about residues that additives leave on foods,” said a recent food-industry report. “All these bring loopholes for additives manufacturing and usage, give illegal traders opportunities and affects customers’ trust toward food additive safety.”
“Somogyi believes tainted food additives pose a relatively low risk to humans because such ingredients are used in tiny amounts in any given product.”
This man is a fool and should quit his job right now. Even “non-tainted” food additives like artificial colors, flavors and preservatives ain’t good for ya!
What a freaking idiot.
Hi, MM! I’m in total agreement! I avoid any processed foods about 99.9% of the time, never take vitamins and don’t need them. Real food has naturally occuring vitamins and minerals in the proper balance, with all kinds of micronutrients as well.
I loathe vitamins - cereals or other stuff with vitamins added smell and taste funny.
I have about given up buying canned/jar mushrooms because they all seem to be from China, India, Pakistan. I also have stopped buying most frozen fish for that same reason. From now on, I'm reading everything. I didn't notice this on the apple juice because it never would have occurred to me that apple juice would be imported from China. Disgraceful.
We can do without toxic ChiCom food ingredients. There should be no second chances for food and food ingredient safety.
If the ChiComs think they can ship toxins to us, they there should be no second chance.
No “it was just a rogue company” crap. We don’t need this stuff happening.
A defective Chinese made toaster is one thing, toxic food ingredients is another matter.
My raspberry bushes are coming in nicely and the strawberries are going gangbusters; loaded with flowers already. I got me a load of “fertilizer” from some friends who own a farm. Seems to be helping. We just need a little more rain, though. It’s been kind of dry this spring, which is not real good. We tend to dry out in July and Aug.
I’ve got potatoes, onions, beans, peas, zucchini, and lettuce started.
We have great orchards around here, also, so I can get fresh cherries and apples for applesauce, and they make their own cider. We have a local source for honey, too.
The more I read, the more food independent I am trying to become. Living in the country and owning a canner and pressure canner helps. I just wish we had a longer growing season. :(
NY has tons of apple orchards and produces wonderful apples.
I agree, with the great sources we have here, WHY do we get stuff that so easy to grow locally from China?
Yes, I understand it's not just junk food, but I have little patience with people that think junk food should be safe when it is inherently unhealthy.
You should start shopping for natural or organic foods. Probably you can find locally produced apple juice and lots of other safer, healthier, and tastier foods than the Chinese imports. Yes, they will be more expensive, but may not be out of reach. Personally I would prefer to have my daughter drink 1/2 as much of a pure juice than an unsafe one.
As to why apple juice concentrate is cheaper to ship from China than produce locally, that's a good question. Of course labor costs are far lower. I suspect fertilizer and pesticide costs are far lower as well (as will be the quality) but that is still surprising. I'd check the label carefully to see just how much concentrate is in there - perhaps the bulk is water and chemicals!
Cost.
The vast majority of American shoppers have only one metric in shopping for food: the lowest price.
Contrast this to the Japanese shoppers: Japanese food consumers place a great deal of importance on:
- source
- appearance
- freshness
- packaging
And food in Japan costs quite a bit. But their consumers will pay it.
American consumers have a grand expectation of cheap food. They become indignant when the price of food goes up and start complaining to the most stupid people in the country about the cost of food: Congress. Look at the recent flaps over the price of corn and corn-derived products going up, due to ethanol production: people ranting and raving even here on FR about the price of corn.
What people don’t seem to understand is that if the price of corn had simply kept up with inflation, a bushel of corn from 1973 would cost about $14 today. Instead, it costs a tad less than $4/bu. That’s dirt cheap. And people are complaining.
So you get what we have here: a race to the bottom of the price barrel. China, thanks to slave wages and production safety shortcuts, can outproduce and under-bid any US producer in the country, even those producers using illegal alien labor. You were talking about apples, for example: The US apple producer used to have a pretty good profit margin. The US government didn’t subsidize apple production. Things on both coasts were working out pretty well for apple producers.
