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Must we grow our own food?
By Wang Yanlin |
April 15, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FIRST there was milk found to contain hydrolyzed leather protein. Then there were sausages made from pork raised on a banned chemical. And now the latest food scare is steamed buns being dyed and reprocessed from buns past their use-by date.
Chinese consumers are angry and concerned about a spate of reports this year that suggest some of the food we eat every day isn's safe. We all understand that companies want to make profits. But when they do so at the expense of our health, it's time to draw the line and draw it definitively.
I can still recall the collapse of Sanlu Group, a former dairy giant in China that was found to be using melamine in its milk powder in 2008. Melamine is a chemical used in plastics. It was added to the powder to make it appear higher in protein. Melamine was blamed for the death of four babies and the hospitalization of tens of thousands of infants who contracted kidney disease. The Sanlu brand is no more.
Day of reckoning
One would think all food producers had learned a lesson from the Sanlu scandal. But apparently not. Profit still prevails over common decency and ethical standards at some companies. For the Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co, China's largest meat processor, based in Henan Province, the day of reckoning has come.
On March 15, which happened to be World Consumer Rights Day, a CCTV program reported that Shuanghui was making sausages from pigs fed with clenbuterol, an illegal additive used to produce leaner meat. Clenbuterol is approved for use in some countries as a prescription drug for asthma sufferers and is also a banned performance-enhancing drug in the sports world. It can cause serious heart palpitations and dizziness.
Before the disclosure, Shuanghui was among the most popular of Chinese sausages. Barely a month later, the name has become a curse word, though the brand can still be found on some supermarket shelves.
Wan Long, board chairman of Shuanghui, is acting like a cat on a hot tin roof. He organized a meeting of more than 10,000 staff members on March 31, telling them that the company will produce only safe sausages in the future. He also apologized to consumers for the tainted meat. Estimates of lost business for Shuanghui run beyond 12.1 billion yuan (US$1.85 billion).
Last Thursday, Shuanghui executives in the southwestern city of Chongqing showed up in supermarkets to eat samples of the company sausage and offer free tastings to shoppers. It was the first day the sausages had reappeared on the shelves there. Company executives were hoping to make a big public demonstration of the company's mended ways. Instead, they ended up looking like laughingstocks to scornful shoppers, who gave their tasting demonstrations a wide berth.
Zhang Han, a commentator in Shanghai, said Shuanghui's damage-control strategy was only a sham. He said company executives should be spending their time explaining how they went down the wrong path in the first place and what steps they have been taken to ensure it never happens again.
Luckily, I am not a sausage lover. I prefer fresh food to processed food. But sausage lover or not, I think Shuanghui got what it deserved.
But it does make me think about what I eat. How can anyone ever be sure about food quality with so much chicanery around? My family and I do buy steamed buns from time to time, especially the tastier varieties flavored with corn and black rice.
Imagine my chagrin when I read a report on April 11 about major bun supplier Shanghai Shenglu Food Co! The report said Shenglu was dying some of its buns yellow to fake the look of corn, and recycling buns past their expiry dates by adding preservatives to make them taste fresher.
Despicable
Companies like Sanlu, Shuanghui, Shenglu that use subterfuge and outright illegal means to sell their products are a class to be despised.
The Chinese government has responded quickly to food-safety scandals.
On April 2, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine announced revised quality standards for the domestic dairy industry to improve the tainted Chinese milk industry. Under the new standards, nearly half of China's 1,176 dairy producers failed to qualify for new production licenses.
In Shanghai, more than 6,000 steamed buns were seized from the local market a day after a CCTV program highlighted problems in those popular foodstuffs. The city's industrial and commercial authorities said they will launch an investigation into the bun scandal, and Mayor Han Zheng promised the all the findings will be made public.
But one does wonder why it's the media who seem to expose commercial wrongdoing when it should be government officials uncovering malfeasance?
Of course, there is no end of excuses. Shanghai food inspection teams said they are too short-handed to conduct on-site inspections at all companies. Then, too, some people suspect corruption at play.
In Shuanghui's case, the Supreme People's Procuratorate said it has filed charges of breach of duty against 16 government officials, including quarantine inspectors and animal-epidemic prevention coordinators in Henan Province.
So if the guardians of public health and safety are sometimes in cahoots with shonky producers, where does that leave us consumers?
Do we have to grow our own vegetables and raise our own pigs to feel assured that the food we eat is safe?
I am reminded of the plot in the novel "The Mist" by Stephen King.
