Food safety part 2 - Food originating from China

Strap yourselves in folks:

Foods made in China are starting to be exported to more and more countries around the world. My recent post talked about new M&Ms chocolate blocks that are being sold by major retailers throughout Australia that - unlike the normal M&Ms pieces which are still made in Australia - are being made in China and imported here. You can see that post below:

https://steemit.com/teamaustralia/@strapped/food-in-australia-china-imports

I want to explore this issue a bit further to demonstrate that this is not a matter of sensationalising safety concerns about foods coming from China. This is a real and systemic issue that may mean that contamination in foods produced in China may be close to unavoidable.

According to a soil survey conducted in China between 2006 and 2011 (which was originally classed as secret) - one fifth of Chinese farmland contains higher-than-permitted levels of pollutants. China contains 7% of the worlds arable land.

!

The Chinese public is acutely aware of the issue. Depending on where you live, you may have notice that infant formula is being a scarce commodity these days, as it is snapped up from supermarket shelves and sent to China where it the price is marked up considerably. This is a symptom of the distrust that consumers in China have for local food produce.

A number of food safety scandals are common knowledge in China, which combined have resulted in this distrust of local food by Chinese consumers. Examples are:

Cadmium rice

Contains a heavy metal that, if ingested, can cause kidney failure and bone damage -

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjG4rbwgNPUAhVCmJQKHdTgD2QQFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenpeace.org%2Feastasia%2Fpublications%2Freports%2Ftoxics%2F2014%2Fcadmium-rice-heavy-metal%2F&usg=AFQjCNGBPDNA2Wt92IsSZlPMl2quv5VUlQ

Plastic Rice

Huge amounts of fake rice has been seized in China, and it is believed that much of it is produced from potatoes combined with a synthetic resin. Its long-term consumption could cause cancer.

And everyone's favourite snack -

Gutter oil

So what kind of foods are imported from China?

It turns out it is not only processed foods that people need to be wary of. According to ESRI Australia, the amount of processed food imported from China – particularly fruit and vegetables – has increased in recent years. This chart is just one of many that may come as a surprise:

Further info can be found here - http://esriau.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=b3f93da86d8b4d38b3c8b3413717971c&webmap=65783e3306b0402a80c638f2cccef71d

If you are in USA

Chinese food safety issues do not get coverage by mainstream media outside of China. In developed countries where consumers do not typically consider the safety of the food they are consuming, this can be especially dangerous. In developed countries there is an expectation that authorities have ensured that manufacturers and importers abide by safety standards. This leaves consumers vulnerable with their guards down.

Trusting companies who import foods

Can the large companies be trusted to protect us in this regard? As more information becomes available to the general public, it is now becoming a general assumption that companies, especially large ones, will apply the minimum standard required by the law, whilst achieving maximised profits. One of the means to this goal is to find loop holes and exploit them while exposing themselves to minimum risk.

Being aware of these motives by large companies - it would be fraught to trust them with ensuring that they have delved deep enough into the food sources used to manufacture foods imported from China - especially to the extent that they know the raw materials were not grown in a field of contaminated soil.

As we've seen, the effects of this problem such as eventual kidney failure or bone damage would take a long time to develop, making it almost impossible to pin down what the cause of the problem is when they eventuate. In the meantime the companies have made their profits and moved on. Maybe a company will have had 10 different CEOs before problems begin to emerge. Companies are well aware of this.

Decentralise and stay safe

This article is aimed at getting people to think about where the food they eat is coming from - and also to highlight that large companies are now trying to sell foods imported from China en masse through large retail outlets.

They will continue to increase these practices as long as people are buying them.

I am sure there are many unsafe practices in countries worldwide, but when the systemic issues have been identified in a particular country, its only wise to protect yourself and loved ones from exposure.

Governments cannot and will not fully protect you. It is a fact of life that they are inefficient at the majority of tasks they undertake. To exacerbate this, the donations they receive (both declared and undeclared) influence the level of pressure they excerpt on companies to do the right thing.

Check the labels and understand as best you can where your foods are coming from.

Cheers and decentralise

strapped