How is food imported from China inspected?

[DCal430]

When you shop at the chinese market you will see lots of made in China stuff. I try to avoid it, and look for made in Korea, Japan or Taiwan stuff. But some stuff is only available as Made/Grown in China, such as these oyster mushrooms I purchased which said Grown in China.

 

[DrPizza]

Organic food... imported from China. LOL, yeah, I believe that! /sarcasm

But seriously, 10-20% of our "organic" food is imported from China. And, they know it's very unlikely to be inspected. But, they're willing to put melamine into milk to stretch it and make more of a profit... but I'm surrrrrre they're good on their word that it's really organic food.

 

[0roo0roo]

its not, repubs love gutting big government, and part of that are inspectors, how do you inspect food feeding 300 million people with a handful of workers they have left.

 

[Jeff7]

its not, repubs love gutting big government, and part of that are inspectors, how do you inspect food feeding 300 million people with a handful of workers they have left.

"But the food supply is so safe already, we don't even need inspections or regulations!"

 

[Veliko]

They inspect each and every grain of rice.

 

[God Mode]

Chinese people tell me to stay the hell away from food imported from China.

 

[SandEagle]

a lot of food, esp. seafood and candies at walmart come from china. i bought some nuts at koger and noticed they were from china. quick google search and found that the company is headquartered in USA. :\ sold us out man

in any case, the website has a 'china update' section justifying producing over there

http://www.seapointfarms.com/china-update.html

 

[PingSpike]

wasn't lead. Fuckers were putting melamine in milk to fool protein count machines. Yeah, plastic, in milk.

I thought it was infant formula. And it resulted in a number of infant deaths. I really don't know what kind of sadistic asshole would make such a decision to deliberately put poison in infant formula to meet some kind of quota but that's what you're dealing with.

 

[sdifox]

I thought it was infant formula. And it resulted in a number of infant deaths. I really don't know what kind of sadistic asshole would make such a decision to deliberately put poison in infant formula to meet some kind of quota but that's what you're dealing with.

the milk is then used to produce formula. They put a few people to death but I think those were just token scapegoats given the scale of the problem.

 

[Leymenaide]

I'm sure tons of food is made in China but how much of it really makes it over here?

I always look at the country of origin on food and I've never seen something that's from China.

Garlic is mostly from china
Honey huge amounts of (maybe honey)
At Costco dehydraded fruit. Small packages in snack section
China is a huge exporter of apple concentrate.
Green Tea

 

[PingSpike]

its not, repubs love gutting big government, and part of that are inspectors, how do you inspect food feeding 300 million people with a handful of workers they have left.

It doesn't really matter that much though, even if we had a larger inspection system the rules would almost certainly be tailored to the large companies existing system because they would use their lobbying power. As busydude said, they'll just focus their efforts on bankrupting small independent farms...in effect it'll just destroy the competition.

Remember the lead painted toy scandal? What was the end result of that? The end result was a law was passed requiring inspections. Mattel, the company that sold a bunch of toys with lead paint which inspired the creation of the law WAS MADE EXEMPT and allowed to do their own testing. For some reason their own testing (which had already been proven a failure) could be trusted. Small independent toy makers are shafted in the ass even though they had nothing to do with it.

Foxes guard our hen houses, and when you cry out about the loss of all the hens they will merely redefine the concept of missing hens and increase dog licensing fees. Regulation is necessary to ensure safety but if the regulation system is hopelessly corrupt it will just do more harm than good.

 

[wiredspider]

cheap shrimp comes from china, I think lots of the other cheaper seafood stuff does too :/. Even though I am Chinese, I try to avoid that stuff, though some of those snacks/sweets I can't resist.

 

[cave_dweller]

They normally test the dogs for rabies

 

[D1gger]

Where the hell do you shop? I've never seen a food item labeled "Made in China" And I wouldn't buy it if it was.

One of my favourite quick meals. Make some rice and heat up some dace.

Definitely comes from China.

But there have been some reported issues with these, so I haven't had them in a long time.

http://www.netnewsasia.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=67

 

[Saint Nick]

Lots of food I've seen at the super market import from China. Especially produce. I think lots of the boxed stuff is still made in North America

 

[coloumb]

Probably like anything else - random inspections.

The low cost apple juice I use to buy is now stamped that it was made from apples grown in China and other countries.

I've also seen organic food [Broccoli] from Hong Kong.