Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Catch of the Day: Scallops, Sardines, Scorpions and Fox
Friday, June 29, 2007
China, China, China. What will we do with Chinese imports?
After thousands of pets in North America became ill or died, from the use of tainted Chinese wheat gluten why would China not be more careful about the quality of their exports?
One could get the idea the China may not care how many people become sick or die from poisons contained in their products. Can this actually be the case? Why then are they sending Scallops and Sardines coated with putrefying bacteria to America?
Why are they shipping toxic cosmetics, tainted dietary supplements or dried apples preserved with cancer-causing chemicals to the rest of the world?
I get the message the Chinese are sending.
US inspection records show that China has been flooding the US with foods unfit for human consumption for years. The crime is that these products where simply sent back to China where they were, shipped right back to the US once, twice or three more times in an attempt to send the same poisoned products to American consumers.
Have we become so dependent upon cheap Chinese goods that we cannot live without them? It looks to me like many of us will stop living if we keep using them.
Canada exports $10 billion in FDA-regulated food and agricultural products to the US each year, of which, 56 shipments were rejected. By comparison 298 shipments from China’s $2 billion imports were rejected. Horror of horrors, only less than 1 percent of regulated imports from China were even inspected by the FDA.
In the past year the USDA has seized hundreds of thousands of pounds of Chinese meat being smuggled into the US. No meat from China is approved for import into the US. Apparently ‘dried lily flowers and prune slices’ are allowed, because that is what Chinese exporters have labeled their pirate shipments of meat.
China is aiming for certification so that they can legally ship poultry into the US. I don’t want a Chinese chicken legal, or otherwise, on the entire continent. I will never believe what they send will be safe. I think the US can grow more than enough chicken to meet American demand.
I think we have enough problems here already without importing new ones.
There is a story about a scorpion walking along the bank of a river, wondering how he would get to the other side. He saw a fox preparing to swim cross the river and he asked the fox to give him a ride.
The fox said, “no, if I do that you will sting me and I will drown.”
But, the scorpion sold the fox on the idea by saying, “If I did that we would both drown.”
That logic made sense to the fox and he agreed. Half way across the river, the scorpion stung the fox. As the fox began to die he asked the scorpion, “Why did you do that? Now you’ll die too.”
“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
What is the ‘nature’ of the relationship China wishes to have with the US? I won’t apologize for asking.
More on this subject Monday.
Labels: Canada, China, Chinese, FDA, Poison, antibotics, catfish, exports, imports
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Catch of the Day: Scallops, Sardines, Scorpions and Fox
