Why U.S. doesn't stop tainted food from China

san jose mercury ^ | 5/20/07 | by Rick Weiss

[Flavius]

WASHINGTON - Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

These were among the 107 food imports from China the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught - many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

[palmer]

Yes, some of it was sold by formerly respectable brands (IAMS and Eukaneuba) but those brands were bought out by Procter and Gamble who obviously only care about profit.

[sam_paine]

this article had nothing to do with US foods, it was about ChiComs and their transgressions...my point is that we should have a choice if we wish to buy those products or not, and if the products aren’t labeled as to origin, that choice is gone.

I understood that completely. Which is WHY I pointed out that there are many foods on the USDA site with "Made in the USA" labels that are currently on recall. Thus, it makes no sense to boycott only chicom food if you believe that some taints the whole. If there are problems with chicom and USSA foods, then you should boycott them both.

I am not playing any games, and you should probably not invoke rationality as it is apparently not your strong suite.

And writing may not be your strong suit. =)

[Calpernia]

I keep it handy to whip out when needed. :)

It speaks volumes.

[expatguy]

Ok Sam, just as a layman speaking here.

For the most part, Chinese companies ain't to concerned with issues like quality control and very few companies in China adhere to any international standards whatsoever.

Chinese production reminds me of the late 1800's in the West.

Even where I live in Southeast Asia, the governments here have recently and in the past taken a closer look at items made in China. There have been several cases over here that I recall of women dropping dead from slimming pills made in China.

Many people drop dead around the world from Chinese products - it ain't the same for products made in the USA or many of the Western countries.

If I had a choice in US food products or Chinese, I would choose USA food products ~ and at a greater expense to myself here I often do.

An American Expat in Southeast Asia

[sam_paine]

...after I get my seedlings in the field :)

LOL. FR is the banging teeter-totter.

Remember the kids that would hop off the see-saw at just the right time and let the little kid on the other side bust his rear? Maybe that was just mean kids in Texas.

FR seems to be like that. It's either one extreme or t'other.

[mom4kittys]

Check this out:

http://www.aerogrow.com/store_seedkits/step1a.php?clickname=What%20Can%20I%20Grow%20(Menu)

[texaslil]

It’s not just china. As one of the first 140 organic farmers to be certified by the state of Texas, I can tell you that the lettuce and other foodstuffs coming from Mexico are laced with as many as eleven different pesticides banned in the US. (At the time there was only about one head of lettuce in 1100 tested for such at the Texas/Mexico border.) After that, we only need to worry about Chile, and all the other latin American countries that produce our food.

The problem with a viable organic food industry in the US is that our product looks no different than non-organic, but costs more to produce due to lack of pesticides, chemicals, etc. Oftentimes it lookes worse. If one can’t afford organic food that has been certified, at least one should buy the apples and other foods that have blemishes on the outside chance it missed being adulterated, then peel everything that can be peeled, and wash the heck out of the rest.

[grey_whiskers]

Nice try Sam.

First, I agree that too many consumers blithely rely of the government -- but what other choice do they have?

The supply chain is too complex for consumers to follow, and often difficult for the companies themselves. The more so when feedstock materials are purchased from brokers on the spot market.

Clicking on a couple of the links from your table...

The Oscar Meyer bacon was insufficiently cooled during processing.

The ham steaks were possibly contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes

The meatball pasta was underprocessed.

While these are bad, they are not the same as deliberately adulterating the feedstock with industrial chemicals in order to inflate desirable values in the nutrient assay.

Cheers!

[varina davis]

Labels can be deceiving. Many say “distributed” in an American city, but don’t name the country source.

There are a lot of comments about this administration being responsible for tainted imported foods, but if anyone thinks it will be any better with the Dem party in the Whitehouse, think again.

What we need is real public outrage and a halt to buying any imported products that can be produced in our own country — or by ourselves.

Consumers should flood their favorite supermarkets and other producers with emails demanding information about imports. Congressmen, too, and anyone who might be involved.

