So, I just looked at the contents of the Mott's apple juice boxes

we've been giving our kid, like every other parent in the freaking country, and here's what it says next to the "best if used by" date: CONC. FROM USA, ARGENTINA & CHINA. This juice is made from concentrate that comes, in part, from motherfucking CHINA--the "we don't give a shit who we poison with our not-fit-for-human-consumption agricultural products" country. How long before the next food-import horror of the day turns out to be mysterious illnesses in children, traced to toxic pesticides (or ground up industrial waste, or God knows what) in Chinese apple juice? I'm sorry, but WHAT THE FUCK is going on? WHY is Mott's apple juice importing concentrate from China? Why isn't anyone calling for tougher inspections of Chinese food imports? Whatever happened to, you know, ensuring the safety of the American food supply? FDA? USDA? Hello? Anybody there?

It's starting to look--disturbingly--like we're afraid to rile the Chinese by suggesting in public that we don't want to eat the substandard food they're selling us. Why are we behaving like a colony instead of an economic superpower? I guess the fact that they own over $360 billion in US debt (second only to Japan among foreign holders of U.S. debt) has nothing to do with it.

Bad enough the crap's from concentrate, but there aren't enough bloody oranges and apples in the US? Not even in North America?

Why pay him that when you can get labor in China for 60 cents an hour on average?

I'm going to go watch Soylent Green, it seems somehow apropos.

if at all possible: http://www.localharvest.org/

You have control then.

Just a thought...

:shrug:

Just what the autism research community needs.

but the people who have autistic kids still have no answers. Apparently you do and you know this is a red herring. How do you know that? I sure don't.

But my best friend's child cannot, because he *is* autistic. And the fucking apple juice did not cause it. Now why don't you stop spewing bullshit.

I don't. Just how do you know that? Have you completed tests and done studies?

You like throwing around the "show me studies" phrase so much, how about you start with the ones you find linking apple juice and autism in a causative relationship?

Of how about this: you care so much about the effects of autism, why don't you volunteer to help those who are diagnosed with it? Here's where you start:

http://www.laworks.com/projects/viewProject.php?_clearFlag=course,specialevent&PHPSESSID=97415dc05b5cb7bd5d8ad49a9d81d5bc

Has this kid drank formula or ate baby food with additives from China?:shrug:

Common sense won't work here.

:)

But that's okay....You gotta believe what you believe to feel safe in your world...

No formula for this child. And this kid's mom shops at Whole Paycheck, so I can only say that I believe not re: food additives from China.

I wonder how long it will take you to jump on the second part of my reply to prove that the food additives from China (which are undefined and not certain if they were even introduced to this child's body) as proof positive that that is what caused this kid's syndrome...

I also challenge you: if you care so much about kids with autsim, are you going to do something useful about it, like donate your time to these families?

No doubt--I am a nurse that specializes in pediatrics and I have a couple of colleagues who have autistic children.
However, as ONE person I can only do so much after helping my kids through college, working full time, volunteering at Planned Parenthood and volunteering for my candidate.
I asked you a simple non-threatening question and you want me to volunteer to a cause that is near and dear to your heart. I get that, but the causes that are near and dear to MY heart take the time that I have available to do that. It doesn't mean I don't care.
I *never* said it was proof-positive. It was a question asked since I *obviously* don't have any access to information on this child.

...it ain't real, so why can this MF company even call it juice?

Hence, apple juice concentrate.

It could be revolutionary, in terms of the global economy.

if there is every a regional or even a nationwide SHTF situation that would allow more people to survive.

Currently everything is trucked in to the population centers usually from far away. Most places only have a week worth of food in the store.

Look at what happened to cuba when they lost the oil subsidies from the USSR. No oil to run farm machines. No oil to turn into fertilizer, pesticides, & herbicides. no oil to run the trucks to transport food from farms to cities.

and we all saw what happened with Katrina when they didn't get the help they needed having to resort to shoplifting food when they could find any.

now if the fit really hit the shan for some reason the wealthy will be OK cuz they will have the $$ to get what they need. it is the middle class and poor who will be hurting.

better to support the local farmers as much as possible so the food will be there just in case.

Also grow your own if you can. better to learn a bit of gardening now when making mistakes won't mean going without. and if people like me just turn out to be paranoid at least we know what is in the food we eat for a change!!!

