I'm not nearly so concerned about foods imported from China as I am our dependence in importation of Chinese pharmaceuticals. At least you can determine the source of the food by the label. Who can research medications given them in hospitals, like heparin? You have to depend on others doing the research and hope they've done their homework.

It's hard to prove products are adulterated, instead of accidentally contaminated, since one is accidental and the other profit driven. Even though melamine is supposedly not dangerous to humans, it's what killed a lot of our pets. My mother lost two beloved and previously healthy cats, and a third survived, but has been in frail health for years. We never pursued the pet food cause, because we didn't hear of it when the deaths occurred, and threw the food away after they died. But, I'm convinced there was a connection.

Even the most mundane products with American brand names, like one of the leading name brand women's sanitary napkins are made in China. When one buys a product like this, a name brand they've purchased their whole life and trust and then find it's yet another boatload of stuff made across the world, they feel betrayed.

The Cadbury recall only applies to bars made in their China factory, and they're mostly distributed IN China, plus Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I don't read anything that suggests US supplies are affected - in fact they've definitely confirmed UK supplies are safe.

I do think we should all read origin labels though - whether we believe Chinese goods may be tainted or not, we should all try and understand that our food chain is no longer nationally-based. I'm afraid you'd probably have to discard any processed food item if you want to avoid Chinese-sourced ingredients. Any of those mysterious chemicals listed amongst the ingredients can be made elsewhere.

The melamine was supposedly found in Chinese milk products, and the EU has banned anything containing those products. That's called being proactive. The supposed non-toxicity to humans over melamine contamination is now also suspect. According the article I just read, the melamine contaminated milk was used to make baby formulae in China and has killed four infants and could be responsible for sequelae in 54 thousand others.

So, Cadbury did the responsible thing, and I'm glad, because I love their products.....but do we know if any American companies are using this powdered milk in their products and when are we going to find out. After the fact?

Isn't testing, and stringent quality control actually more effective than a massive recall? And....uhm......safer?

Kraft foods is testing it's products, but confirmed that Oreos don't contain milk from China:

from the NYTimes:
"In an increasingly globalized food economy, manufacturers use raw ingredients from all over the world, often making it difficult to track the origins.

For example, Kraft Foods, the maker of Oreo cookies, recently moved one of its large cookie factories from Australia to China. But Claire Regan, a spokeswoman for the company, said that most of the products Kraft made in China were distributed within China, although a limited number were exported. Most do not contain milk products from China, she said, and, when they do, the levels of such ingredients are very low. The Oreo product line does not contain milk ingredients from China, Ms. Regan said."

I try and avoid any foodstuffs from China Id I can determine they are

Whatever happened to making our own candy and cookies.
Some of my best childhood memories are of helping my mother
in the kitchen while she whipped up a big batch of chocolate
fudge or that wonderful confection called divinity.

I don't care much for Kraft any more since they removed
the garlic cheese from production.
As far as China is concerned, I'm wondering how many more
harmful things we're going to find in products imported from China.

According to an article in the online New York Times:

"The United States has imported two million pounds of a milk protein called casein this year, along with other powdered milk proteins that are used as ingredients in many processed foods, according to figures from the United States Department of Agriculture. This includes 293,000 pounds that were imported in July. The Food and Drug Administration did not immediately return calls for comment on Thursday."

This is from a country who has a dairy deficit, and has to import milk to meet its own demands. So, why is their own milk an export product? Why was their gluten?

Thousands of America's small food producers bit the dust because they could not financially meet the increasingly stringent regulations imposed on them by our government in the name of food safety. And then we turn around and import the very same items from a country with safety problems of this magnitude?

I have egg producing chickens. I have to fill out a farm survey for the Uncle. I get unsolicited literature about bioterrorism from the government, on how to prevent my little flock from somebody covertly sneaking in and committing a terrorist act on them. I even have to disclose if I moved one damned chicken off my ground. This is how close our private farming is monitored. Can we honestly say the food we import is held to the same standard?

That is what is so unbelievable. The restrictions placed on our own producers are so extreme that they go overseas where they aren't watched at all.

And this is supposed to be a Good Thing.

Talking about toxic things coming in our country from China. This story was in Science news this week.

I really don't know what we are going to do.I think it'll be up to the american people to do something. But what?

Vickie

Here is a link that might be useful: The Foreign Drug Trade

Reading all the labels is making my grocery shopping a real chore, but at this point in time I'm also trying to avoid anything from China. However, just because the label doesn't state a product is made in China doesn't mean that some of the ingredients don't come from there. In the the case of the milk protein that Suzy references in her thread above, that stuff gets put into all those energy bars that you see on the grocery shelf.

Long story short, this is all being done to produce cheap food. Frankly, I'd rather pay more & eat something that's not full of poison.

All the more reason to eliminate processed foods from your diet and eat local! it may seem more expensive in the short-run, but i'm thinking we'd be saving in the long-run.

I posted a screed here last year about Chinese garlic labeled "organic" being sold in all the major grocery stores...what the lleh does "organic" mean in China?? THe contortions one has to go through in this country to sell anything with that label would qualify you for Cirque de Soleil...

Suzy, i'm convinced all those NAIS? (or some order of those four letters) regs are bought and paid for by corporate producers to hassle the little guys out of business. So far it hasn't made its way into the honey market, though i'm sure that there are lots of terrorists planning to infiltrate my hives as we speak!

Here is the thing I worry about down the road, even assuming imports were TOTALLY safe. This is dependence on other countries for a very basic need. Food. You would think our present energy situation would throw up the red flags about depending on countries across the world for our basic needs. But, obviously it hasn't.

What happens when a sector of a country's production faces a competition with a cheaper product? They can't compete, and they shut down their operation. First the farmers faced this with large corporations and many gave up their farms, now they face it with imports. Actually, food production in America now is being increasingly owned from the field to the the market shelf including all points in between by fewer and fewer gigantic entities. And if (a theoretical supposition) they find they can make a better profit buying in some of the necessary ingredients to their product offshore, then putting their American Trademark on it..........would they?

Then the family farms get gobbled up into development and is GONE FOREVER. This makes it harder, and harder for a country to fall back on its own resources if they are ever faced with an economic or natural disaster or war situation with their offshore suppliers. IOW you pay what they want, and you take what they give.

In a perfect world, the risks for such thinking are minimal. We don't live in a perfect world.

Suzy, i'm convinced all those NAIS? (or some order of those four letters) regs are bought and paid for by corporate producers to hassle the little guys out of business. So far it hasn't made its way into the honey market, though i'm sure that there are lots of terrorists planning to infiltrate my hives as we speak!

LOL, Lynnie.......I got a laugh out of it too. We are going to make our country safe from some little old lady's pin money organic chickens, but don't think twice about buying uninspected food from another country, who don't exactly share our ideas about ....... well......much of anything.

What I find interesting is they are enacting the law that must state the country of origin on food labels, like meat, cheese and so on...but this still won't cover the country of origin for the ingredients in products, so what good is the stupid law....
And no Suzy, this country will never learn from past mistakes, greed has taken over big business and government. I have thoughts on this but might start a problem if I say, so will keep my opinions quiet........

But they can just put "of mixed origin" on it, so it's like buying sausage...you know there's prolly snouts and lips in there but heck it tastes alright...