Tag Archives: China

Mixed messages from China on food safety

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China’s government vowed on Tuesday to make more information available to the public regarding food safety, while sentencing a consumer activist who tried to make more information public about the melamine scandal to 2.5 years in jail.

The whole mess sounds overtly Orwellian.

Deng Haihua, spokesman for the Ministry of Truth Health, the main government agency in charge of overseeing food safety, said the new regulations define exactly what information should be publicized and under which government departments.

Zhang Jian, a food safety researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said,

"Only in that way can consumers get credible and scientific guidance."

Michael Taylor, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods, told reporters in Shanghai today that China’s implementation of food safety standards is the country’s biggest hindrance in exporting high quality, trusted food products overseas,

"An important development is the new food safety law that was passed here in 2009 with a very high-level food safety committee. It just shows a forthright approach to making food safety an important priority, to creating more transparency in the food safety system."

Incarcerating people who set up web sites to help consumers doesn’t help.
 

China food safety activist gets 2.5 years

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In 2008, six children died and nearly 300,000 were sickened by baby formula tainted with melamine. The industrial chemical, used in the manufacture of plastics and fertilizer, was added to watered-down milk to increase profits and fool inspectors testing for protein. Several dairy industry figures were prosecuted and punished, including three people given the death penalty.

Zhao Lianhai (right, exactly as shown) pushed for greater official accountability and compensation for victims and their families after the 2008 scandal that had Chinese officials repeatedly saying they’d do better at food safety basics. He organized a website to collect information about the poisonings, and was taken away by police in November 2009.

Wire services are reporting that Lianhai has now been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison after being found guilty of inciting social disorder.

Lawyer Li Fangping said,

"The crimes he was accused of were nothing more than what regular citizens would do to defend their rights."

Li said prosecutors leveled three charges against Zhao: That he organized a gathering of a dozen parents of sick children at a restaurant, held a paper sign in front of a court and factory involved in the scandal as a protest, and gave media interviews in a public place.
 

The hopeful two-legged lamb

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From the genetics-is-a-wonderfully-mutating-thing file, a two-legged lamb (right, exactly as shown) was born at a farm at Shangdong province in eastern China.

Faded Tribune reports that farmer Cui Jinxiu said,

“I did not think he would live very long, but then he managed to struggle up and stand on his two legs in order to drink some milk from his mother. He was surprisingly steady on his feet — and it did not seem to disturb his mother that he only had two legs. I was so impressed at his desire to survive that I began feeding him extra milk from a bottle. He gambols around with the other lambs when it’s sunny even though he is only a week old now. And he has such a friendly personality, he seems to enjoy life and I think he doesn’t realize he’s disabled.”
 

Skimmed oil, anyone?

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A friend of mine works for a company in charge of collecting waste oil from restaurants to later turn it into fuel. They also pick up road kill from I-70. It’s a dirty job, but I’m glad somebody is doing it.

The Chinese have taken recycling to a whole new level. The waste oil is “skimmed from kitchen waste” and resold in the black market. The yuck factor is enough reason in itself to blog about, but the practice is also a dangerous one:

“Reused cooking oil would likely contain acrylamide, a chemical that forms naturally when starchy foods are baked or fried. Studies have shown the chemical, which also has industrial uses, causes cancer in lab animals and nerve damage to workers who are exposed to high levels.”

Chinese officials say they are stepping up their efforts to combat this and other food safety issues.
 

Restaurant manager eats cockroach to destroy evidence

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Consumers, when dining at a food establishment, or opening some food at home, and discovering a foreign object, or something gross, or a cockroach, do not turn the evidence over to the restaurant or the retailer. Call the local health unit. Otherwise, the proof may be gone (at least take a picture with your cell phone, but they can be photoshoped too easily).

Huang Xiaogang and friends were having their meal at a restaurant in Caidian of Wuhan province recently in China.

Huang found a black creature in the bowl of mushrooms and picked it up with his chopsticks.

To his surprise that tiny black thing was a dead cockroach and complained to the restaurant manager, reports the Daily Chilli.

The manager said that the insect had been "sterilised in high temperature" and was not dirty anymore.

Assuring Huang that the insect would not cause any harm to their health, he picked it up and swallowed it.

The manager later told health officers that he was afraid that the customers would demand high compensation that is why he swallowed the cockroach to destroy evidence.

