I’m not a ramen noodle fan. Empty calories and little taste beyond the MSG. Just my biased gastronomic opinion. But as I pushed my cart down the aisle at Costco, the aroma wafting from the sample table did indeed tempt my olfactories and my growling stomach. To my surprise, the steaming contents of the paper cup offered by the cheerful, grandmotherly matron turned out to be… delicious. And the brown rice noodles were “organic” to boot, certified as such by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Says so prominently, right there on the label.
Not that ramen would be likely to become a staple in our household diet, but it might be handy to have as easy-to-make quick meal during busy times, or a half-meal serving during Lent. So I picked up a six-serving package for $8.99. However, while unpacking the groceries at home, I did what I should have done (but was too hurried to do) at the store: I read the label. In rather small print came the fatal words: “Product of China.” Big oops! Communist China’s takeovers of our tool, electronics, clothing, and other consumer markets are alarming enough, but Beijing’s huge inroads into our food sector over the past two decades is beyond scary.
Nearly a decade ago, in September 2007, The New American published Michael Telzrow’s “New Chinese Take-Out: Tainted, Poisoned Exports,” which detailed the frightening extent to which China had already succeeded in penetrating — and even dominating — our internal consumables: foods, beverages, vitamins, pharmaceuticals. It’s gotten markedly worse in the years since, thanks to both Democrats and Republicans — in the White House and in Congress — who have caved in and/or sold out to the China Lobby. It’s not just melamine in pet food, diethylene glycol — a highly toxic solvent — in cough syrup and toothpaste, and lead paint on children’s toys. After those and other “Made In China” food scandals made it through a few news cycles, the issue was largely swept under the rug by the establishment press. Instead of heeding these canary-in-the-coalmine warnings, government officials and business leaders opened the floodgates even further so China could accelerate its conquest of the American food market.
In June 2011, Food & Water Watch, a non-profit consumer watchdog group, published an eye-opening report entitled “A Decade of Dangerous Food Imports From China.” Among other things, this important monograph tabulated from U.S. government records the alarming year-by-year increases in China’s food exports to the United States: apple juice, mushrooms, garlic, cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, pears, apples, cherries, strawberries, catfish, salmon, tilapia, cod, sardines, shrimp, clams, crab, honey, spices, tea, nuts, onions, vegetable oils, soy sauce, and much more.
“In 2010, China was the second-largest source of U.S. processed fruit and vegetable imports, shipping in more than a billion pounds,” the Food & Water Watch report noted. “China was the third-largest source of imported fresh vegetables. The United States also imported 102 million pounds of sauces, including soy sauce; 81 million pounds of spices; 79 million pounds of dog and cat food; and 41 million pounds of pasta and baked goods from China in 2010.”
The study goes on to further report:
China is also the world’s leading seafood producer and leading exporter to the United States, supplying nearly a quarter of all U.S. imports. In 2010, the United States imported more than 1 billion pounds of seafood from China, including 723 million pounds of frozen fish fillets, 33 million pounds of shrimp and 109 million pounds of mollusks, such as scallops. Chinese seafood exports totaled more than $2 billion in 2009, accounting for 19 percent of the seafood Americans eat.
More alarming still is the fact that China has gained a lock-hold on our foodstream by inserting itself into many food products that are made here in the United States. How? By dominating production of widely used ingredients: preservatives, sweeteners, enhancers, and flavorings. The Food & Water Watch study reports:
China’s largest role in the American diet may come through the myriad ingredients it exports for processed foods that reach U.S. consumers every day. China had supplied up to 90 percent of U.S. imports of citric acid, a flavor enhancer and preservative that is used in soft drinks, cheese, and baked goods, although these imports dropped off in 2009. China is also a leading supplier to the United States of other ingredients like xylitol, used as a sweetener in candy, and sorbic acid, a preservative. China also supplies around 85 percent of U.S. imports of artificial vanilla, as well as many vitamins that are frequently added to food products, like folic acid and thiamine.
