Chinese consumers must reject polluted food
Jiang Gaoming
February 05, 2008
Chemicals and hormones entering the food chain can have disastrous consequences for human health. It's time to take a stand on food contamination, writes Jiang Gaoming.
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提高质量意味着提高成本、降低产量，对目前的中国谈何容易？不过毫无疑问，我们的消费观念要往回退一步，对食物要节省不要浪费，把有限的粮食利用好，不要再去追求农贸市场一片繁荣、超市货架琳琅满目的升平景象，不要再去倡导人人喝奶、餐餐吃肉的生活，我们的人口这么多，一定要珍惜有限的资源。
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.
鸡饲料改变狗的生物习性，居然给危害人类监控化上等号。重金属有可能混入动物饲料，居然用“饲料由重金属混合而成”叙述，将无意的行为偷换概念成有意的行为。硼砂瘦肉精属于违禁的食品添加剂，用违禁的添加剂的事例来反对所有的添加剂，这跟一个人犯了错就屠杀全种族有什么区别？其余种种，限于知识，不予多说了。
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.
忽然发现重金属在这里英文的翻译是trace elements，不知道英文和中文哪个是原版，必定有一个是不正确的。重金属正确的翻译应该是heavy metal,它的定义很多，一般认为是密度较大的一些金属元素，镉，镍，镉，汞，铅等我们所熟知的有毒元素包括其中，金，银，铁等常见低毒元素也包括其中，一概认为重金属有毒也是不对的。痕量元素是从自然界的数量分布来定义的，我们知道，所谓污染，所谓有害，都必须跟污染物的量联系起来看，比如镍镉电池里面的镍，就是植物和微生物的必需元素，但是在植物体内量很少，被认为是一种痕量营养元素，其他的一些常被宣传的痕量元素还有铁，锌，硒等。在宣传使用时，重金属往往指的是有害的那部分重金属（严格应该叫有害重金属，toxic heavy metals),而痕量元素往往指有益的痕量元素。
同上作者
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.
1.只靠市场手段是不够的
2.行政手段和体制保障必须跟上
3.要达成1和2,需要草根组织,媒体和更广大的公众参与,中国需要公众食品安全自治组织!
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!
因为中国的人口那么多，大规模的农业，使用生长激素或者其他食品添加剂来促进产量，从某种程度上来说对满足国家的需求是很现实的。农民们希望获得最大的效益，那么多的人都需要吃饭，因此食品添加剂的使用满足了这种需求。然而，如果养鸡饲料的使用扩展到 其他动物，比如猪和羊，那么这种污染的扩大和产生突变的可能将会危及到公众。
要求消费者在购买食物的时候认清是否使用激素等情况再作出选择，不是那么容易的。一般来说，如果人们知道什么东西是有益于他们的，他们会买。但是当所有的东西，从水果蔬菜到肉制品，都含有生长激素，而且这些东西的价格是最便宜的，人们还是会买。找到一种降低生产成本的方法最终才能使安全食品的价格降低，而只有当健康产品的价格更低的时候，人们才会购买。
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.
和第二条评论的作者一样，我支持本文的结论，但不喜欢其行文的逻辑。这主要是由于文中有太多大而化之的描述。粮价的上升导致了当前的粮食危机，要进行任何类型的变革都是困难的。少数幸运的有钱人可以购买优质食物，使其免受可能的危害，并且可以抵制非有机食物。不幸的是，世界上的大部分人都无法这么做，因此激素、添加剂、转基因食物和防腐剂帮助养活了数百万的人口。不过其严重的健康风险需要立即采取措施应对。而其未知的长期影响则无法处理，因为它们是未知的。要证明非有机食品的长期影响也将是非常困难的。
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.
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