When you buy locally grown produce, you are drastically reducing the amount of carbon emitted getting that produce from the farmer to you.

instead of it going overseas and to mega corps.

It is surmised that the origins of the first economic systems are rooted in people walking from village to village, bringing seeds to trade. Perhaps now to go forward, we need to go backward?

Expand, contract. It seems to be the way of everything, as the universe seeks homeostasis.

i like having fresh fruit in the winter.

and a wide variety in the produce section year-round.

if you want to live/eat that way- be my guest. but i won't be joining you.

you're eating in the winter. They're laden with chemicals that keep them preserved and able to survie long transits. You're eating those chemicals, along with the fruit.

I've taken to drying fruits and veggies to use in the winter. I'm going to do more canning this season, too. Won't be eating apples from New Zealand. Or juice from China.

not mine.

No, you're a colonist to Mr. CEO's corporate empire and his bottom line. It was he who felt the need to move all the factories and production facilities to countries that use forced labor in prison camps and where free workers are paid an average of 60 cents an hour with no health care, no pension, no environmental or labor standards. Nevermind political freedoms or the right to form a labor union.

This is their idea of free trade. It's not about comparative advantage. It's about finding the cheapest, most subservient labor possible.

:-(

is keeping anything that can be used as birth control off the market. That's it.

It's interesting, too, that we can't seem to keep plastic poison from China out of Baby Formula, but if someone wants to put some THC in a brownie for a cancer patient in San Francisco, all of a sudden there's a $40 Billion Dollar budget complete with assault-weapon wielding SWAT teams at the ready to make sure it doesn't happen.

Feh. We The People need to get some fucking sanity back in our government.

Getting ready to have a baby in, oh, days... plan on breast feeding and supplementing with formula since I have to go back to work this time and won't be at home as much to do so (thankfully, she'll have Grandma-care, though).

Still Grandma doesn't have lactating breasts.

Have a link?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2003681015_webfoodqa26.html

Q: Has melamine been found in any human foods?

A: No. However, the FDA is beginning to test wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate and at least four other vegetable proteins imported for use by firms that make human food, including pizza dough and infant formula, and those that manufacture animal feed.

The scary thing is that this melamine-tainted wheat gluten was SOLD as "food grade"- so there was nothing specific about it tagged to go into pet food as opposed to human food. And there's a LOT of wheat gluten, in a lot of stuff. I eat these Morningstar Veggie Sausages all the time, and they're almost all hydrolized vegetable protein, of which I assume a large portion is wheat gluten. And who knows where they get their wheat gluten from.

I suppose we can take comfort in the fact that NOW the FDA is supposedly testing the wheat gluten, although from what I understand about the FDA (like I said, they really only seem interested in making sure women can't buy Plan B contraception. Beyond that, they just don't seem to have much of a staff) the testing they DO do is extremely minimal. I don't know from baby formulas anymore, but they may not all have wheat gluten in them. Right now, I'm trying to avoid giving stuff with large amounts of it to my kid, at least until I can get some more answers. Like those frozen veggie sausages- who knows when they were made, so if the testing just started, the crap could already be in there.

Also, as far as your newborn- is this your first? Again, congratulations! We didn't give our kid any formula until he was several months old, and even then we managed to keep him mostly breastfed; and my wife works full time. She had pretty good results with a breast pump. I'd say if you can get one that's plug in/battery powered, really, it's worth it. Our kid was an AMAZINGLY strong, healthy baby, and we both attribute a lot of it to the breast milk. They're not kidding when they say it's the best for the baby. And if I could figure out how to deal with the little jars and bags of breast milk, anyone can.

And this is my second. I breast-fed the first one, my son, completely until I lost my milk at 5 months (I just got too thin to produce - they think. Not really sure what the cause was, but we tried several things to keep it coming to no avail).

When I lost my milk and had to switch to formula, my son nearly wouldn't take it. He couldn't stand the taste or something. My husband and mother had fed him my milk in bottle before, so it wasn't that he was against the bottle. He just didn't like the sudden switch.

Anywho, I plan to mostly breast-feed this one, too, but, I don't want to go through the trauma of a sudden switch from breast milk to formula in case I lose my milk OR my Mom runs out of my pumped milk and has to give her formula while I'm at work. So, I'm going to supplement with formula a little from birth - just in case.

