Reply #8: If anyone is interested I sent this email last night before this came out on this issue... [View All]

[1776Forever]

OK - I have warned my family before about NutraSweet / Aspartame and how I was told by a Nurse that worked on the initial U.S. Drug Administration test that Rumsfeld (yes that Rumsfeld) conducted back in the 80's http://www.rense.com/general67/rum.htm and how she said to tell everyone I ever met NOT to use it - Now there is this -

China's contaminated food scandal widens - So I am telling everyone I know this - Canada and the US use a lot of Chinese food sources! Check your labels - which doesn't always tell you where all the ingredients came from either but it is a good start! I eat nothing that comes from Canada and certainly not from China AND for that matter Mexico where a lot of the candy (yes, some Hershey's, York Peppermint Patty, etc.) is being made now. If and when they ever get their act together and have real regulations I might consider but right now I do not eat anything from Canada or Mexico and I would encourage you not to either! Let's pray the next Obama Administration does something about this!

.............

China's contaminated food scandal widens
By David Barboza Published: October 31, 2008

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/31/asia/01china-update.php

SHANGHAI: Chinese regulators are widening their investigation into contaminated food amid growing signs that the toxic industrial chemical melamine has leached into the nation's animal feed supplies,
posing health risks to consumers.

The announcement came after food safety tests earlier this week found that eggs produced in three different provinces in China were contaminated with melamine, which is blamed for causing kidney stones and renal failure in infants. The tests have led to recalls of eggs and consumer warnings.

The reports are another serious blow to China's agriculture industry, which is already struggling to cope with its worst food safety scandalin decades after melamine-tainted milk supplies sickened over 50,000
children, caused at least four deaths and led to global recalls of goods produced with Chinese dairy products earlier this fall.

The cases are fueling global concerns about Chinese food. In Hong Kong, food safety officials announced this week that they would begin testing a wider variety of foods for melamine, including vegetables,
flour and meat products. On the mainland, Shanghai and other cities are moving aggressively to test a wide variety of food products for melamine, including fish and livestock feed, according to the
state-run news media, which has in recent days carried multiple reports on melamine in animal feed.

In the United States, worried consumers frantically e-mailed one another on Thursday and Friday about the possibility of melamine-tainted Halloween treats following a spate of news reports that some candies and chocolates made in China or with ingredients sourced in China had tested positive for high levels of melamine or been destroyed in recent weeks as a cautionary measure.

AND this on Canadian as well as US foods:

Chinese ingredients in Canadian-made foods
Sep 26th, 2008

This is one of the best articles I've read on the topic of Chinese ingredients:

Companies that seek cheaper ingredients often land in China.
Canwest News Service
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Byline: Sarah Schmidt
Dateline: OTTAWA
Source: Canwest News Service

OTTAWA - Walk down the baby-food aisle of any grocery store, and parents will be hard-pressed to find jars of pureed citrus fruits without a key ingredient - ascorbic acid - from China.

Shoppers are also likely to find that a portion of some juice concentrate in any finished juice box is from China.

Over in frozen foods, at least one ingredient from China is likely among the dozens packed in many frozen pizzas.

Then there are all the finished products from China - from canned mushrooms to frozen vegetables, from nuts to fish fillets.

As China wrestles with a growing food-safety scandal linked to contaminated milk products, consumers in Canada are faced with a simple fact: in the last decade, China has climbed its way up the importer list, to third spot last year behind the United States and Mexico from 11th spot in 1997.

The quantity of imports of finished goods and ingredients from China has spiraled to 560 million kilograms, worth about $818 million, from about 91 million kilograms totalling about $213 million.

"If it doesn't say, Made in China, you have no idea what Chinese ingredients are in there. You'll never know," said James Morehouse, senior partner at Chicago-based A.T. Kearney and specialist in the Chinese food
industry. "If you go through a supermarket, there's probably China-sourced or India-sourced ingredients in the vast majority of the products."

Read the whole article at this link:

http://thelocavore.ca/?p=33

You have been warned!