Anxiety buying Chinese foodstuffs?

[BradenP]

Back in Seattle I loved frequenting Uwajamaya and other food stores in the International District. It was a great place to find cool products you don't see elsewhere. It was also great buying soy sauce, sirracha and sesame oil in bulk as well as unique spices and crazy packaging with depictions of Asian aerobic instructors circa 1980.

Today I went across town to Tang Frere in the 13th. From the moment I stepped inside I started to feel a strange sense of worry. It seems like over the last few weeks, every American media outlet has been reporting on recalls from China. It started with the lead paint on the Thomas the Train toys. Shortly after that, we had the dog food scare, the recall on toothpaste, the baby formula with zero nutritional value and the dried herbs laced with exhaust fumes. Now it seems like the US is going to start sending back processed frozen food.

Had all this media been coming from Fox News, I would be skeptical. But everyone from the NY Times to NPR is reporting on new recalls and poison traces in Chinese made products. All of this blitz is making me nervous and forcing me to check labels before I buy.

Am I swallowing what the US media is feeding me too willingly? Does anyone else feel this uneasiness buying Chinese products right now?

I am sure eventually this will all blow over and the uneasiness will pass, I did come home with a box of products, most of which came from China.

[David Ross]

Oh how I miss Seattle's Uwajimaya. We don't have one in Spokane. I especially miss the fresh and live seafood at Uwajimaya.

I actually have felt some of your same sentiments about some Chinese foodstuffs based on the media hype of recent days. But most of the products that I feel would be potentially problematic I don't buy anyway.

I have heard the recent scare over some tainted Chinese seafood products. Yesterday I heard a report on the radio about freshwater fish being raised in China in ponds without a 'filtration' system. The announcer went on to say how the fish waste was disposed of. No, I won't continue to tell you what he said next. Apparently most of this type of fish is exported to the US frozen.

I avoid the frozen or canned seafood at my Asian market anyway. Most of the frozen seafood looks awfully old and dried out. I also shy away from the canned seafood products. There is so much dust on the tops of the cans I reckon it's probably 5 or more years old. So I stick to the stuff I can trust and I buy fresh seafood in my Asian recipes at my local seafood store.

[Dianabanana]

I've been dubious about Chinese quality control ever since reading Tim Clissold's hilarious and sobering descriptions of foreign objects found in Chinese beer bottles in his book Mr. China, and this recent spate of news stories has pushed me to take the matter seriously. Soy sauce colored with human hair? Eels fed birth control pills to make them grow longer? Not worth the risk to me. I have now stopped buying most things made in China unless they come from a very reputable, well-established company--for instance, Pearl River Bridge soy sauce. I assume (perhaps naively) that these companies have the capital to implement adequate quality control and a reputation to uphold. I, too, am a big Uwajimaya shopper, and have found that for many items there is a Japanese-made equivalent--usually more expensive, but that's okay.

[gfron1]

This issue is so immense that its mind-boggling. I have two thoughts. First, don't assume that just because the media is telling us about China that the problem isn't in Vietnam, the Phillipines, Korea, Italy, Armenia....there seems to be some politics behind the media frenzy - not to diminish the risk, just to say that it would be wise to assume that the problem is bigger than China.

Second, its fairly easy to check on some of your common purchases. I won't make the assumption that a big name means clean food - I haven't seen the factory, nor have I seen the suppliers to the factory. Just google search the product name and FDA and see what pops up. I just did a search for Lee Kum Kee soy sauce and sure enough - cancerous. My favorite soy sauce has FDA violations for bug parts at too high of a level (too high!). But after the FDA has scared the bejeebers out of you, then watch the dates on the FDA reports and realize that may or may not be the case any more. Things could be better, or they could be worse.

As for me - I'm young and invicible and haven't died yet, so until I turn 40 next year, I'm not worrying about it.

EDITED:

I've started searching directly on the FDA website, just drop your favorite food company into their search bar...

I love this one

Reason: FILTHY

    Section: 402(a)(3), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION

    Charge: The article appears to consist in whole or in part

    of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise

    unfit for food.

Mmm...enjoy! Hours of entertainment for folks who are concerned about this stuff.

[pennylane]

I shop at Tang Freres all the time. It never occurred to me to make the connection with the negative press coming from America. But it's true that Chinese products don't seem to be very strictly controlled. For instance the ingredients listed and nutritional information are often plainly inaccurate. Maybe it's just the English/French translation but that's all I have to go on.

I think I shall have to check out that FDA website. Thanks for the info.

[SuzySushi]

The brouhaha over Chinese food (and other product) safety is partly political and media hype, partly based in truth.

Several thoughts here. First of all, as gfron1 says,

don't assume that just because the media is telling us about China that the problem isn't in Vietnam, the Phillipines, Korea, Italy, Armenia....there seems to be some politics behind the media frenzy - not to diminish the risk, just to say that it would be wise to assume that the problem is bigger than China.

For instance, a few years ago in Vietnam, there was a scandal over formaldehyde being widely used in manufacturing fresh noodles for pho. At the height of the "mad cow" scare, there were articles coming out about unsanitary meatpacking processes in Britain.

Remember also that in China, the food industry (or at least food processed commercially for export to the West) is relatively new and unregulated. It was only 101 years ago, that Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle, meant as an expose of how workers were treated in the U.S. meatpacking industry, instead shocked readers with its descriptions of unsanitary and unsavory food practices and led to the passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act and ultimately the creation of the FDA. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/opinion/02tue4.html

China has a ways to go to catch up.

[Ptipois]

Braden,

When you shop at Tang there are not that many foodstuffs that actually come from China.

Fresh herbs are grown in France or flown in from Thailand, as are many of the fruit and vegetables. Lots of stuff (rice sticks, vermicelli, dried noodles, fish sauces, oyster sauce, etc.) come from Thailand of Vietnam. Fresh noodles (wheat or rice), wonton wrappers are made in France, as are fermented pork products like nem chua, and Chinese or Thai-style sausages. How wrong can you go with a package of dried noodles anyway? As soy sauces go, I never heard any bad things about the ever-present Pearl River Bridge but there is also lots of Kikkoman which I prefer for cooking anyway. Most of the other things I buy from the big Asian stores in the 13e are, anyway, so full of salt, sugar, vinegar, chilli, spices, or already fermented to such a point that (IMO) I buy them without any concern.

I never heard of the US media scare you're mentioning and hearing about it probably won't change the way I shop. I too tend to believe that the problem is much bigger than China and there's politics involved. For one thing the French media are regularly bringing up horrible stories about hygiene in Chinese restaurants; not that I want to generalize but I don't buy that anymore because I've been through a few kitchens, Chinese or not, and — to give only one example — it would be a good thing if some kitchens of the Costes group were as clean as some Chinese kitchens I've seen in Paris. But for some reason the Chinese kitchens always get the media exposure, and the Costes' never do.

[Ptipois]

EDITED:

I've started searching directly on the FDA website, just drop your favorite food company into their search bar...

I love this one

Reason: FILTHY

     Section: 402(a)(3), 801(a)(3); ADULTERATION

     Charge: The article appears to consist in whole or in part

     of a filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance or be otherwise

     unfit for food.

Mmm...enjoy! Hours of entertainment for folks who are concerned about this stuff.

←

This description strikes me as being quite valid for things that some people consider perfectly edible. Like natto, sürströmming, ripe époisses. Where you draw the line of inedibility may be part of the question.