http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26874854/

MSNBC.com September 24, 2008

Amid milk scare, China’s elite eat all-organic
Government outlet provides safe, special food for the nation’s leaders

http://www.lettre-ulysses-award.org/news/secondprenglish2006.html

This Chinese author Zhou Qing won a 2006 German literary award for his book on the Chinese food supply. The EU
and the Chinese people know. Only the US keeps on trying to make a silk purse ... out of the Chinese shambles of
food and drug exports.

Zhou Qing, “What Kind of God”. A Survey of the Current Safety of China's Food
The wealth of its cuisine attests to just how much China’s four-thousand-year history is linked to the history of its food. The success and failure of the rulers depended upon being able to provide the people with enough food to eat. In todays country of the “Chinese Economic Myth,” with its growth rates, skyscrapers, and global market success, the theme of foodstuffs is once against of extreme importance. The production and sale of food can bring in high profits; and in the realm of food and drink the desire for quick wealth can also lead to a lack of moral scruples. The Chinese writer Zhou Qing spent two years researching his book “What Kind of God”. A Survey of the Current Safety of China's Food. He interviewed food manufacturers and restaurant owners, fish farmers, peasants, traders, doctors, and consumers. Contraceptive pills accelerate fish farming, the pesticide DDT keeps pickles from going off, hormones are used to replace foodstuffs, salt is chemically enhanced, industrial oil is altered to make cooking oil. Antibiotics in animal feed lead to premature puberty in children, and a third of all cancers can be traced back to poisoned food. An entire people are poisoning themselves.

JJ, I think the Chinese are where the US was about 100 years ago in terms of food production (Upton Sinclair's Jungle). But based on supply and demand, the US has to import from somewhere. What I don't understand is why, since the possible adulteration of food and drug exports from China at the present time is so widely known, the US simply doesn't implement testing and inspection of every single product coming from China as a reasonable means of self defense. The obvious answer is with those kinds of self defense measures added, China product would no longer be the cheapest.

So I have three nominees for equal blame here, the Three Stooges of US Food Safety:

China, the contaminating and adulerating food producer;

Global village food industry corporations, who are only concerned with profit, not safety;

The US government, who allows multinational corporations to evade food safety standards and export US jobs, and has no adequate food safety
program in place paid for by multinational food producers and importers through user fees.

All three get my personal vote of blame.

of course they do!!!  They wouldn't be caught dead eating any of the food or using any of the products their country produces.  They know it is all bad stuff!

China can have whatever kind of shebang it wants. Think its way past time for the people here to wake up and pay attention. Quit giving your money to countries that care not a whit if you, your babies/children or your pets drop dead - GET THAT ? - Because your only contributing to your own demise.

The part of the food debacle that "thrills" me is that the elites here have so messed up our foods with GMOs, hormones,
insecticides, pesticides, and tainted ingredients from other countries and then made sure that our labeling cannot
tell us where things came from that EVEN THE ELITES are unlikely to be able to save themselves from the junk. We so smart
here that we wind up whacking ourselves eventually. We've sold insecticides to other countries that are banned here and then
those countries export foods back to us after using the very same banned insecticides on the foods. Duh!

I took great pride in some of my letters to Congress that ask them pointedly how they expected their own families
to avoid the mess they were creating with their lax food laws and how when they retire did they expect not to be adversely
affected by the imported junk foods and junk pet foods that they left messed up. I recall reciting the Senator Byrd "Here Comes
Trouble" pooch story and his dilemma of what he could feed his beloved pooch that his deceased wife helped pick out while
making sure not to poison Trouble.

I think I got the standard form letter number 5 - "Thank you for your views on this topic."

Yesterday, I had mom throw out her Snickers bar and her bag of Oreo cookies just to be extra cautious.