And, I know what you're saying about healthy babies. Despite only 5 months of breast feeding, my son never had an ear infection and rarely had colds (until he got old enought to go to school, that is). I know the benefits for both Mother and Child.

I plan also to pump at work, but, given that I work at a small computer school, I realize, too, that some days will find it difficult for me to do so. There's just not a lot of privacy in a building with 200 students on any given day. I plan to give it my best, though.

I think when we did use formula -and our son couldn't stand it, either- we either used enfamil or the Horizon Organic brand, but I'm not sure if Horizon still makes theirs. If so, I might be a little more comfortable that they weren't getting their wheat protein from China.

would have a half-glass of unfiltered organic(when possible) wheat beer (hefeweisen)with dinner a few times a week...
our midwife said it helps with milk production.
Tasty too!

and guess who always got the other half of the bottle... yup, me!

:)

> Wait - what plastic poison in what baby formula?

Reply #8 is conflating several genuine concerns. It's not
plastic shit in the babt fomula, it's plastic shit in the
Polycarbonate baby bottles.

This comes from at least two directions:

o The basic Polycarbonate plastic used to make the bottles.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycarbonate#Potential%20hazards%20in%20food%20contact%20applications

o Pthalates; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pthalates

o I think there's also been discussion about how much of
the catalyst (antimony?) from the production of the
polycarbonate still remains in the polycarbonate to be
leached-out later.

Then there are all the concerns about baby formula (including
the old "Nestles" issue of formula foisted off on third world
women who can't pay for it and prepare it with bad water and
the new concerns about soy-based baby formulas acting as
phytoestrogens). While certain political factions here at
DU are professionally opposed to the idea that phytoestrogens
might be bad for developing infants, the science on this is
not at all clear yet.

Tesha

Pro-organic since day one - but most Americans scoffed at us.

And if you think that the China mishmash of weird stuff in our foods is bad, and it certainly is, what about the rows of poisons sold as household cleaners in our grocery stores?

Here. Spray some benzene, touluene, formaldehyde about your house to rid your air of the minor cat smell while you eat your perfectly unblemished genetically modified apple.

Is it possible that some of us might accept science and vaccination and still eat organic? Wow. The mind boggles.

To the swine flu vaccine (Carter era) that got me off to my organic kick.

And my best proof of the dangers/stupidity of vaccination is watching several of my older friends (who happen to be RN's) trot off each fall to get their flu shots - and then spend the next month of their lives as sick as dying dogs. (and of course, I don't conflate while watching them sick - each and every year I offer my sympathy that they got this "mystery" bug, as they will call it.)

So I tend to err on the side of science and vaccination. Which is not the same thing as being clueless or apathetic about some of the stuff they needlessly put IN vaccines, like mercury.

But vaccination and food safety are two pretty different deals IMHO. Right now I'd just really appreciate it if we could get some competent staffing at the FDA. It's really scary how much they seem to have their eye off the ball.

I wish that was true but it ain't!

We have an industry appointed panel of five or six people that sit and determine about the vaccination safety. (Now the panel may actually be government appointed - but the government on that level is so corrupted that it may as well be industry appointed - if you want to know what I mean, google Aspartame, aspartame approval, and FDA, and meddling - it is an amazing story that illustrates what goes on all the time.

The people on the USA's vaccine panel are all industry shills.

When Leuren Moret was at an international conference (she was there to testify about Depleted Uranium U and learn as much as she could) she heard one of our FDA people chidingly say to one of the top Japanese scientists "What are you people thinking? Banning vaccinations for your children under the age of two. If you were real scientists you'd have a control group."

The Japanese scientist turned to him and smiled a patient smile and replied, "But we do have a control group. We will use the American government's statistics on its children to show us whether we are wrong or we are right."

I find that chilling.

I should mention, the last time I looked, the Japanese did not have the level of corruption between their "advisory panels" and their industry people. The Japanese are rigourously defending their population against tainted genetically modified foods. they are rigourously defending their pets from contaminantions in pet foods.

While our populace pretends that these things are isolated -as though the FDA corruption on the pet food level is different from the FDA corruption on the vaccinations.

