More China: Cardboard Buns.....

[Geff]

While I'm not at all surprised that China's government is doing major spin control, I am surprised that they continue to admit to problems:

China to test food safety for Olympics

AUDRA ANG; The Associated Press
Published: July 13th, 2007 01:00 A

Customers purchase steamed buns called baozi from street vendors in Beijing An undercover investigation by a television station found that one vendor stuffed his baozi with shredded cardboard rather than with the traditional minced pork. “It fools the average person,” he said.

BEIJING – A system to monitor food safety will go into effect during test events for the 2008 Beijing Olympics next month, a government watchdog announced Thursday, even as a TV station aired an undercover investigation showing how shredded cardboard was used as a filling in steamed buns.

In the report aired Wednesday night, China Central Television showed a shirtless, shorts-clad bun maker in Beijing using cardboard picked up off the street to stuff his steamed buns.

A hidden camera followed the man into a ramshackle building where steamers were filled with the fluffy white buns, called baozi, traditionally stuffed with minced pork.

It showed how cardboard was first soaked to a pulp in a plastic basin of caustic soda – a chemical base commonly used in manufacturing paper and soap – then chopped into tiny morsels with a cleaver. Fatty pork and powdered seasoning were stirred in as flavoring and the concoction was stuffed into the buns.

“It fools the average person,” says the bun maker, whose face was not shown. “I don’t eat them myself.”

Confidence in the safety of Chinese exports has severely waned internationally, as the list of products found tainted with dangerous levels of toxins and chemicals grows longer.

This week, officials vowed the Beijing Summer Games – a source of tremendous national pride – will be part of the crackdown on unsafe food.

The new food quality monitoring system announced Thursday will begin Aug. 8, the start of a series of 11 trials for Olympic organizers to assess their transportation systems, technology and logistics.

“There will be continuous supervision,” the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said on its Web site. Monitoring will start from the origin of food production and continue through processing, packaging, transportation and distribution, it said.

[Davis]

I heard about this cardboard thing and was thoroughly disgusted beyond words.  But I don't suppose we should be surprised.  And does anyone really believe that the Chinese government had no idea what was going on all that time with their executed FDA equivalent?  Of course they have to say that now, but while the dirty deeds were being done, how blind could they really have been? 

I really believe that none of us know what we are eating anymore, unless we grew it ourselves.  Think of all the ingredients that go into all of those made in the USA products (toothpaste, packaged foods, etc).  They may be made here, but we have no idea where they got their ingredients to formulate it.  Apparently Trader Joe's has been in the news due to some of the spices they were using in one of their food products.  The spices came from China, of course.  And what about all the other ingredient out there?  I think we can all can see how deep the problem goes and how impossible it is to avoid all the foods that are most likely unsafe.   

[JSG]

DON'T LET YOUR PET EAT DOGSWELL OR CATSWELL!!!
MADE IN CHINA!!!