In case anyone wonders what the elite eat in China

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-09-24-403735093_x.htm

Amid milk scare, China's elite get special food
By Anita Chang, Associated Press Writer
Posted 9/24/2008

BEIJING — While China grapples with its latest tainted food crisis, the political elite are served the choicest, safest delicacies. They get hormone-free beef from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, organic tea from the foothills of Tibet and rice watered by melted mountain snow. And it's all supplied by a special government outfit that provides all-organic goods from farms working under the strictest guidelines. That secure food supply stands in stark contrast to the frustrations of ordinary citizens who have faced recurring food scandals - vegetables with harmful pesticide residue, fish tainted with a cancer-causing chemical, eggs colored with industrial dye, fake liquor causing blindness or death, holiday pastries with bacteria-laden filling...

The State Council Central Government Offices Special Food Supply Center is specifically designed to avoid the problems troubling the general population. "We all know that average production facilities use large quantities of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Antibiotics and hormones are commonly used in raising livestock and poultry. Farmed aquatic products are contaminated by various kinds of water pollution," the center's director, Zhu Yonglan, said in a speech. "It goes without saying that these are harmful when consumed by humans," Zhu told executives at supplier Shandong Ke'er Biological Medical Technology Development Co., which posted it on its Web site earlier this year.

Zhu's speech has been widely circulated by Chinese Internet users on blogs and forums in recent days, with many expressing outrage that top government officials have a separate - and safer - food supply than the public. The special food center enforces strict standards on suppliers like Shandong Ke'er, which makes health supplements designed to boost immunity and energy. Foods must be organic, not genetically modified and meet international food standards, said a manager in the center's product department. The reason: its A-list clientele of government officials and retirees of vice minister rank or higher...

Set up in 2004, China's Special Food Supply Center is almost as secretive as its high-end clientele, whose precise number is unclear, but includes hundreds of top political leaders, their families and retired cadres. Much of the information on its Web site was removed after media inquiries and interview requests this week...

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in all of history.

They have special stores only they get to shop at, while you're not allowed to access simple, clean ingredients to make your meals?

Wow. Must be rough.

that's a damned tasty-lookin' kitten.

I'm so confused...

they actually admit in public what crap they're feeding their serfs. :eyes:

United States! Only the rich and powerful get healthy food!

ETA: But here we ridicule poor people for being fat. And why are they fat? Cheap, filling food is bad for one's health and makes one fat. White bread, pasta, peanut butter, high-fat hamburger, etc.

Healthy food is cheap and plentiful if you're willing to cook for yourself. If you eat out of packages it's your own damn fault.

Then get back to me.

Veggies are cheap as fuck. Carrots, potatoes, onions, beans , and rice don't cost shit. Hell, that was half the reason I managed to get through the period of adjusting to a vegan diet some twenty-odd years ago -- "Damn, this food ain't costing me SHIT! More money to spend on used paperbacks!"

sheesh.

can you share with us? a list perhaps?

:evilgrin:

Science is wonderful and totally believable when it comes to global warming, but all wrong and frightening when it comes to GM food.

who cowers before the letters GMO.

Me, I cower. Because GMO is good for corporations and not us serfs. yes, serfs.

Free hours, safe food-storage supplies, a functional oven and stove (with gas/electric service to make it work,) basic spices, a freezer, a car (because veggies, beans, and rice are heavy, bulky items that are hard to cart home on a bus when you're buying for a family.) You know, the stuff that poor people, all too often, DON'T have?

Your compassion is overwhelming. I have a damned hard time believing that you were ever a true "minimum-wage vegan". Maybe, MAYBE if you had nobody to support but yourself, and you lived in a city with fantastic public transit, and somebody donated plastic wrap and tupperware to you, and your living space had a good, functional stove and freezer with adequate cookware and money for dish soap and bus fare and spare hours to WAIT for the bus. Maybe. But YOUR experiences are YOURS. They do not invalidate other peoples' experiences. Anecdote is not the singular of data, and if you think you're justified in passing snotty-ass judgement on others just because YOU were lucky enough to make it work, you're full of shit, and no different than the idiotic "bootstrappers."

Not the crap we get in America.

You can get "real" Chinese food in places like LA, San Francisco or Vancouver no problem. Is it great? Depends on your tastes, I certainly like it.

As for the food in China. Well I ate at some of the best places in China and I still thought the food quality was a step below what you get here in the USA.

and they don't separate white meat versus dark meat

if the toxic ingredient is cheaper or readily available, just use it. who will notice? If it kills 'em how can they complain?

But with 1.5 billion people there are bound to be a few bad apples.

they're doing a dandy job!

The pharma company was hosting, and their reps ordered the organic meat. Must be nice to have an expense account.