I don't trust that stuff at all.

I have had Smallpox twice, Hep A, Hep B,Tetanus, MMR, DPT, ect...not one day sick not ever from any vaccine. I know people with non-FDA approve vaccines who have never gotten ill period. Oh and vaccine approval is WAAAAAAY more complex than a few politicians deciding. It involves hundreds if not more scientists with YEARS of animal research and YEARS of clinical trials finally ending up with SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY PANELS of multiple MD's and PhD's with years of expertise in the field. I know personally some of them, along with many many vaccine researchers. Some worked previously in biotech industry, a common practice- I moved from private to government to private again. The final decision is made by FDA's heads, but they almost always listen to the advisory panels.
Oh and I worked at NIH with internationally known vaccine researchers for awhile so I pretty much know what happens good and bad.
PS- Vaccine production is the LEAST profitable industry in health/pharmaceutical/biotech field. Most of the vaccines in this country are made overseas. The UN is costantly begging big Pharma to invest more in vaccine production because polio and other vaccines are desperately needed in third world countries! So please stop spouting off as if you are THE expert in this field. I pretty much guaruntee that I know more than just about ANYONE here on this subject and your accusations are insulting to the many many fine and dedicated people who DO NOT enter this field for money (there are bad eggs in industry as in all, but thats not the point here).

':rant:

I disagree

Okay okay it may be that percentage wise the pharmaceuticals do not make a lot on each vaccine.

But in the time tested vaccines, if you can get 20 million people a year to have a given vaccine, you are looking at a rather big take. (even twenty million times 10 cents adds up, and I am sure that their take is a LOT more than ten cents a vaccine.)

The other thing is that the main entities that support the vaccine interests are the local county governments and their "Well baby" clinics. You cannot even get any head of Health and Social Services to look into the vaccine issue, because there is simply too much money going into county corffers from the state and Federal governments. You have clinics, nurses and otehr personnel being out there on a yearly basis. A sure fire way to keep the bureaucracy expanded.

Also specifically I might change my tune here, if you offer me JUST ONE GULDARN STUDY on the impact that a vaccination has on the development of a baby looking at the baby from the thyroid, endocrine and immune system levels.

http://tinyurl.com/275n2y regarding the recent cervical cancer vaccine debate

And remember a few years back as another vaccine killed off babies www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=79

Guiliame Barre is very similar to polio.As a matter of fact I have heard it called 'the polio you recover from' by doctors.
A lot of people who come down with it get it from vaccinations.
My dad had it.He had one of the worst cases any one has ever survived.They actually use his medical file from the episode in a medical school.

I know people who had Polio and are now crippled (or in the process of being crippled) by Post Polio syndrome. Far more people got saved from this AWFUL disease than any side effects. PSST- first rule of vaccinations- never vaccinate sick people- I suspect almost all who had this "condition" were sick (even if they didn't know it) when they got the disease.
BTW- why don't you show me some peer reviewed studies on this link from a medical journal about the "polio you recover from".Sure would like to see where you get your "theory" from.

my father were calling it that.Where they got it from I don't know.But they used it when they were explaining to me and my mother how my father went from healthy to 100% paralysed within 72 hours after the vaccine.

'GBS is also known as acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, acute idiopathic polyradiculoneuritis, acute idiopathic polyneuritis, French Polio and Landry's ascending paralysis.'

That is from wiki's entry on it.While wiki isn't always the best place for info it is interesting to see that it actually is a term used by others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillain-Barr%C3%A9_syndrome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis
If you read the descriptions of both diseases you will notice they have some of the same symptoms.Paralysis being one of them.

Here are a few more links: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000684.htm#Alternative Names
'Some people may get Guillain-Barre syndrome after a bacterial infection, certain vaccinations (such as rabies and swine flu), and surgery.'
Apparently my father was one of those people.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/
Once again another site with symptoms that are similar to polio.

I see from researching all of this that some advances in treatment of GBS have been made since my father had it.Back then all they could do was give supportive care.Like putting him on a ventilator for 6 months.Or teaching me and my mother how to administer electrocardio resuscitation to restart his heart when the ICU nurses were busy with other patients.
It is also interesting to see that most polio victims recover also.

