Who, in their right mind, ever would have thought the U.S. would be importing cooked Chinese chicken meat with all the chickens produced and processed in this country [1]? Well, we are, and you can chalk it up to a seemingly quid pro quo deal penned by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue [2] and a deal whereby the Chinese agreed to accept U.S. beef imports after a thirteen year Chinese hiatus due to a “mad cow disease” scare.
Investigative journalist Martha Rosenberg published her findings about Chinese food production, and it’s not an appetizing picture, as you can read here.
Rosenberg reminds us
China has sold rat meat billed as lamb, gutter oil billed as cooking oil and baby formula contaminated with melamine. In the U.S. its pet food killed many dogs and cats in 2007.
Martha also points out “FDA Loophole Allows Possibly Dangerous Chemicals in Food,” another reason for purchasing and eating an organically-grown diet, in my opinion, as a retired healthcare professional and researcher/author.
In that article Martha says, “Many China imports are rejected because of “pesticides, bacteria and filth,” say officials,” which I must “second,” agree with and coincidentally referred to in my 2009 book.
In Chapter 13 “The China Trade Debacle: Toxic and ‘Made in China’” of Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick, I pointed out a ‘litany’ of food problems, which I think consumers ought to know, so I’ll list some of them here:
- In the winter months of 2006—2007 some strange things began happening to pets in the USA. Many were dying suddenly while others were showing up at veterinary clinics suffering with kidney failure. [….] According to the U.S. FDA, corn gluten, rice protein, and wheat gluten processed in China, and sold as enrichments for commercial pet foods, became tainted with the chemical melamine [3].
- In October 2008 Chinese authorities recalled eggs marketed within China because the Kekeda brand from Hanwel Group were contaminated with melamine.
- Dumplings and meat products were affected too!
In January 2008 the Japanese government reported that 175 people got sick from eating agricultural insecticide-tainted dumplings imported from China. Many people throughout Japan reported dizziness and nausea after eating various Chinese meat products that ranged from beef jerky to pork chops. [….] In Japan the overall scope of tainted meat products ranged from 48,000 boxes of dumplings to 3,845 tons of meat products ordered NOT sold by the Japanese Health Ministry. - Milk and dairy products also were tainted.
Chinese children paid the ultimate health price because they drank milk. In September 2008 over 53,000 babies in China became ill from drinking melamine-watered-down milk and several died. - Chinese aquaculture and seafood really need to be questioned, I think.
Aquaculture is a large industry in China. Since only 45 percent of China has sewage treatment facilities, raw sewage gets discharged directly into rivers, lakes, estuaries, and coastal waters. Much of China’s aquaculture grows in raw sewage contaminated water. How much raw sewage do you think that amounts to? The estimate is about 3.7 billion tons. That’s a lot of crap. - Chickens and questionable food production.
The production “Dateline China, Vietnam and Thailand” broadcast on a Chinese language news network News.163 com (www.163.com) showed how dead chickens were collected from local farm yards at a purchase price of 1 RMB and then sold in human food markets for 9 RMBs each after they had been processed—ought to make anyone who eats question whether purchasing food from China, Vietnam and Thailand is what you want to do.
In that same chapter on Chinese-produced commodities, I covered glycerin used in pharmaceuticals; defective Chinese drywall; pesticide production; tires prone to tread separation; plus a one-and-a-half book-page-listing of “Dangerous, Faulty, or Toxic Products” associated with Chinese production.
One would hope the USDA, FDA and other federal agencies would impose stricter oversight and even do product sampling or testing before allowing food products into the U.S. marketplace.
As Martha Rosenberg points out, there seems to be some sort of dichotomous thinking going on about food safety in the USA. According to Agriculture Secretary Perdue, “The good thing about it is our food safety inspection agency, in the USDA, does a marvelous job.”
Now here’s a dichotomy, if there ever was one, which Secretary Perdue ought to clarify:
According to officials, many China imports are rejected because of ‘pesticides, bacteria and filth.’
However, Martha claims, “By the FDA’s own audit, six out of eight of the certifiers did not even know what drugs and chemicals were approved in U.S. exports. Yet a quick look at how the U.S. government ensures the safety of imported shrimp, much of it from Asia, raises many doubts.”
Bon appétit!
References:
[1] http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/PoulProdVa/PoulProdVa-04-28-2017.pdf , Pg. 5
[2] https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/our-secretary
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.
Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.
Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.
Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)
Catherine’s NEW book: Eat To Beat Disease, Foods Medicinal Qualities ©2016 Catherine J Frompovich is now available
“According to officials, many China imports are rejected because of ‘pesticides, bacteria and filth.’”
Who then foots the bill of disposing of rejected imports? Where are the imports disposed? How are the imports disposed?
I used to work at a live hang poultry plant. I saw offal and ‘trim’ go into an auger that would feed into a truck that hauled the ‘waste’ to a factory which churned it down to raw protein. That got fed back to chickens, hogs, cows, people. Of course, we also had what was dubbed the sh__ tubes, three tubes which were for nothing but rejected ‘product’. The UDSA doc would direct us to toss rejects down the incline into the tubes. That stuff was limed down in a pit, then scooped out into an incinerator.
This leads me to ask. We would get truck loads of birds from certain farms, all of that farm’s stuff would get rejected. The farmer then had to pay the company for disposal fees. So does China pay for disposal? Is the ‘product’ burnt and cleansed properly? Where is that done? Who signs off on it? Can the public see the paper trail for it?
Who is ACCOUNTABLE?
Stop using the weasel terms “according to officials”, “officials say”, that’s a bunch of bull to let everyone including a “reporter” pull CYA. List names, give ACCOUNTABILITY back to the People. It is how the People retain power, transparency offers knowledge and as Bacon says “Knowledge is power.”
Anyone buying any Chinese food product is a moron . Most this chicken will probably be sold in low rated grocers in low rent areas.
The problem is that we won’t know the chicken came from China.
It won’t be marked.
Never buy anything ingested from China.