We buy a lot of Chinese products here in the US.
I lived in China, HK and Taiwan for 20+ years, and I ate the local products throughout that time.
Yes, I try to avoid food made or processed in China. This means that currently I’m eating a lot less fish because the store I used to buy it at switched from US Pacific salmon to fish processed in China.
It’s not politics, it’s a slew of contaminated food incidents over the past decade or so that has result in severe illness and death not just in pets but also in people. Probably the worst was the contaminated milk crisis of 2008 where nearly 300,000 babies in China were made ill by melamine… only one year after the pet food crisis of 2007 where melamine contamination where Chinese made pet food killed a number of pets around the world. But there have been many others.
If they can’t keep their own food supply safe for their own people why should I trust what they export?
Yes, food safety problems occur in every county but when was the last time you heard about 50,000+ babies being admitted to hospitals due to kidney problems brought on by contaminated milk? So far, I can only think of China in 2008.
The big problem with “organic” farming is that you can only use natural fertilizers, which basically means shit. Shit has a tendency to contain various forms of bacteria, which are also organic and natural even if they are potentially hazardous
Modern sanitation isn’t natural, getting sick is. While there are downsides to modern things like fertilizer that doesn’t contain all-natural shit, there are some upsides, too. There’s a problem with people who think “natural” always equals healthy. It doesn’t.
There is also a stupid resistance in some American farmers about putting porta-potties in fields for the workers to use, then surprise that when said workers are in the fields from sun up to sun down they occasionally deposit bodily waste in said fields. Well, if you don’t give them a place to take a piss or crap why are you surprised they do it behind the tomato plants or spinach?
List of food safety incidents in China. While I tend to discount the occasional story about a restaurant serving toxic mushrooms as the sort of local problem that can occur anywhere some of those listed are evidence of a widespread problem. The really scary thing is how crappy Chinese food products keep winding up in the global food chain.
Er… no.
CHINESE are “fond” of geoduck as an aphrodisiac. I’m willing to bet that outside of the West Coast most Americans have never even heard of a geoduck.
Also, PSP is something that can occur anywhere in the world you have shellfish. So far, at least this century, melamine contamination has only occurred in China.
Which is not to say I’d flee in terror at the side of a frozen tilapia filet from China, but I see no reason to go out of my way to buy one, either. I’d much prefer to purchase food produced locally, though that’s not always possible. I much prefer to buy the soy sauce made in Wisconsin because, even if US food safety isn’t perfect I have more confidence that the standards that exist are better enforced there.
Not exactly, but my wife does, so that makes me follow suit whenever I am tasked with the weekly grocery shopping, or else I face a scolding that I don’t need. My wife is 80% rational and 25% batshit crazy (no, I did not make a mistake in those percentages). I figure it’s better to let her have her way in this.
What’s that- the theory that because it looks like an enormous dong, that it must work that way on you if you eat it? Science at its… most nonexistent.
Not only do I avoid food for myself or my family from China I’ve gotten really critical about checking if the pet food, chewies, toys or whatever for my dogs were made in China as well. I won’t buy them if they are. And you really have to check, since a lot of times companies doing put ‘Made in China’ on the label, but instead put the address of the distributor and you have to do a search to see where it ultimately comes from (there are some good apps for this).
Not being Chinese I can’t say for sure, but that would be one of my first guesses.
Given that I live in China, it’s difficult to avoid Chinese stuff.
Yeah, there’s fraud, but you only hear about the bad stuff. Most of the stuff is okay. Do you all still avoid American peanut butter, strawberries, pre-packaged salad, canned tuna, etc.? What’s the latest problem? Chipotle, I think.
I would never trust my life in a Chinese brand car (ignorance of their quality control), but my cars made in China are just as good as the ones made in Europe or North America. “Made in China” isn’t a bad thing per se; you just have to know whom you’re dealing with.
Americans have been known to be believe that people with white teeth got that way from drinking a lot of milk…
The Chinese garlic we’ve bought is incredibly bland compared to local garlic. It looks really nice, bright and clean but has little taste.
I don’t know where the garlic at my supermarket was grown. But it tastes very similar to the garlic i grow in my back yard.
For me it’s both. Same reason I don’t shop at WalMart, although that sort of goes hand in hand with avoiding China things. If I didn’t get headaches just thinking about the place I’d be tempted to search WalMart for things NOT made in China.
Where I shop (Giant Eagle, yeah!) most (all?) produce is labeled with its origin.
Yes. My Taiwanese co-worker told me never to buy food made in China. I’ve been following that advice.
I’d think the bigger concern was if pre-made goods were labeled with country of origin. Like, for example that spaghetti sauce may say “Made in USA”, but be using US tomatoes, US basil and Chinese garlic, and you’d never know.
Personally, Chinese produce doesn’t worry me as much as Chinese manufactured ingredients. Mexican produce is demonstrably responsible for more food safety outbreaks in the US than Chinese produce so far.
Considering how lax US food safety laws are, I don’t see why I should care. I’m far more likely to be killed by e. coli in US-processed foodstuffs than by heavy metals in Chinese ones. I do make a vague effort to avoid buying Chinese-made consumer products generally, though, just because of their relaxed attitude to intellectual property.
I don’t drink my city water b/c it had fluoride from China to try and save money.
The city said they stopped using it but I don’t trust that . Yeah I don’t buy any dog foods that has any ingredients from China in it . I stopped buying Nutro b/c they started using ingredients from China . The farmer Co op I was going to no longer sell Nutro for this reason.