Death Penalty for Food Crimes

A few examples of recent food shipments from China that were flagged at our borders:

Dried apples preserved with a known carcinogen.

Plums tinted with chemical dyes that are unsafe for human consumption.

Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

Seafood laden with banned antibiotics and coated with putrefying bacteria.

China regularly floods the United States with foods unfit for man and beast (let’s not forget the tainted pet food recall following thousands of animal deaths). The U.S. rejects more than twice as many food shipments from China as from all other countries combined. Most often, the reason cited is simply ‘filthy,’ the official FDA terminology for when inspectors can see or smell decomposition, gross contamination, or parasitic infestation. But here’s the really scary part: just about 1% of shipments are even visually inspected, with a fraction of those sent on for laboratory analysis. 99% of these imports turn up on store shelves without anyone even taking a peek or a sniff.

It’s from where?!

Do you think that you’re not buying Chinese food imports? Think again.

BumbleBee and Chicken of the Sea tuna, Dole lunchbox fruit packs, and Whole Foods Market’s 365 Everyday Value line of frozen vegetables come from China (yes, even Whole Foods’ ‘California’ vegetable blend; apparently the market considers California to be more a state of mind than a state). China is America’s leading supplier of a broad range of products that domestic food processors can add without the country of origin ever appearing on a label? ingredients like sausage casings, garlic and garlic powder, cocoa butter, and apple juice flavoring that ends up in beverages, candy, condiments, and baked goods.

And fish? China is number one in world aquaculture and the leading seafood importer to the U.S. It’s also a country that lacks widespread modern sanitation, annually spewing 3.7 billions tons of untreated, raw sewage into its waters. Nuff said.

The Chinese government is also troubled by issues of food safety.

China has pledged to crack down on corruption within its own ranks, and will punish corrupt, bribe-taking government officials that turn a blind eye to contamination? by executing them. That’s right; China would like its trade partners to rest easier knowing that capital punishment will be applied to food safety infractions.

Can somebody tell me why we still import food from China?

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