SHANGHAI -- The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella.
Yet, it took a much more obscure item, contaminated wheat gluten, to focus U.S. public attention on a very real and frightening fact: China's chronic food safety woes are now an international concern.
In recent weeks, scores of cats and dogs in America have died of kidney failure blamed on eating pet food containing gluten from China that was tainted with melamine, a chemical used in plastics, fertilizers and flame retardants.
While humans aren't thought to be at risk, the incident has sharpened concerns over China's food exports and the limited ability of U.S. inspectors to catch problem shipments.
"This really shows the risks of food-purity problems combining with international trade," said Michiel Keyzer, director of the Center for World Food Studies at Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit.
I realize that many believe it's cheaper to buy food from other nations, including China. I also realize that here in the States we have had problems at times with our own food source, yet I don't think there has been enough attention paid to this issue and it's unfortunate that it took the deaths of pets to discover it.
1 comment:
We have the same problems with certain Chinese restaurants here; it's a cultural thing that is almost genetic.
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