If ever we need reminding, new claims this weekend of yet more contaminated dumplings proves once again that food safety in China must be a priority. The latest allegations involve a Hong Kong brand of frozen meals, but the supplies found to be tainted by the "golden staph" bacterium were here on the mainland.
Do a quick search and the list is long. If it’s not dumplings in Jiangsu this week then what about tea from Lipton last week, which were found to be crammed with excessive levels of toxic rare earths? Ten percent of rice sold in China is said to be packed with heavy metals. And one in 10 meals cooked here are prepared with recycled oil.
Beans, pork, even disposable food containers and of course the much publicized melamine milk have all come under the public glare. Are all these "food scandals?" Probably not, if only because by blindly labeling them as much lessens the real impact when we as a community are actually hit by one. And not all involve Chinese food companies, as the Lipton case reiterates.
But there is a way through.
I’ve just come back from a film screening of Food, Inc., a brilliant documentary by Robert Kenner that delves deep into the intricacies and complexities of "corporate farming" in America today. I know little of the subject and while watching an online trailer of the film beforehand, I ate my way through a bag of potato chips.
But I’m not sure how fast I’ll pick a bag up again. For an hour and a half, the audience is taken on a journey from maize fields to slaughterhouses with a new and often disturbing insight on the humble soybean to the celebrated hamburger. It is in parts revelatory (who knew that corn can be linked to juices?), in others inhumane (rewind to scenes of overgrown chickens in an overcrowded chicken house) and in others purely heartbreaking.
That would be the story of Kevin Kowalcyk, who exactly 10 years ago died after eating a hamburger contaminated with E. coli.
Who would have guessed? Certainly not his mum, who for years after pushed to have a bill passed into law that would give US agriculture officials the power to shutdown plants that produce the kind of meat that Kevin ate. What the documentary reveals is potentially life saving and as such a DVD copy for your family couldn’t make for a better and more meaningful holiday gift this year.
But it doesn’t do the film credit (nor Kevin himself) if we don’t mention the hope that follows. Consumers can vote with their wallets by buying food that is produced locally, organically and thoughtfully. Evidence of the real transformation this triggers are the closing scenes where Wal-Mart commits to organic products, as well as the list of "to dos" the filmmakers provide at the end.
I happened to sit next to Robert Kenner at the Asia Society/Aspen Institute dinner hosted at the US Embassy. Ingredients were all locally sourced for the menu created by California chef, Alice Waters: citrus from Guizhou, oranges picked in Guilin, Jerusalem artichoke from God’s Grace Garden, mozzarella curd here in Beijing and turnips, kale and squash from the Derunwu Farm.
And you know what? It tasted great, too.
Food, Inc. may tell a tale based on American examples and the new food safety scandals may be centered on China. But it makes simple sense that, in a globalized world, and as the two largest economies, our challenges are not so separate and can be better addressed together.
The author is a CCTV-News television presenter and UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador. james@james-chau.com