Filed under: The Food Supply | Tags: Food Safety, organic food, Organic Foods, Whole Foods Market
Whole foods official blog has this post: ”Is Organic from China Possible”. Here is my post on their blog. You can view their blog here
http://blog.wholefoodsmarket.com/2008/06/is-organic-from-china-possible/comment-page-1/#comment-34923
and post your own comments.
Personally, I still do not feel secure with any products from China (or other countries) let alone food. I have read about the “audits” that are done. For example, a manufacturer can purchase a $1000. audit or an $8000. audit and still pass but the more expensive audit will be more comprehensive.
There is documentation from cases that after passing numerous audits there was tainted food that had to be recalled from those manufacturers. At least in the USA (although there have been cases of tainted food), you know that regulations are stricter than overseas. What chemicals are allowed and handling standards are watched more closely here.
Speaking of organics, another problem is that since the “organic movement” is becoming more acceptable and more people are buying into the fact that organics are better for you, many more companies are jumping onto the bandwagon to make money in this area and are lowering the organic standards.
One example of this is Horizon. I have read that they are using cows that were not raised organically and using them in their milk production. There are some companies out there that are strictly sticking to the “organic principals” and I will continue to buy their products.
I spend hundreds of dollars a month at Whole Foods to buy food for my family that is nutritious and safe. I read the labels carefully and keep up to date on the ingredients terminology as the term for msg and other additives have changed to try to hide them in foods. I also read the frozen packages as I have seen frozen vegetables from China in your stores (although I was told they are about 1% of your inventory).
The most disturbing thing for me is when I think I am buying a product from USA and I find out that yes, it was manufactured in the USA but with ingredients from China or other countries. For example, Solgar Vitamins makes vitamins in the USA but with most of the ingredients from China and other countries. I called them and asked where they get their ingredients and they said “China and other countries”. There is an 800 number right on the bottle. They are one of the most recommended vitamin companies. Now, I won’t buy them but I appreciate their honesty.
When this is the case, then it should be labeled manufactured in the USA with outsourced ingredients because technically, these products are not manufactured in the USA just assembled here if the ingredients are foreign.
So, with all of this you really can’t trust any of it. If it is labeled USA it can be full of ingredients from China. How can we know? There needs to be stricter labeling policies which the food manufacturers are fighting and lobbying in Washington to stop.
The more informed consumers are will allow them to choose what they want to consume and not think they are getting one thing when they are really eating something else. Then, when Americans stop buying this foregin food and it starts rotting on the shelves, maybe then manufacturers and stores with stop stocking it.
Until then, those who are uninformed and just buy for the pretty packaging, because they liked the commercial or because they don’t know where the food is really from, will just have to cross their fingers and hope that their next meal won’t be tainted with chemicals, filth or any other foregin object.
Filed under: The Healthcare Reform Bill from Hell, Where is this country headed | Tags: health care bill, health policy, healthcare bills, healthcare news, healthcare plan
Free Republic has posted some “Little Gems from The Healthcare Bill” Read these then write your congressmen and Senators and tell them if this passes they will be voted out and voyte them out!!
Posted on Friday, July 24, 2009 6:12:23 PM by CMS
• Page 16: States that if you have insurance at the time of the bill becoming law and change, you will be required to take a similar plan. If that is not available, you will be required to take the gov option!
• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)
• Page 42: The “Health Choices Commissioner” will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (example: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.
• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No “judicial review” is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.
• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll <>BR • Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
• Page 167: Any individual who doesnt’ have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).
• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.
• Page 203: “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it really says that.
• Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected.”
• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what speciality you have, you’ll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)
• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors’ time, their professional judgment, etc.
• Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries.
• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.
• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.
• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!
• Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.
• Page 321: Hospital expansion hinges on “community” input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN.
• Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing.
• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.
• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals.
• Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).
• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Goverment provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.
• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient’s health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.
• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.
• Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services.
Please research this topic and become informed I know they are making quick changes to try to pass this thing but they are only trying to bait and switch what is leaking to the public.
