Sunday, May 20, 2007

Chinese Food

I've not written much about the tainted Chinese food supplements coming into the U.S. This caught my attention:

For years, China has been flooding U.S. ports with tainted, toxic, and counterfeit foods, supplements and medicines. Government inspectors catch only a small fraction of these products – "filthy" juices and fruits, "poisonous" swordfish, prohibited products shipped in crates labeled "dried lily flower." But change will be difficult, policy experts say, because tighter rules on Chinese imports could harm many American companies that rely on Chinese goods, and/or want a piece of the lucrative Chinese market for their own products.
I had two thoughts on this. First, if we can't even regulate food coming into the country, what makes us think we can prevent a terrorist attack via imports? If al Qaeda had really wanted to attack the U.S., they would have by now. My other thought is that stories like this are all the more reason to eat locally. Aside from security considerations, it just doesn't make sense to eat petroleum subsidized food brought in from great distances. And with this occurring, who knows what someone decided to put into the food supply. Perhaps the Chinese are trying to poison us slowly to gain world domination?

1 comment:

Ms. Jan said...

Setting aside my tinfoil hat, I wondered the same thing about poisoning us via tainted, imported foods. I refer you to http://theslowcook.blogspot.com for some good reading on slow food. =)