China’s Food Exports Spark Fears

Now the Chief enjoys an occasional meal in a Chinese restaurant as much as anyone, but this article tells a whole different story – the bad wheat germ in pet food is just one instance of a major problem.

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.

But wait…there’s more:

Pesticides and chemical fertilizers are used in excess to boost yields, and harmful antibiotics are widely administered to control disease in seafood and livestock. Rampant industrial pollution risks introducing heavy metals into the food chain.

Farmers have used the cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan Red to boost the value of their eggs and fed an asthma medication to pigs to produce leaner meat. In a case that galvanized the public’s and government’s attention, shoddy infant formula with little or no nutritional value has been blamed for causing severe malnutrition in hundreds of babies and killing at least 12.

Read the label folks. Just this week Mrs. Chief was unpleasantly surprised to discover that chicken jerky strips procured for our Welsh Corgi were from China.

This after we had recalled cat food and dog biscuits from the ChiCom wheat gluten contamination.

They say they’re trying to imoprove it…but general poor practices and the use of virtual slave labor would not make one optimistic on a big improvement any time soon.

H/T to a fellow retired Chief, Seaspook who also posted on this article.