Filed under: The Food Supply | Tags: minerals vitamins, multivitamin, organic vitamins, safe vitamins
I went shopping at Whole Foods Market for vitamins today. I had heard that Solgar vitamins is a good brand so I was looking at their multi vitamins and I started thinking about imported foods from China and other countries and I wondered if they manufacture these vitamins in the USA, where do they get the ingredients that they are using to make their vitamins?
I looked at the bottle and there was an 800 number for Solgar and I called them. I asked the person who answered if they manufacture their vitamins in the USA and they replied yes. Next, I asked if they get the ingredients from China
to make their vitamins and they replied yes. So, I said that I am disappointed that they are claiming that their products are made in the USA when the ingredients to make them come from China. So, that tells me that they are really only in a way assembling their vitamins here as they are still buying cheap ingredients from China.
We talked about the inspections as they said their ingredients get inspected and I asked them how can they be sure that all of the ingredients are pure when the FDA can’t even monitor everything that is getting into our food supply? I also told them that I am aware of the so-called “inspections” and that a company can have a slip of paper saying they passed an inspection but there are different degrees of inspection. A company can pay for a cheaper (less extensive) inspection or a more expensive (more comprehensive) inspection. There is no regulation on how extensive the inspection has to be.
There are many cases when a factory was inspected and passed and a short time later they produced tainted product. I informed Solgar that I would not be purchasing their products and thanked them for their time. Please, do your homework. If we don’t buy these products and they sit on the stores shelves, maybe they will realize “we the people” do not want to play Russian Roulette with what we are consuming.
Filed under: The Food Supply | Tags: Food Safety, imported food, organic food, Organic Foods
There are many food products although manufactured in the US contain ingredients from overseas. For example, according to the NY Times, in 2007 the plant that makes Veggie Booty (Keystone Food Products of Easton, Pa.) had received an excellent rating from the American Institute of Baking when they did an inspection/audit. In addition, the spices used in the Veggie Booty were from a supplier in New jersey who imported the spices from China and these spices were not part of the audit plus they were tainted with salmonella.
Government inspectors have so much to do to monitor our food supply that private auditors have taken over a large part of the job. You probably have heard about the most recent food poisoning outbreaks in products like spinach, peanuts and hamburgers, right? Well, this proves that auditors failed to find problems at these plants and consumers became ill from consuming these products.
In 2007, Westland/Hallmark Meat Company in California was audited 17 different times and passed. So, you would think they are safe, right? Well, think again because according to the NY Times, an undercover video was made where an employee used a forklift to force sick cows into the slaughterhouse. Were these hamburgers fed to your child in school? Hopefully not as there was a prompt recall of 143 pounds of beef in February 2008.
If the US government is having this much trouble monitoring our own factories and can’t even monitor ingredients (from overseas) that are added to food products made in the US, how can they possibly monitor the thousands and thousands of shipments of prepared food that continuously comes into our country from overseas to be sold in US stores?
In our food supply from China there have been melamine contamination in pet food, contaminated spices, there were stories of a Chinese factory that makes herbal tea lying tea leaves out on the warehouse floor and driving trucks over them so that the exhaust would quickly dry out the leaves. Did you know that they use leaded gasoline? I bet some of that lead transferred to the tea leaves.
If our farmers were not being paid not to grow crops and most of our food and ingredients to make food products were from the US, don’t you think it would be easier to monitor companies on our own turf then to try to monitor companies that are 7000 miles away?
To me it would make more sense to pay our farmers to grow crops, decrease imported foods and create jobs by bringing most of the food manufacturing back to the US where it belongs so it can be more closely monitored and factories can be more easily visited to get a better handle on keeping our food supply safe.
Filed under: The Food Supply | Tags: food importers, food safe, Food Safety, imports from China, products China
I was in whole foods the other day and I noticed that a large amount of the frozen vegetables sold were from China. Why do we have to import food from China? So, I started thinking about that lead in the toys incident and wondered that if toys with lead can get into our stores what can be in the food?
I started researching if there were any other incidents with contaminants in food being imported from China and here is what I found (this is only the tip of the iceberg): In May of 2007, tainted toothpaste from China started showing up in other countries so the FDA began testing it at US ports of entry. Were they able to test every tube? No. By the way, the chemical was a chemical used in antifreeze. The same chemical that killed people in Panama in 2006 when it turned up in cough syrup, mislabeled by Chinese manufacturers as a harmless sweetener.