I believe its probably a real syndrome. Polio is a live virus vaccine so if someone has an autoimmune issue they are NEVER given a vaccine. Alot of people have undetected health issues that vaccines can bring out. However statistically, far more people have been helped by this vaccine than hurt. As for Polio victims recovering--have you ever seen anyone with Post Polio Syndrome? If the polio doesn't cripple you the first time you get it...when you get into your sixties you get crippled and I am watching my best friend, a very active older man, go down that road now. He has always wished he could have gotten the vaccine before he got sick...
I am sorry that your father got so sick, but can you concede that perhaps he would have been little better off getting polio itself?
Let me share an example about vaccines that might put this issue into perspective for you: the small pox vaccine--it has made a very very horrible disease extinct. HOWEVER its also a live virus vaccine and very very potent. Small numbers of people react badly to it, in fact can be permanantly damaged by it or even die. I hope we never have to mass vaccinate small pox, its a vaccine thats definitely not right for everyone. I know its hard to look at this objectively when its a loved one who suffered this but because of herd immunity with infectious diseases, if huge numbers of people are not vaccinated it isn't effective.
I do appreciate that you answered my challenge in a valid fashion and therefore I am trying to explain myself in a clear fashion. There is alot of misperception about vaccines and I really really really (since I am in industry on it and I care passionately about it) want to try to get people to understand whats involved here the good and the bad.

He had never had,other than a bout with dysentary in WW2, more than a minor cold in his whole life.No measles,mumpschicken pox or even the flu.Nothing.His brothers and sisters could not beleive he was so sick at first cause they all knew how he never got sick even when everyone else in his family came down with something.
The only reason he took the vaccination was to set an example for his employees.Can you imagine what was going through their minds when this all went down?I can't.I was to busy worrying about whether my dad was going to live or die..All I remember is how scared they sounded when they would call asking for updates that first couple of weeks.
Forgive me if I am a little harsh on vaccinations but I have been hearing to many stories connecting them with to many problems for me to be comfortable with them.Not to mention my own families story.

A few flu shots but thats it. You can request Thimerosol free flu vaccines easy. No stuff is needlessly put in vaccines. Preservatives are necessary or it would lose potency before being given.
FYI- I worked for an internationally known vaccine researcher who refused to have thimerosol even IN the lab for other non-vaccine buffers. Most scientists feel the same about thimerosol.
As for the FDA- its not the scientific advisory board that's the problems--its the beaurocrats at the top. In fact a lot of scientists are unhappy with the FDA because they feel they are needlessly rejecting promising treatments for things like cancer in an effort to have better PR.

not ever

We owe them too much to complain.
That's where the Iraq warbucks come from

When will we finally realize it's revolution time?

I have a Lemon, Orange, Peach , and Apple Tree.

just planted a rassberry this year and am planning on grape
vines eventually .

I've been trying to talk my husband into building me a chicken coup .

I was thinking a grape arbor the other day. I'd love to rip out some bushes near the house and replace them with blueberries.

Good idea to grow our own. :)

use to create nitrogen. Chickens poop pure nitrogen, plus pee, if you are inclined. Does not cost anything and they lay such lovely eggs. If you let them scratch for bugs in your yard they have more Omega- whatever acid than cold water fish, according to an NPR program I heard.

:hi:

pears, peaches, plums, etc. and have always wanted to get s ome chickens too. I live in a small city, but do see checkens here and there...and can hear roosters in the am, so it can be done here. My question is...do you have plans on how to build a chicken coop? Or know where I could look to get some idea?

I did for dh when I picked up some chicks a few years ago. Ours is a bit more elaborate than necessary (cedar shake roof and all!) but it wasn't obscenely expensive. We have racoons around so I preferred that it be fairly pest proof.

Most cities let you have 3 or so chickens within the city limits, but no roosters. Some cities don't allow chickens at all.

I liked this book: Keep Chickens! Tending small flocks in cities, suburbs and other small spaces by Barbara Kilarski.

Right after I asked the question, I googled...ha! Lots and lots and lots of info and plans and pictures available.

:hi:

and also check at a local feed store for some ideas.

My grandmother had chickens , I know you need a double wired coup
to protect the chickens from predators like racoons etc...They'll
reach in and break their necks . I live in a city like suburb of San
Francisco, but am lucky to have a 1/4 acre.