I’ve nothing against free trade, but not when it puts Americans in peril.

King Arthur Flour, John Copes dried corn (delicious) Red Mill flour products — there is a long list of good food available online. There are shipping costs, but it may be worth it.

[sweetiepiezer]

They were selling the areogrow on qvc

[Lijahsbubbe]

Ping

[tioga]

What I would like to know is this: the US makes it dang near impossible to put new foods on the market due to the FDA......are foreign imports subject to needing FDA approval? If NOT, then why? Seems to me they are trying to make an end run around FDA approval by importing. What IS going on? We cannot even export foods that do not meet FDA approval, yet we are importing substandard garbage to feed our nation?

[mom4kittys]

They look pretty cool—I saw it on HGTV. I wonder how well they work?

[FatherofFive]

I find it absurd any food products, additives or otherwise are shipped to the USA from China.

I don't understand this either. However, I like edemame and it is hard to find. Trader Joe's carries it, but it is from China. I bought my last bag, and discarding what remains in the freezer. And I'm sending a letter to them to STOP IMPORTING FOOD FROM CHINA!

[palmer]

There are very simple products whose supply chain can be followed. I bought
wellness diet for my cats for years without worrying about low quality
ingredients being added. People are not willing to take the time or spend the
money to do that research. They also don’t want to subscribe to private
organizations who can do that for them. Instead they whine and want the
government to do more. The irony is that government sucks. They might do it ok
for a while, but then they will let various politicians dictate what is safe and
then they will ban the safe products so they can’t compete with the cheap ones.

[tioga]

Gabz - how does your garden grow? You have been planting your own vegetable gardens for quite a few years now. YOU tell ‘em!

[little jeremiah]

Bob’s Red Mill will email the origin of all their products, most are US grown. Someone listed it on another thread.

All of Giusto’s flours are from the US, IIRC - I called them.

Got a link to the John Copes Dried Corn? Used to eat it when I was a kid. Long time ago....

[sam_paine]

Chinese production reminds me of the late 1800's in the West. ... If I had a choice in US food products or Chinese, I would choose USA food products ~ and at a greater expense to myself here I often do.

Ex...you are NOT a 'layman.' You apparently are there, you know of what you speak, and you experience seems to parallel my experience EXACTLY in my time in Asia.

I think you're exactly correct when you say the East is the new Wild West, (both as a compliment and an insult.)

I know the last time I was there, as I mentioned earlier, there was a 'malachite green' scare where they were putting a carcinogenic dye in eel ponds to kill some kind of fungus or something.

Anyway, over the week or so of this hitting the news, the chicoms explained that there was no problem with the dye for domestic consumption because all of the problem eels had actually been shipped to Japan!

It's reasonable to look at the Chinese countryside (or a Taiwanese river) and assume that you are eating in the nastiest place on earth.

That said, I just can't see how the FDA, USDA or blockade will save Americans from themselves.

If you put me in a field and told me to make a diet coke from scratch, and I gave you an all natural brown fizzy liquid with zero calories, would you drink the damn thing?

Americans eat hamburgers out of paper wrappings from a mill and we think it's clean because, why? Because it's white?

I'm just saying that the entire world is dirty and singling out china ignores the reality that buying unknown stuff off some grocery store shelf leads to unknown stuff from unscrupulous people anywhere.

[JACKRUSSELL]

And who are the U.S. companies that are receiving and buying the illegal meat shipments, from China that are not seized upon arrival at the ports? What are they doing with that meat, what are they using it for?

"But that has not stopped Chinese meat exporters. In the past year, USDA teams have seized hundreds of thousands of pounds of prohibited poultry products from China and other Asian countries, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced in March. Some were shipped in crates labeled "dried lily flower," "prune slices" and "vegetables," according to news reports. It is unclear how much of the illegal meat slipped in undetected."

[Calpernia]

bump.

There are a few on my breederville.com site that sell mini greenhouses too.