In it, people discover that horrible man-eating creatures were actually created by men themselves. In other words, people were killing their own kind. It's a chilling scenario for consumers to contemplate as they dig their chopsticks into the next meal.
Chinese consumers are angry and concerned about a spate of reports this year that suggest some of the food we eat every day isn's safe. We all understand that companies want to make profits. But when they do so at the expense of our health, it's time to draw the line and draw it definitively.
I can still recall the collapse of Sanlu Group, a former dairy giant in China that was found to be using melamine in its milk powder in 2008. Melamine is a chemical used in plastics. It was added to the powder to make it appear higher in protein. Melamine was blamed for the death of four babies and the hospitalization of tens of thousands of infants who contracted kidney disease. The Sanlu brand is no more.
Day of reckoning
One would think all food producers had learned a lesson from the Sanlu scandal. But apparently not. Profit still prevails over common decency and ethical standards at some companies. For the Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co, China's largest meat processor, based in Henan Province, the day of reckoning has come.
On March 15, which happened to be World Consumer Rights Day, a CCTV program reported that Shuanghui was making sausages from pigs fed with clenbuterol, an illegal additive used to produce leaner meat. Clenbuterol is approved for use in some countries as a prescription drug for asthma sufferers and is also a banned performance-enhancing drug in the sports world. It can cause serious heart palpitations and dizziness.
Before the disclosure, Shuanghui was among the most popular of Chinese sausages. Barely a month later, the name has become a curse word, though the brand can still be found on some supermarket shelves.
Wan Long, board chairman of Shuanghui, is acting like a cat on a hot tin roof. He organized a meeting of more than 10,000 staff members on March 31, telling them that the company will produce only safe sausages in the future. He also apologized to consumers for the tainted meat. Estimates of lost business for Shuanghui run beyond 12.1 billion yuan (US$1.85 billion).
Last Thursday, Shuanghui executives in the southwestern city of Chongqing showed up in supermarkets to eat samples of the company sausage and offer free tastings to shoppers. It was the first day the sausages had reappeared on the shelves there. Company executives were hoping to make a big public demonstration of the company's mended ways. Instead, they ended up looking like laughingstocks to scornful shoppers, who gave their tasting demonstrations a wide berth.
Zhang Han, a commentator in Shanghai, said Shuanghui's damage-control strategy was only a sham. He said company executives should be spending their time explaining how they went down the wrong path in the first place and what steps they have been taken to ensure it never happens again.
Luckily, I am not a sausage lover. I prefer fresh food to processed food. But sausage lover or not, I think Shuanghui got what it deserved.
But it does make me think about what I eat. How can anyone ever be sure about food quality with so much chicanery around? My family and I do buy steamed buns from time to time, especially the tastier varieties flavored with corn and black rice.
Imagine my chagrin when I read a report on April 11 about major bun supplier Shanghai Shenglu Food Co! The report said Shenglu was dying some of its buns yellow to fake the look of corn, and recycling buns past their expiry dates by adding preservatives to make them taste fresher.
Despicable
Companies like Sanlu, Shuanghui, Shenglu that use subterfuge and outright illegal means to sell their products are a class to be despised.
The Chinese government has responded quickly to food-safety scandals.
On April 2, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine announced revised quality standards for the domestic dairy industry to improve the tainted Chinese milk industry. Under the new standards, nearly half of China's 1,176 dairy producers failed to qualify for new production licenses.
In Shanghai, more than 6,000 steamed buns were seized from the local market a day after a CCTV program highlighted problems in those popular foodstuffs. The city's industrial and commercial authorities said they will launch an investigation into the bun scandal, and Mayor Han Zheng promised the all the findings will be made public.
But one does wonder why it's the media who seem to expose commercial wrongdoing when it should be government officials uncovering malfeasance?
Of course, there is no end of excuses. Shanghai food inspection teams said they are too short-handed to conduct on-site inspections at all companies. Then, too, some people suspect corruption at play.
In Shuanghui's case, the Supreme People's Procuratorate said it has filed charges of breach of duty against 16 government officials, including quarantine inspectors and animal-epidemic prevention coordinators in Henan Province.
So if the guardians of public health and safety are sometimes in cahoots with shonky producers, where does that leave us consumers?
Do we have to grow our own vegetables and raise our own pigs to feel assured that the food we eat is safe?
I am reminded of the plot in the novel "The Mist" by Stephen King.
In it, people discover that horrible man-eating creatures were actually created by men themselves. In other words, people were killing their own kind. It's a chilling scenario for consumers to contemplate as they dig their chopsticks into the next meal.
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