He's pissed. The apple growers have been fighting for that labeling law (and to keep it enforced) only to find that most people don't read it.

I feel bad for him--he's lost all of his peaches and most of his apples in that hard freeze this spring. It's going to be a bad year.

LOL.

We were Welch's kids.

But, it probably has the same thing on the label.

With DU stories of imported catfish from China fresh in my mind, I looked at the back of the frozen package of whiting filets I was about to toss into the buggy. Yup. Fish raised in China. All the fish in the frozen section. Imported from China.

No label data on the "fresh" fish, so no way to tell how far those little suckers travel before ending up in the meat counter.

Do we have to catch our own?

Wat

... farm raised or wild caught.

We try to avoid the farm raised stuff ... except for certain species. While lots of species *can* be farmed, some suffer from quality issues. Salmon's a good example. The farm raised stuff is mushier, has less color, and tastes bland.

everything I have read about farmed fish keeps me from giving in to the temptation of lower prices. I am nuts enough already without going mad as a hatter from mercury thank you much!

The safest thing would be to buy the stuff locally. Apples are grown almost everywhere, and there are probably some local resources that you don;t know about yet.

My boys loved applejuice, but after the doctor said it was too sugary, I started "cutting" it 50-50 with water, and eventually switched them to unsweetened iced tea :)

I made regular old tea and used a few tea bags of flavored tea to spiff up the taste.. Earl Gery or Orange flavored.. sometimes just squeezed an orange into the tea..

we also made non-alcoholic "Sangria" with grape juice & oranges and kept a jug of it in the fridge :)

some easy recipes here :
http://www.lisashea.com/sangria/

just substitute grape juice for the wine and cut the sugar in half.. :)

We've been importing fruits and vegetables into our country for decades. Our coffee comes from third world countries like Columbia and Ethiopia, which don't have the same food laws, but we don't worry about it.

While we should take precautions, there is no need to panic over this. There is no evidence that the juice or any product that's intended for human consumption is dangerous.

that before you could sell it, you had to prove it was SAFE. What the hell happened? How did we get from there to "there's no evidence it's dangerous?" In fact, there's reason to suspect it might be dangerous, given the fact that Chinese agriculture is largely unregulated, and given that we already know about a number of dangerous practices employed by Chinese food growers, many of whom appear to be completely unscrupulous. Before I feed it to my kid, I want to know it's SAFE. Is that too much to ask?

outside their hotel restaurants - or establishments recommended by colleagues as "clean". Even the Japanese and Taiwanese do this.

No fun getting sick in China.

If they boil the water they use to clean and cook with, they're fine. Otherwise, no. And they'll often lie if you ask, too. It can be tough finding a safe place to eat, especially outside the major cities.

...and I feel totally fi

I think you are no longer here...having been pushing up daisies since the apple juice! :D

China is the world's largest producer of apples.

The United States is second in the world. (Incidentally, Washington State produces 60% of all American apples.)

Next are Turkey, France, Italy and Iran.

Who knew?

And it can be purchased year around. Talk to the produce manager of your local store and ask about some.

Damn right.

Also, we put 1/2 tsp cinnamon on our whole grain cereal in the morning, and it has started smelling not quite like cinnamon used to smell/taste. Is it being stretched with something, or do the heroin dealers say, "stomped"?

that stuff still taste good.

tuna. Something about the dark tuna being from younger fish who haven't had time to build up the mercury...whereas the albacore is a larger fish. I can't stand dark tuna but stopped buying the albacore because of the huge precautions to eat no more than one serving per week.

Fortunately, that shipment was checked, and the chili powder was not sold here.

There was no food in it, and I think the NYT described it as "filth".

If the cinammon doesn't taste right, it may not be.

I'm sorry I can't remember where to find that article, but it was approx. a week ago. I think it was an example given within an article regarding China and food poisoning, and our lack of inspection of food imports.

And "America's Test Kitchen" found they tasted and smelled far better. Note: they did say the best was from China, and let's face it, there IS no Local Cinnamon.

http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyscinnamon.html

Required disclaimer: I haven't tried them yet; I'm still grating whole cinnamon sticks on my oatmeal, and until my supply runs out or goes stale, I'm not buying any new cinnamon.