I wanted to find something more recent so I went to the USDA Economic Research Service website and it said:
”The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) increased attention to food imports from China is an indicator of safety concerns as imported food becomes more common in the United States. U.S. food imports from China more than tripled in value between 2001 and 2008. Addressing safety risks associated with these imports is difficult because of the vast array of products from China, China’s weak enforcement of food safety standards, its heavy use of agricultural chemicals, and its considerable environmental pollution“.
“ FDA refusals of food shipments from China suggest recurring problems with “filth,” unsafe additives, labeling (typically introduced in food processing and handling), and veterinary drug residues in fish and shellfish (introduced at the farm). Chinese authorities try to control food export safety by certifying exporters and the farms that supply them. However, monitoring such a wide range of products for the different hazards that can arise at varying points in the supply chain is a difficult challenge for Chinese and U.S. officials”.
Do you want to eat or feed your children filth, unsafe additives or veterinary drug residues? I sure don’t. Again I ask, why do we have to import food all the way from China? We are weaving a web of dependency. Think about it. I tried to find a silverware set made in the USA (because I wasn’t sure if silverware from China would contain lead) . I went to every store I could think of, could not find one set made in USA. Now, I have to ask myself, why are we importing food from China? Is it because the USA owes them so much money?
Jim Hightower’s site read:
“Well, inspections by the Food and Drug Administration are a cruel joke. Some 9 million shiploads of foreign food came into our ports last year (this was in 2007), yet the FDA sampled only about 20,000. That’s less than one-half of one percent! Foreign suppliers know this, so they’ve turned America into an easy-access dumping ground for fish, grains, fresh fruits, veggies, nuts, and other foods tainted with everything from cancer-causing toxins to illegal veterinary drugs”.
“Why is so much food being imported into the US? In the past decade, food shipments to our ports have more than doubled, with shipments from China nearly quintupling”.
“China? We already have a massive trade imbalance with the Chinese – why increase it by buying catfish, nuts, wheat products, and other common foods that our own farmers produce in abundance… and with great quality”?
“Can you say, Wal-Mart”?
“Wal-Mart, giant supermarket food chains, and the big food processors from our own country are steadily abandoning American farmers to get cheaper commodities and packaged goods from countries like China where farmers, workers, and the environment are easily exploited. That’s what these retailers and processors mean by “cheap” foodstuffs”.
“And now we’re learning that “cheap” foreign food also comes at a mighty heavy price to us consumers. By the way, these are the same corporations that are trying to kill legislation requiring food imports to be labeled by country-of-origin”.
So, this all is a crude awakening for me. I exercise, drink spring water and buy food I think is good for me and my family. I already read labels but now what, I have to make sure the food I buy is not from China and tainted? I was in another food store the other day and I saw organic Salsa. I called the 800 number on the bottle right from the aisle in the store. I did not see where the salsa was made it just said it was distributed by some US company. Distributed just means who distributes the product not who is the manufacturer. The woman who answered said the product was made in … (a name I never heard of). I asked her if that is in the USA because I have never heard of that place and she replied “I don’t know ma’am that is the only information I have when I look up this product on my sheet”.
Of course I did not buy the salsa. So, now I not only have the burden of sifting through all of the food labels to avoid the trans fat, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, artificial colors and flavors, high salt content etc.. now I also have to concern myself with what country the food is from and if it is tainted?
Isn’t the whole point of food in the first place to keep humans alive and healthy? There is not one person on earth who can survive without food. Wouldn’t you think our government and who they have monitoring our food safety would maybe, I don’t know, put a little more effort into making something like food safe?
So, I am finding this is just the tip of the iceberg and I definitely have to do much more research. I will get on this immediately and will fill you in on whatever I find for or against this topic. I bet you are as surprised as I was how deep this goes but we cannot become helpless victims and watch our food supply be switched to another country (where we are unable to effectively monitor what we are getting) when we have many resources right here in the USA for food.
In the meantime what we can do? Jim Hightower suggests: “To avoid their bad imports, buy as much of your family’s food from farmers markets and grocery stores that feature locally grown food”.
Please post any experiences or comments that you have had with any foreign food or products or articles you have found regarding this issue.
