Above video shocked me when I saw it for the first time. Although I’ve already known that the food safety in China has not been satisfied for a long time, this still blows my mind. As I mentioned in previous blog, products like melamine-tainted milk powder, counterfeit eggs, and swill-cooked oil has been reported and revealed frequently in China. Among these reports, the melamine-tainted milk powder case is considered the most severe incident in food market, because this toxic product sickened 300000 babies and killed six in 2008. To be honest, I did not pay much attention on food safety in China, for one reason is that these toxic food are milk powder, and eggs which are not very closely related to me (i.e. I don’t consume frequently). However, when I get to know that meat products are not safe anymore, as a meat lover, I’m very worried about the food safety in China today.
Just out of my curiosity, I briefly searched some news about food safety issue in China. Unfortunately, it blows my mind again.
Let me list some food that has problems in China:
lean meat powder (clenbuterol for feeding pigs);
antibiotics-treated abalone;
sulfate-smoked shark fins;
formalin-treated sea cucumber;
industrial salt treated dry oyster;
phosphor powder-bleached abalone mushrooms;
contraceptive pills-fed turtles.
Why am I seeing chemicals and drugs together with food? Antibiotics, sulfate, and formalin are compounds that I only encountered in labs or read from textbooks, but now they are so close to people that those chemicals even get through mouth and reach humans’ stomach. This is not funny at all. This is real facts that threaten people’s life.
Of course, we still have safe food products in China, but the price is relatively higher. It’s not like that the next bite you have in China will be the toxic one. It’s not that prevalent yet, hopefully. My point is that it’s always going to be your concern when you see food safety issues in the news. Those poisoned food don’t kill people at once, it kills slowly.
Why China Struggles with Food Safety
This article analyses some aspects why China struggles with food safety. While I believe the very basic cause is still because of money. Producers want high income and low investment. That’s the force drives them go toxic.
China’s Bizarre Food ‘Safety’ Scene, and Our Own
This article published by New York Times is interesting. It not only reflects some food safety issues in China, but also reports same issues in the states for comparison. I guess the food safety issue is global.
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