How sweet it isn’t: Now China’s cheating on honey
By Gina Spadafori
January 7, 2009
How many more reasons do we need to start cracking down on fraud and flat-out poisoning in food imports? Here’s one more from the Seattle P-I:
The honey business is plagued with international intrigue, where foreign hucksters and shady importers sometimes rip off conscientious packers with Chinese honey diluted with cheap sugar syrup or tainted with illegal antibiotics.
Click to read the entire series, including the problems with medicinal honey.
Do we really have to have thousands of American children die before we get serious about this? Isn’t it enough that fraud in Chinese ingredients has sicked thousands of Chinese children and killed thousands of pets wordwide?
Source and buy local. Send a message.
Need more information? Read Christie’s fantastic interview with “Pet Food Politics” author Dr. Marion Nestle.
Isn’t it enough that fraud in Chinese ingredients has sicked thousands of Chinese children and killed thousands of pets wordwide?
I should think so. And if nothing else, why don’t we have a right to know what’s actually in our food? It’s impossible to make informed decisions about what to eat when food labels are works of fiction.
Comment by Shelly — January 7, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
If the world threatened to bann all imports from China, that may, maybe enough to buck up those Chinese.
Nothing against the Chinese people in general, but cutting corners to save a buck is just inexcusable.
Comment by Dogs — January 7, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
Christie’s fantastic interview with “Pet Food Politics” author Dr. Marion Nestle, mentioned above, gave me a tremendous quantity of information.
I ordered the book “Pet Food Politics”, but the discussion in the interview was also about human food. I am stunned how pervasive is the adulteration of our food and our pets’ food—to the detriment of all!
Comment by Colorado Transplant — January 7, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
There’s a lot of good, thought-provoking reading on the subject of the massive problems with the human food system — and the screaming need for top to bottom reform, and not just with regard to rogue operators in other countries. The potential disaster for accidental or intentional food-related disaster makes the heckuva job FEMA did in Katrina look like a well-run operation.
My reading list would include:
Everything Michael Pollan has ever written on the subject of food, agriculture, food and agriculture policy;
Joel Salatin’s “Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal.” His opinions are strong, and I certainly don’t agree with all of them, but his point that centralized, big corporate agribiz is a threat to our health and our national security is spot on.
Dr. Nestle’s “Food Politics” and “What To Eat.” Excellent, excellent, excellent.
I’m currently reading Steve Solomon’ “Gardening When It Counts” to help with my backyard garden, but I’m finding that the science that’s in it is pretty darn eye-opening, in terms of how less nutritious our fruits and veggies are now because of industrial agriculture.
I have blogged elsewhere that the appointment of Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsak as Secretary of Agriculture is a huge mistake on the part of the Obama administration. Vilsak is a farm-belt business-as-usual guy, with no apparent concerns that farm policy is really FOOD policy, and the consituency should not be corporate agribiz and food conglomerates but us citizen-consumers — you know, we the people.
Personally, I would do completely away with the USDA or revamp the USDA and FDA into one, more streamlined agency with health and environment in mind.
Want to know how crazy things are? I found out my mom threw away a dozen of my fresh backyard eggs. Since they didn’t come from a supermarket, she figured they weren’t “safe.” How sad is that? Known source, clean coop, healthy, well-cared-for chickens and eggs three days old or less, collected two-three times a day often when still warm and put immediately into my clean kitche fridge.
I can guarantee you my eggs are safer than the battery-caged, factory-farmed, chlorine-rinsed salmonella carriers called “eggs” from the local supermarket.
We need to support local and regional food supplies, for our health and our safety.
/rant
Comment by Gina Spadafori — January 7, 2009 @ 5:25 pm
Oh, and by the way: I never took the time to learn anything about how food got to my table before the pet food recall.
That changed everything.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — January 7, 2009 @ 5:44 pm
Thanks for bringing this up. My husband is a commercial beekeeper. He works so hard to produce good quality honey, and then the price is undercut by adulterated foreign honey. It is frustrating. He concentrates more on pollination now - about 70% of our income is from pollination. He is, as I type, trucking the bees to California for almond pollination; a major source of income. I like to joke that the bees travel more than I do! From Michigan (home base) to Georgia, then California, then back to Michigan!
Comment by Sassy — January 7, 2009 @ 7:33 pm
i should think so.china is exporting honey not only to america to many more countries.if the american childrens and pets have died with china honey what about other countries? we have to think before going to ban the product because it is a matter between two countries.every country should depend on other for any thing.
vikram,
http://www.petconnection.com/b...../#comments
Comment by vikram — January 8, 2009 @ 8:05 am
um … so your point is that we should take poisoned crap in the interest of diplomacy?
Comment by Gina Spadafori — January 8, 2009 @ 8:30 am
This makes me so angry!
There are so many people who are still unaware of these kinds of things. It seems hard to believe, but it’s true. I guess until there is greater coverage of the sourcing of ingredients and full disclosure, this will keep happening.
Thank you for continuing to follow this sort of thing. These things need to be covered in the mainstream media. What’s more important than the food we put in our and our animal’s bodies?
I really wish that items that say “made in the US” would mention if they “source” elsewhere. I research all food and treats, but how many people out there aren’t aware that these are two different things? Even people in the know do not always realize this.
Grrrr. I’ve lost all trust in things manufactured in China. I don’t want to discriminate against all companies that carry a “made in China” label, but how can one not discriminate when this keeps happening with so many things!?
Comment by Amy — January 8, 2009 @ 10:23 am
Years ago I thought I would be safe if I just went with “organic” and “hormone-free”.
No when I see the word “source”, back it goes, on the shelf again.
Melamine in soy? That is just plain scary, Dr. Nestle.
Maybe we Americans are eating much more melamine than we want to, if we want to eat any at all.
Comment by Colorado Transplant — January 9, 2009 @ 6:42 am