What do parents do for sweets this Halloween?

More candies and cookies are being recalled. I ask myself and my husband, what arewe going to do with candies this Halloween? We are thinking of giving out pen, pencils and erasers, maybe.

However, my utmost concern is: what else has not been disclosed to us?

In Trader Joe's today, I found a new label on my favorite seafood package showing the scallops are from Thailand and shrimps from China. I was thankful for such disclosure. Surveying many packaged food, I am still disappointed at no such label of country origins on them.

I am wondering whether some food manufacturers would answer to consumers' request of asking for where the country origin of the food ingredients. If anyone is interested in doing such survey, please email me.

It's not just food ingredients, how about medication?

While we want to know the from-where information of our food ingredients, the tragedy of tainted blood thinner Heparin killing and sickening people in U. S. and the rest of the world also makes us desire to know how best we can protect our loved ones.

In the contaminated blood thinner Heparin cases, people paid for products that are supposed to help them. They did not, instead, they hurt people. We are living in a society taking food safety very seriously. But to cut the cost, the manufacturers and suppliers import ingredients from countries that have low or no food safety concerns for their own people. We are essentially living, to some extent, in a third-world society.

I know some of us don’t care, but many do care. Most people would not feed their loved ones something that can cause cancer or do harms.

So how do we protect us? Don’t we wish there is information out there that can help us? Before the lawmakers realize that there should be certain law to prote

Law or consumer pressure?

I was told that the bar code of food package would tell you where the food is from. Do you know how true it is? When I learned that you can import bulk ingredients from any country, assemble them here and label them 'Made in U.S.", I started this suspicious feeling in my guts. If the ingredients from country C can go to country N and end up killing cats and dogs in country U, the international trade business has become a black box. Shall we wait for the government to have a law to require country of origin labeling on food? Shall we push food makers to do such disclosure? But, what's their incentive for doing so?

We do need to have laws to require certain transparency in our food chain. But how long would it take? Let check into the process of COOL.

Ingredient Matters

I subscribe to FDA's food alert. Then, I think it usually takes some deaths or sickness before such news was released. I am also wondering how much our government inspect food imported into this country. Therefore, I would like to share and learn from each other the information of food manufacturers we frequently buy. Where do their ingredients come from? Let us start the search and investigation.

Does any one know where the ingredients of Oreo cookies come from?
How about M & M?
How about Dreyer's Ice Cream?