Vermouth
03-16-2012, 09:40 AM
China has a terrible record of using pesticides that are banned in the US. In addition, Chinese corporations try to cut corners by adding chemicals to food. Many Chinese agricultural products are sold in US supermarkets unlabeled.
Do you remember the story a few years ago where babies in China died from kidney failure because melamine-formaldehyde resin "an inexpensive nitrogen-rich chemical used in plastic manufacturing" had been added to baby formula to make it look like it contained more protein?
Since then, there have been other atrocities. Egg-laying hens were fed "gossypol, which binds with protein in egg yolks. Gossypol has also been used as a key ingredient in tests to develop a male contraceptive pill, although in this case it was used to produce a large, healthy-looking egg yolk."
From Foreign Affairs:
"Since the powdered milk outrage four years ago, companies have been caught making ham laced with pesticides, counterfeit alcoholic drinks, fake baby formula, contaminated vermicelli, adulterated pickled vegetables, carcinogenic chili sauce, and canned fish that contained a dangerous fungicide. Making matters worse, early last year, Mao Qunan, the director of the Chinese Health Ministry's Public Information Center, announced that certain journalists "with a neglectful and unserious attitude" would be blacklisted from reporting on food safety because their reports risked harming the development of China's food industry.
...
So far, China's food safety story has no happy ending. In the last 18 months, news outlets have published reports of glow-in-the-dark pork (thanks to the addition of the carcinogenic chemical clenbuterol), exploding watermelons (loaded with harmful growth accelerators), rice contaminated with heavy metals (the result of polluted soil), mushrooms imbued with bleach (to make them look fresher), and bread covered with starch (to hide mold). Perhaps the most disgusting of these incidents is the "recycling" of cooking oil from China's drains and gutters treated to look like edible oil. After being gathered in the night and filtrated, this "distilled sewage," noted China Daily, is sold in the morning as clear-looking oil to unwitting restaurant customers. Aflotoxin, a deadly toxin, is often added during the process.
...
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, China has one of the highest rates of chemical fertilizer use per hectare, and Chinese farmers use many highly toxic pesticides, including some that have been banned in the United States. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that only six percent of agricultural products in China could be considered safe. Many farmers use antibiotics to control disease in livestock, often at dangerously high levels.
...
China is one of the world's largest producers of agricultural products, and it exports roughly $5 billion worth of those products to the United States every year. Although supermarket labels may not indicate it, a growing proportion of the U.S. diet is now made in China. When Americans drink apple juice or eat tilapia, cod, or canned peaches, mushrooms, spinach, garlic, there is a good chance they are eating a Chinese product. And that food probably has not been tested: Only 1.5 percent of Chinese food imports, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, are inspected
..."
(my bold above)
original article: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137329/thomas-n-thompson/glowing-pork-exploding-watermelons
Do you remember the story a few years ago where babies in China died from kidney failure because melamine-formaldehyde resin "an inexpensive nitrogen-rich chemical used in plastic manufacturing" had been added to baby formula to make it look like it contained more protein?
Since then, there have been other atrocities. Egg-laying hens were fed "gossypol, which binds with protein in egg yolks. Gossypol has also been used as a key ingredient in tests to develop a male contraceptive pill, although in this case it was used to produce a large, healthy-looking egg yolk."
From Foreign Affairs:
"Since the powdered milk outrage four years ago, companies have been caught making ham laced with pesticides, counterfeit alcoholic drinks, fake baby formula, contaminated vermicelli, adulterated pickled vegetables, carcinogenic chili sauce, and canned fish that contained a dangerous fungicide. Making matters worse, early last year, Mao Qunan, the director of the Chinese Health Ministry's Public Information Center, announced that certain journalists "with a neglectful and unserious attitude" would be blacklisted from reporting on food safety because their reports risked harming the development of China's food industry.
...
So far, China's food safety story has no happy ending. In the last 18 months, news outlets have published reports of glow-in-the-dark pork (thanks to the addition of the carcinogenic chemical clenbuterol), exploding watermelons (loaded with harmful growth accelerators), rice contaminated with heavy metals (the result of polluted soil), mushrooms imbued with bleach (to make them look fresher), and bread covered with starch (to hide mold). Perhaps the most disgusting of these incidents is the "recycling" of cooking oil from China's drains and gutters treated to look like edible oil. After being gathered in the night and filtrated, this "distilled sewage," noted China Daily, is sold in the morning as clear-looking oil to unwitting restaurant customers. Aflotoxin, a deadly toxin, is often added during the process.
...
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, China has one of the highest rates of chemical fertilizer use per hectare, and Chinese farmers use many highly toxic pesticides, including some that have been banned in the United States. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that only six percent of agricultural products in China could be considered safe. Many farmers use antibiotics to control disease in livestock, often at dangerously high levels.
...
China is one of the world's largest producers of agricultural products, and it exports roughly $5 billion worth of those products to the United States every year. Although supermarket labels may not indicate it, a growing proportion of the U.S. diet is now made in China. When Americans drink apple juice or eat tilapia, cod, or canned peaches, mushrooms, spinach, garlic, there is a good chance they are eating a Chinese product. And that food probably has not been tested: Only 1.5 percent of Chinese food imports, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, are inspected
..."
(my bold above)
original article: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137329/thomas-n-thompson/glowing-pork-exploding-watermelons