This, obviously, is not only a threat to our nation’s health but also to America’s food independence. Chinese imports have even made that healthy sugar substitute, honey, a very suspect commodity. The Epoch Times reported in 2011, “Millions of pounds of hazardous honey are being smuggled in large quantities from China to the United States, constituting as much as a third or more of the honey on American shelves, a recent investigation found.”
On May 8, 2013, China expert and author William C. Triplett testified before U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs on “The Threat of China’s Unsafe Consumables.” After making reference to the above-cited Food & Water Watch study, Triplett observed: “Two years later, it appears the problem is worse rather than better. Last fall thousands of German children fell ill after eating Chinese strawberries served to them in their school cafeterias. And just last month the FDA revealed that thanks to toxic battery recycling operations, rice imported from China showed lead levels 60 times above the recommended safe levels for children.” (Emphasis added.)
“One of the particular problems of dealing with toxic food imports from China is illustrated by the honey case,” Triplett noted. “The FDA and others got onto the Chinese honey issue quite a while ago. The Department of Justice even raided some facilities but the consensus is that through a sophisticated international smuggling network, the Chinese honey producers have pretty well defeated all efforts to control them.”
Death by China: Eat, Drink and Be Buried
Horror stories of illness, suffering, and death from Made-in-China food abound (see here, here, and here). How is it possible that this continues? After all, we have a myriad of federal regulatory agencies (virtually all of which are unconstitutional or exercise unconstitutional powers) that harass and destroy American farmers, manufacturers, and marketers — in the name of protecting the American consumer.
As with most bullies, these bureaucracies prefer pick on easier targets, rather than go after the real threats. “The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has done little to address the growing tide of food imports from China, despite a well-documented pattern of chemical adulteration and unsafe drug residues,” the 2011 Food & Water Watch study stated. “The FDA inspects less than 2 percent of imported food and barely visits Chinese food manufacturers. The FDA conducted only 13 food inspections in China between June 2009 and June 2010.”
The FDA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is infamous for sending in armed SWAT units to harass and arrest farmers for selling raw milk, raiding natural food stores for selling apricot seeds or other food supplements, and persecuting physicians who try to help their patients by utilizing alternative treatments for cancer other than those approved by the FDA bureaucrats.
Why are these agencies not exercising similar zeal concerning genuine threats to American health and safety from a foreign power that regards us as Enemy No. 1 and whose toxic food supply chain has already left a swath of death and carnage across the globe? This crucial food security issue should be a top national priority. Although defenders of the FDA and USDA might argue that these agencies have some sort of constitutional remit under the interstate commerce clause, clearly, the real legitimate functions that they serve are those that attend to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), inspecting materials coming into this country from foreign sources. The primary functions of the FDA and USDA should be exercised under (or alongside) the CPB, while most of their domestic functions should devolve to the states, as the Constitution and the 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights mandate.
Does the certified “USDA Organic” label on food from China mean nothing, then? It appears so. (See here, here, here, and here.) So, yes, I returned the “organic” brown rice ramen noodles to Costco for a refund, and I informed the customer service department that I do not consume — and do not buy — food from the communist regime. And I will be following up with a note to Costco’s corporate management to let them know that I do not appreciate companies that will jeopardize their customers’ health and safety by flooding our markets with toxic Made-In-China foodstuffs. Now we must prod the new Trump administration and Congress to address this issue posthaste.
Related articles:
USDA Approves Import of Poultry Processed in China
Chinese State-Owned Company Purchases Smithfield Foods
China Buys U.S. Firms at Record Rate
China’s Communist Billionaires: Darlings of Harvard, Wall Street, CFR
Stop China Buyout of Chicago Stock Exchange: Congressmen to Obama
China Cash and Movie Moguls — The Disturbing New Hollywood-Beijing Axis
Is the U.S. Being Colonized By Communist China?
Bureaucrats “Giddy” With “Newly Minted Power”
The Rise of the Administrative State