Then China decided to put in 700,000 acres of apple orchards. Because they’re a command-driven economy (ie, they order people to do things, the government supplies the capital, labor and equipment), they can make things like 700,000 acres of apples happen in two years. China now produces four times the apple concentrate the US does. We used to be #1. Now we’re #2, by a wide, wide margin.
Here’s more than you want to know about apple production:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/htp/Hort_Circular/2006/05-06/Apple%20Juice%20Feature%20May%202006.pdf
There was a thread a few days ago that implied Kraft was getting some material from China.
I wrote them an e-mail and asked, here is part of their answer..
“... We do not import wheat from China...
From ingredient procurement through finished product, we take a number of precautions to assure the safety and wholesomeness of our products....
The answer leaves much ‘wiggle room’ but we know they don’t get wheat from China.
The Left loves to bash the US economic system by looking for the greed in capitalism. But they don’t seem too upset about what is going on in China.What's going on in China is bred by greed in capitalism.
Does anyone really believe these are home grown Chinese companies?
Yum - fresh cherries and apples...!
You need a greenhouse! And some veggies can handle the cold pretty well as long as they don’t freeze. One of the few times I had a TV I used to watch a gardening show. They were based in Maine, and one of the shows featured cold frames (or something) that were like sunken squares in the ground with glass lids like a mini-greenhouse. Even when the ground had snow on it they had fresh greens - lettuce, chard and other greens. Small, and they grew slowly, but heck! Fresh greens in winter!
I refuse to by Tyson just because it is Tyson and the ties back to the Clintons....
Capitalism within a working framework of a legal system, where the law is clear and reliably enforced, is necessary for economic growth and a functioning society. Government can set business standards and hold business accountable. Customers who have a dispute can have them adjudicated reliably (where the court is rational in its rulings).
We are experiencing “post-Marxism” in China. Marxism was always about power, the power necessary to sustain the elites who had grabbed it. In the USSR, the economy collapsed as the natural consequence of socialism, and with it, the ability of the elites to hold on to power.
The Chinese saw this going on and realized that the Marxist economic model could not provide food, clothing and shelter for a billion people. Hungry people revolt. To preclude that revolt and loss of power, the ChiComs released the economy to uncontrolled enterprise. The party is still in control. Any attempts that call that control into question are met with brutal force. But outside of politics, China allow people to get rich and they don’t seem to care how they do it.
This is not capitalism, for the rule of law is lacking. Neither is it laissez faire, because no advocate of laissez faire was suggest that the level of corruption and bribery common in China was a good thing for business.
As I previously wrote, if anything, what we are seeing in China proves the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, that government must be established so we can enjoy the blessings of liberty. Insufficiently effective government is just a much a threat to liberty as excessive government.
You are absolutely correct! In these days where more and more of our foods are pre-packaged, pre-cooked and *fortified* for our convenience, We are all taking unnecessary risks.
For the sake of you and your family’s health and wellbeing, cook your own meals with locally grown meats and produce and avoid anything *easy*.
EAT LOCAL, SCREW GLOBAL.
Mission, a Texas-based unit of Mexican food giant Gruma, is a source of bad Chinese ingredients....so you just don't know about any product from anywhere. I've given up eating any fish whatsoever, taking only molecularly distilled fish oils and cod liver oil. I found one brand of protein powder "Made in the USA from Wisconsin milk" for extra protein. (Jarrow, a pricey upmarket brand.) I always avoided Tyson products, sort of intuitively giving them a wide berth....perhaps the Xlinton connection.
It's horrible to look askance at every food product. Maybe we should all pray over every ingredient that goes on our tables.
When the snow finally melted, I still has a lettuce plant growing. They withstood some pretty hard freezes in the fall, too. That’s the one I’m most interested in. I’m definitely interested in cold frames but a couple feet of snow again in April might be more than the frames could hold. I worry about snow load breaking the glass.
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