Sometimes, when I drink the juices that have high fructose corn syrup, I get acid reflux. Other foods have the same effect. Maybe it's not just my age.

It's real simple. Support your local farmer.

Stop buying the corporate shit. Don't support the bastards. Call up Mott's and tell them you've stopped buying their products. And tell them why.

If you put your dollars into local sustainable business, especially in regards to food, this will turn around.

..That we can not even make our own food?? Thats sad, really fucking sad that we have to import food. its like we can not even feed ourselves without having to buy it from another country.

...who consumes more than anybody else.

capitalism works best when consumers are educated and informed.

Whenever I can I avoid buying goods made in the People's Republic. If an alternative is a suitable alternative to what I need there made somewhere else and it is affordable I will buy it even if it means paying a little more.

I am willing to pay more if it means that the people making it will make a decent wage, if it is better, if it means that the money will not go to a country that will be our major rival in the future.

At store the other day I paid $2 each for 2 pots to put some plants in, they were clay pots made in Italy, rather than pay $1 per for the ones made in China.

For apple juice, apple cider, or sparkling apple cider, get Martinelli's.

It's a bit more expensive, but it's 100% USA grown and produced. It also tastes amazing...

Try it...you'll like it.

None of that Chinese crap.

Martinelli's it is! :toast:

There are orchards all over the country, and most produce juice and/or cider. localharvest.org will help you find 'em.

Low low prices...more more profit...cheap cheap cheaper...more more more...
How do you like it?

This is another reason for trade tariffs...

The repukes have handed corporations the keys and said "free markets" this and "free markets" that....

They lowered taxes crippling our ability to protect our population from unscrupulous profiteers all in the name of "free markets" and small government. So we have cheap food from china poised to poison us.

Didn't American spinach kill several people last year?

Get used to seeing them around until we pay it back.

The majority of U.S. government debt is held by Americans. Japan is the number one foreign owner of U.S. debt, China is second. But yes, they now have a considerable advantage in their trade relationship with the U.S., and they're likely to become less and less reticent about exercising that advantage.

I'm a tad confused by this outrage in the OP. Is it grounded in some realistic premise surrounding juice concentrate from China or is it an overall alarmist type premise of "anything edible whatsoever coming from China is dangerous!"?

http://www.howl911.com/petfoodrecall_china.htm
(also contains info on how the US tolerates certain levels of insect parts and rodent feces in some foods...)

Vanity Fair magazine - the one that calls itself the "Green Issue"

Then scope out the article on water in China.

The water in China is so horribly polluted - the ground water contains solvents, pesticides, poisons, etc. In some places, even the water that the Chinese are expected to drink is nothing more than liquid toxins!

You can't have a decent food supply if the water is that tainted!

and got very little response...but I would wonder if the level of autism has risen because of toxic food additives and NOT from immunizations? People all around the world immunize their children and don't have the same rate of autism--but not every country gets their substandard food additives from China.

Poland and Turkey. Is that any better? Where can I get something more local?

Our local IGA carries R.W.Knudsen Organic juices, which I like. Some here have suggested "Martinelli's". I'm not familiar, but might be worth looking into.

So is the U.S.

The idea that because a company screws up, every other single company of that same country is equally guilty is just wrong.

Lovely, eh?

Greenpeace Alleges China Uses Banned Pesticides on Supermarket Produce
http://www.beyondpesticides.org/news/daily_news_archive/2006/06_26_06.htm

Between November 2005 and April 2006, Greenpeace said it had found 25 percent of vegetable and fruit samples collected from Hong Kong supermarkets receiving produce from mainland China were contaminated by banned pesticides.

More than 70 percent of tomatoes tested were found to have the banned pesticide Lindane, and almost 40 per cent of the samples had a mix of three or more types of pesticides. Lindane is one of the pesticides banned by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants because of its high toxicity and persistence in the environment and people who consume it. China became a signatory to the Convention on May 23, 2001, and ratified it on August 13, 2004, with the stipulation that the Convention would apply “to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China”.

