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发表于 2007-6-22 18:34
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I did, however, decide to pass on local milk
A friend who studied in China almost 20 years ago told me that his father refused to eat anything other than hard-boiled eggs when he came for a visit. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, he peeled and ate an egg. He didn't trust any of the food around him, particularly fearing produce because of the then-said-to-be-widespread practice of fertilizing crops with untreated human sewage.
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When my friend told me that story, we had a good laugh at his fathers' expense. It still seems like an absurdly extreme overreaction, but deciding what to eat and feed your family in China is no laughing matter. It is not easy to decipher what is safe and what is not, or where to draw the line that crosses from healthy concern to obsessive neurosis.
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" e8 k# i2 l# [' e9 ]csuchen.deYou can eat like a king very cheaply here and there is an abundance of great and different food available. I can ride my bike 10 minutes to a small village and fill up bags with fruits and vegetables from small local vendors, often selling from the back of tractors. You have to try hard to spend more than five dollars, aiming for tropical fruit 'imported' from Southern China. It's an experience I enjoy on every level and yet I have begun to question the wisdom and safety of it. I also wonder if we give enough thought to our entire diet, from the spare ribs our ayi cooks to the chicken I barbecued and served guests last Saturday and including the many great restaurant meals we have enjoyed all over China.1 t/ T8 D! H2 @: t$ X# U
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Contaminated Chinese food products imported to the U.S. have been in the news lately. And it's not just foreigners who are concerned. Local news reports have followed cases of people ingesting banned red Sudan die in salted red-yolk eggs, and 160 Beijing residents were poisoned last summer after eating snails. The state Xinhua news agency recently reported that the government is launching a five-year plan for food and drug safety administration.$ p3 L. Y" U I9 C! C
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Still, my gut instinct is to stick my head in the sand and continue with my habits, which make me quite happy. After all, it's not like there are no concerns in America, as witnessed by the E coli outbreak that sickened hundreds of people last fall. I also have always been impatient with people who spend too much time obsessing over what they're ingesting, which is why I could never maintain a kosher, vegan, Atkins or other strictly proscribed diet. I like to lead with my mouth, belly and heart rather than my head. But it feels more and more like food safety is something I simply have to confront. And it's not like I needed the headlines to know that.! M/ S4 h) Q9 Y8 }# j4 x
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Some expats avoid drinking Chinese beer because it was found to contain formaldehyde a few years ago. That problem has apparently been solved, and national brew TsingTao and Beijing favorite Yanjing have both denied using the stuff in their brewing process. Some people don't like to take chances, but l have not given up my 25-cent liter bottles.9 w2 t' h. p: d
: R, h' j" t1 ?I did, however, decide to pass on local milk after a friend who was here advising the fast-growing dairy industry last year told me that there were enough problems that he served his own family UHT milk from Australia and New Zealand. We have done the same ever since and we now also have the option of several premium local brands said to have better quality control.
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! X( ~& U7 R3 Z2 m4 wcsuchen.deI have also contemplated switching wholly or partially to organic produce, which is available from several places in Beijing. You pay quite a premium but at least we have the option, which is not available to people living in other parts of China.
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Charlie Kimball, an American living in Shenzhen, has struggled to find organic produce, which was briefly available at a local Wal-Mart. Its disappearance was just another food setback for Mr. Kimball and his Japanese wife.
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'Four or five months ago I saw a note in the Hong Kong press that they had barred shipment of a particular type of fish from Shenzhen because it was contaminated,' says Mr. Kimball. 'Two days later, I saw the announcement here. That was the final straw for us in terms of buying seafood, which we really like; you just don't know what is in it.'( F. W B. C0 M& u& s+ c; P
: ^- [1 r$ ?; fI was starting to feel bad that I wasn't more cautious about what we ate so I sought out the opinions of some food people I respect to see how they were feeling. I first called Lisa Minder-Wu, an American who has lived in Beijing for 13 years and owns the Orchard, one of my favorite restaurants. She grows her own greens and herbs in greenhouses and tends a large orchard of fruit trees in an organic manner (they can't be certifiably organic because of their previous stewardship). I know her to be an advocate of fresh, organic food and expected her to sound the alarm but she was largely dismissive of most peoples' food concerns.
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'I think if you shop from small producers and clean things carefully, the local produce is very good and concerns about the food here are overblown,' she told me. 'People often wrongly assume anything Chinese is bad. I think American produce commonly found in small-town supermarkets is not fresh, usually tasteless and probably drenched in pesticides.'
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Lejen Chen has a somewhat different take. The Chinese-American is the owner of Mrs. Shanen's Bagels bakery and restaurant. She and her Beijing-native husband Shan En are at the center of the city's organic food community.) @' k6 }* p- S5 o7 {% O
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'There are a lot of problems with food in China, but it's a universal problem too,' Ms. Chen told me. 'For me, the choice is not between imported and Chinese products but in favor of organic, sustainable agriculture over conventional industrial agriculture.'
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She only buys organic pork and won't eat chicken because she doesn't trust it. She and Mr. Shan have started their own organic farm, a project launched largely to feed her family and service her restaurant but which keeps expanding. They harvested their first wheat crop this week, allowing them to begin milling their own organic flour.
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/ g/ k! U) F$ Q$ }A visit to the farm had me contemplating a membership, even at the very high cost of about $1000 U.S. per year. Several organic experts toured the farm with me and they told me about other places where one can get organic produce and new sustainable agriculture ventures they are launching. Things seem to be changing here for the better, at least on the margins.4 S' [" N+ b) e" {) s
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Hoping to shed some more light onto this murky situation, I called an American agricultural expert who has consulted with Chinese farms for years, to help bring them up to Western standards.
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3 k' T8 B* n c& bcsuchen.de'My answers to these types of questions depend on the mood I'm in and whether or not I want to put anyone -- myself included -- on a guilt trip for the decisions we all make, including that to live here,' he told me. His family won't eat fish, he said: 'When I see fish on a table I wonder what polluted body of water he came from.'9 r) J6 B$ Z$ v. S
# b! j, W- G ~' |He worries about the cleanliness of local produce and the farmers' water sources. He mostly buys poultry from exporters because he thinks they have less drug residue. He tries to avoid processed food in general, but he's especially leery about anything made in a Chinese factory, where there is less quality control and inspection.
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Still, he and his family eat plenty of Chinese meat, fruits and vegetables. After all, we both agreed, you really shouldn't live in a place if you don't feel you can eat anything there.
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" I3 _0 h) x1 E. K" h) ]- pObviously, the clarity I craved doesn't really exist. 'There are a lot of questions you can debate, with no clear answers,' my friend told me. 'Actually, it's not even clear which ones are worth debating.' |
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