Latest comments posted about Chinese consumers must reject polluted food on ChinaDialogue en-gb http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1683-Chinese-consumers-must-reject-polluted-food http://staging.chinadialogue.net/images/cdlogo.gif http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1683-Chinese-consumers-must-reject-polluted-food Similar to comment 2, I support the conclusion but resent the logic. This is mainly because there is a lot of generalizing in this article. With the current food crisis caused by rising food prices, enacting any type of change will be difficult. Those lucky enough that can afford to buy higher quality food can do so to protect themselves from potential negative side effects and as a protest against non-organic foods. Unfortunately, most of the world can not do so and the hormones, additives, genetically-modified foods, and preservatives have been able to help feed millions of people. The serious health risks nevertheless need to be addressed immediately. The unknown long-term affects can not be addressed because, well, they are still unknown. Proving a cause and effect relationship between the long-term affects and non-organic foods will also be very difficult in the future. Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:21:33 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7288 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7288 1. Relying only on market measures isn't enough 2. Administrative measures and systemic barriers need to keep pace. 3. In order to achieve 1 and 2, grass roots organisations, media, and the general public need to increase participation. China needs public food safety self-discipline! Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:44:49 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7031 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7031 Because the population is so large, super-agriculture or the use of growth hormones and other additives for production are on one hand realistic to the needs of the country. The farmers want to make the greatest profit and with such a huge population, people need to eat and therefore additives fullfill a need. However, use of this chicken feed across the board for other animals, like pigs and sheep, increase the contamination and creates mutative qualities that put the public at risk. Claiming that the public can make choices when they buy their food as to which products they support to curb use of hormones etc, isn't that simple. Generally if people know that something is less beneficial for them, they will buy it. When the growth hormones are in everything, however, from frutis and vegetables to meat products, and those options are at the moment the cheapest, they will be bought regardless. Finding a means to lower costs of production will ultimately make safer food cheaper, and only when the healthier product is cheaper will the public buy it. Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:47:40 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7035 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7035 I suddenly think there is a mistake in the English translation. "Trace elements" is used for "heavy metals (translated directly)", I don't know which is the original text, but "heavy metal" would be a better translation. Usually this refers to dense metallic elements including toxic elements such as lead, mercury, nickel, or cadmium, and also low toxicity elements such as iron, gold and silver. Simply claiming that heavy elements are toxic is incorrect. Trace elements volumes are calculated based on natural background volumes. We all know that "pollution", and "harmful" should both be considered together. For example the nickel in nickel cadmium batteries, is a required element in plants and micro-particles, but is only found in very small quantities in plants, and is considered a necessary trace nutritional element. Other well publicised trace elements include iron and so on. Usually when writing, heavy metals (the chinese term), is often used to refer to harmful heavy metals (and should strictly be called toxic heavy metals), whereas trace elements usually refers to elements which have a benefit of some kind. Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:54:28 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7028 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7028 Chicken feed can change a dog's temperament. However, this is totally incomparable with food regulations impacting on human health. It is wrong to describe the possibility of trace elements being mixed deliberately into animal feed saying that "feed contains a mix of hormones, trace elements and animal proteins." The author has generalised exceptional behaviour in a way that is unreasonable. Borax is a banned food additive, but this does not suggest that all food additives must be banned. It is like advocating killing a whole family because one of its members committed a crime. Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:31:23 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7026 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7026 Talking about quality means talking about capital, and lowered production volumes. Surely, this isn't easy for China at the present time. However, without doubt, our consumers' ideas should take a step back, we should minimise the amount of food we eat, and utilise effectively the limited resources of food available. We mustn't again try to develop our agricultural market. Supermarket shelves are full of a variety of foods, however we mustn't pursue a lifestyle where everyone drinks milk, and has meat for every meal. Our population is so large, we should treasure our limited resources. Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:05:20 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7021 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1683#comment-7021