The fact that produce contaminated with banned pesticides was sold to supermarkets in Hong Kong puts China in clear violation of the Convention. According to Greenpeace, the test results showed illegal pesticides are still widely used in agriculture in the Guangzhou farming region, where much of China’s export produce is grown. This is significant because of the fact that chemicals banned by the Convention are typically capable of traveling over vast distances, and do not lose their potency to do harm as they travel. These harmful and highly toxic chemicals also typically do not dissolve in water, which makes it possible for them to travel from farms into streams and river systems via runoff and eventually make their way into the ocean, where they bioaccumulate up the food chain.

snip

John Chapple, manager of Sinoanalytica, a independent food analysis laboratory based in Qingdao, China, says depending on which vegetables are tested for which pesticides, it is not difficult to find residues on Chinese farm produce.
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Pesticides next frontier in China food safety
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/12/AR2007051201789.html

china's farmers overuse pesticides, skip protective clothing and have at their fingertips an array of banned and counterfeit products, raising another area of concern in the country's fragile food chain.

Spraying chemicals on crops improperly or using products that may be fake or banned risks the health of China's hundreds of millions of farmers and could lead to unsafe levels of residues in fruits and vegetables, experts say.

"The government has to stop banned or illegal pesticides being available in the market," said Angus Lam, a Greenpeace Campaign Manager for Food and Agriculture based in the southern city of Guangzhou.

China banned five high toxicity pesticides as of January 1, but Lam said old stock was still in the market, in the hands of traders, retailers and farmers themselves.

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=9238&size=A

But the problem is across the board. In April, China’s Ministry of Land and Resources admitted that more than one-tenth of farming land was poisoned by pollution and that each year approximately 12 million tons of grain were contaminated by heavy metals and had to be destroyed (with losses of more than 20 billion yuan, 2.54 billion dollars). The state news agency, Xinhua, said about 25 million acres of farmland was contaminated, another 5 million acres were watered by contaminated water, and about 330,000 acres were covered with solid waste. The excessive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers and injections to increase the weight of meat make things worse. For years, Hong Kong has imposed severe checks and bans on food imports from China.

Rivers and lakes are among the most polluted in the world: in 2007, Mississippi and Alabama banned the Chinese catfish because it was found to contain antibiotics prohibited in the USA. In October 1996, Taiwan banned the importation of hairy crabs from Yangcheng Lake in eastern Jiangsu because they contained nitrofuran, a toxic and carcinogenic substance. In August 2005, Hong Kong found green malachite, a substance that could cause cancer, in Chinese fresh water fish and eels.

Health and safety monitoring is seriously lacking in the country: there are stories of car oil being used instead of cooking oil and liquor made with alcohol for industrial use (9 deaths in 2004). In August 2006, around 40 people got meningitis after eating raw or undercooked snails in a chain of restaurants in Sichuan. In July 2005, in Sichuan, around 40 people were killed by an infection of streptococcus suis, contracted from infected pigs that they had killed, handled or eaten. On 26 April, in Zhadian, prefecture of Honghe in southern Yunnan, a seven-year-old boy died and another 55 people were hospitalized after eating beef stew that contained more than 12g of sodium nitrite per kilogram (a food additive that is fatal in such quantities). In early April, in the main hospital of Harbin (Heilongjiang) one person died and more than 200 were poisoned when they ate porridge in the hospital canteen that contained rat poison. In November 2006, China culled more than 5,000 geese fed with a dye that made eggs redder and more valuable, and also made them full of Sudan II, a carcinogenic substance. In 2004, at least 13 newborn babies died in eastern Anhui after they were fed with contaminated children’s milk that had absolutely no nutritional value.

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China's honey industry shows sour side
http://www.miamiherald.com/103/story/104324.html

Honey and thousands of other Chinese food products are showing up more and more often on dinner plates around the world. Last year, China said it exported $3.8 billion worth of food to the United States including vast quantities of apple juice, garlic, sausage casings, canned mushrooms and honey.

In any given month, though, U.S. customs inspectors block dozens of Chinese food shipments, including produce contaminated with banned additives and pesticides, and seafood tainted with drugs. In the wake of the recall of pet foods that American regulators believe contained tainted Chinese ingredients, China's food-safety standards have become dinner-table conversation across the United States.

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Remember the US only inspects 1-1.5% of food imports.

US food imports rarely inspected
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18132087

The FDA has been stopping Chinese food import shipments at the rate of about 200 per month this year. Shippers have the right to appeal the detentions, after which the government can order products returned or destroyed.