He then waived off Huang’s bill of 570 Yuan.

Does more money mean safer food? World Bank funds food safety in China

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If China already owns everything why does China need $100 million from the World Bank to pump up their food safety efforts?

According to a World Bank fluff press release, the Government of China has made food safety a top priority in recent years and is taking clear actions to upgrade their food safety system. The Jilin Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Project is part of the national efforts to upgrade food safety infrastructure, procedures and enforcement capacity to implement these new national laws.

Jilin Province in northeast China is a major agricultural producer and supplier of agricultural products to other parts of China. The project aims to help Jilin Province improve its agricultural product quality and reduce agricultural product safety risks. This will be achieved through introducing good agricultural practices, improving the implementation of agricultural product safety related regulations, and strengthening the agricultural product safety monitoring system.

$100-hundred million for test the water, don’t add shit to the soil and wash the shit off hands? That’s GAPs. Oh, and apparently use plant and animal drugs as intended.

All the best plans and guidelines don’t mean anyone will actually follow them in the field. That gets to food safety culture. And I’m not sure it can be bought.

China adding pulverized lime to flour – report

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The courthouse where Amy and I got our wedding license 





in downtown Manhattan (Kansas) is built of limestone (right, exactly as shown) and featured, along with a picture of the Great Pyramid of Gaza (below, left) on the Wikipedia page about limestone.




Who knew that ancient Egypt and Manhattan (Kansas) were connected in such a manner? And if it’s on wiki it must be true.

Me, I love the limestone buildings all around Manhattan (Kansas) and the bottom half of our house (Notre maisonette en ville — our cottage in the city).

I want to look at limestone in buildings, not eat the pulverized form into flour.

But, according to media reports, that is exactly what is going on in China in the latest food fraud BS scandal.

Pulverized lime, which can lead to gradual damage to the lungs and eventually the entire respiratory system if consumed, has been added to bleaching agents widely used in flour production in China.

Bleaching agents, usually made from cornstarch, are added to flour to shorten the time needed for whitening. Substituting cheaper and heavier lime for cornstarch cuts the cost of producing the bleaching agent, which is sold by weight.

The price of corn has risen to an all-time high on China’s futures markets this year, possibly inspiring the substitution by companies competing to cut selling prices.

Flour is mostly used to make noodles, dumplings and steamed buns in China, especially in the north.

Mouse found in hot pot

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A woman was horrified to discover an entire cooked mouse in her dinner.

Ms Chen found the rodent in a dish she ordered while eating out with friends at the Chuang Jiang Fish Restaurant in Jingmen, Hubei province, China.

According Chen, she and her friends ordered a hot pot from which they all ate.

The group complained to the restaurant owner and demanded compensation, but were refused.

Chen then called the local Hygiene Supervision Bureau who carried out an immediate inspection of the restaurant, which was closed for three days but then opened as normal.

10% of China restaurant meals use ‘oil’ from drains and gutters

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Oil from China’s drains and gutters treated to look like edible cooking oil in a lucrative night-time operation is being used in “1-in-10” restaurant meals in China.

The swill oil is apparently loaded with aflatoxin.

China Youth Daily reported Wednesday a recent student investigation in Wuhan found 2-3 million tons of ‘swill oil’ makes its way back to rice boxes and meals out each year. It is usually sold as pig feed.

He Dongping, a professor on oil and toxin with central China’s Wuhan Polytechnic University, and also a leading specialist with China’s Food and Oil Standardization Administration, said the conspiracy starts at night when swill-fishers hollow out the stinking hogwash from urban sewages, followed by filtrating, heating, subsiding, dividing, and then in the morning comes out the clear-looking "edible" oil for unwitting customers.

Each fisher could fetch up to four barrels at a time, nearly 300 yuan ($44) easy money every night or over 10,000 yuan ($1,465) a month, a lucrative deal too tempting to resist, especially so when the business was in a trouble-free "anarchy" state,.

Better than Viagra? China may ban dog and cat meat

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China’s National People’s Congress is expected to consider banning a centuries-old culinary tradition: the consumption of dog and cat meat.

The Times of London reports that a proposed law calls for imposing fines, jail time or both for anyone caught eating or selling dog or cat meat. Dog meat is also known as “fragrant meat” and is thought to boost energy and male virility. It’s also a delicacy.