Reply To: To eat or not eat food and candy made in chna

Continuation from earlier:
5. Garlic
Garlic is widely considered one of the healthiest herbs on the planet. It is a natural antibiotic and may have cholesterol-lowering and anti-tumor properties to boot. Unfortunately, garlic originating from China has been found laced with pesticides like methyl bromide. Up to one-third of the garlic on U.S. shelves now comes from China, but it would be wise to insist on garlic grown elsewhere.

6. Mushrooms
More than one-third of all the processed mushrooms consumed in the U.S. come from China. In fact, Chinese mushrooms have raised safety concerns the world over for years. Farmers have a reputation for adding sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde to them to keep them looking fresher than they really are. Unfortunately, Chinese mushrooms are often repackaged in this country, making it difficult for consumers to know what they are eating.

7. Salt
The salt consumed in China is often of the industrial variety. It’s probably inevitable that sodium used to prepare processed food products in China will end up in American bellies too. Source natural sea salt and Himalayan pink salt instead.

8. Rice
White rice and other foods from China may be contaminated

In Joseph Heller’s novel “Catch-22,” war profiteers doused cotton in chocolate to turn an inedible substance into a “food.” Now, there are reports that China has been exporting a “plastic rice” that is a combination of potato and resin. Real life is sometimes stranger than fiction, but that doesn’t mean we should be consuming it.

9. Organic food
The U.S. and the European Union have standards to certify organic produce meets certain requirements. In China, however, regulations governing organic produce are virtually non-existent. In addition, farmers and inspectors often collude when it comes to misleading labeling in order to circumvent foreign custom inspections. As a result, food originating in China stamped “organic” is likely anything but.

Know where your food comes from
The smog in a major industrial Chinese city is easy to spot. Similarly, ordinary Chinese citizens understand that food safety is a major issue that they live with on a daily basis. In contrast, it can be difficult for consumers in the U.S. to recognize that cod fillets imported from China are in fact contaminated.

Products like phony eggs and fake honey have been rampant in China for years. Indeed, unsafe food is something of a national scandal most Chinese are all too aware of. In fact, a Chinese student has even dedicated a website to expose and document some of the worst abuses. Unfortunately, contaminated food has health consequences. For instance, both food poisoning and gastrointestinal cancer rates are pretty common in China.

Knowing where your food comes from is an important first step in protecting both you and your family. Health and nutritional experts generally agree, locally grown food is usually better for you and the environment. If you’d like to do more, then check out this petition. It’s aimed at keeping Chinese chickens out of school cafeterias and off supermarket shelves.

— Scott O’Reilly