More tainted food from China

Here on the top of right column is a report about more tainted food from China. This time is tainted meat by purpose, not by accident.

a new chemical, phenylethanolamine A, has been added in some Chinese pig feed to boost up the look of the meat (so more money can be made). Such chemical can harm humans severely once the tainted meat is consumed.

Without looking into the psychology of adding such chemical to food for humans, we simply want to be informed if similar ingredients are in our food, especially in the packaged food. But where is the mechanism in the food manufacturing industry for us to learn where the ingredients are shipped from?

There is no law requiring it, so the food manufacturers would not do it.

I would love to hear from some of you for your suggestions.

Whole Foods’ Organic food is from China

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ31Ljd9T_Y&feature=player_embedded#

Thanks to ABC I-Team’s spotlight on the so-called organic food in Whole Foods, people hopefully would start reading the labels and learn where the food is from. While it is easier for us to read the labels on the packaged food, it may not be as easy to know or find where some of fruits and vegetables are from.
We have been to Gilroy, CA, the Capital of Garlic. To our dismay, we saw many stalls claiming selling local produces are marketing Chinese garlic. We asked the store why a Gilroy local market/shop would market garlic from China. Surprised by our enquiry, the clerk answered: because customers buy them. We stopped buying the Garlic Ice Cream there. There is no way to know for sure they did not use the Chinese garlic for the ice cream.

At least, some stores like Whole Foods put on their labels showing where the ingredients are from. How about (if) the Vitamin companies buy bulk ingredients from China and repackage them in smaller packs, then mark them “Made in the US”. Technically it’s made in the U.S., but with Chinese ingredients. The problem for consumers is that, THEY ARE NOT REQUIRED BY LAW TO LABEL THAT.

This is where the trouble of our food chains starts.
(More on this subject will be followed.)

Country of Origin labeling

When grocery shopping the other day in an Asian market in Mountain View, I noticed this new market puts Country of Origin labels on most (if not all) of the fruits, vegetables and seafood. It was quite impressive.

Of course, when I got to the packaged processed food section, there was not such delight of information for consumers.

Why some small grocery stores can easily do Country of Origin labels while food manufactures can not or are unwilling to do so for the ingredients?

American consumers are vulnerable to contaminated products

Somehow I did not catch this report immediately after its publication. In the news links on the right side of this blog, there’s a report showing how vulnerable the American consumers are to the contaminated products. It’s shocking to know that FDA inspects less than one percent of imports a year. Less than one percent...

Former Director of Imports for FDA (1999-2005), Carl Nielsen, said "... There's so little known from the foreign markets." I totally agree. Especially food and/ingredients that are from countries that have little or no free media reporting. The melamine contaminated milk products from China is a very clear example. My understanding was that, in China there were complaints of melamine contamination in the Chinese milk since last December. But, with the Chinese style of media, no news outlets knew about, or reported it until huge numbers of Chinese kids got sick and were sent to hospitals.

Without sufficient FDA inspections, the American consumers are eating the food coming from the same "black box food supplies" as that of the third world countries.

Before FDA got enough funding and manpower to do sufficient inspection on the imports, we would like at least to see some transparency by food makers - labeling country origin for the ingredients.

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.

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.