It's not just the pets, what about the imported food from China in our Supermarkets?

[cap]

This thing is huge! Not only do we have human consumption of pet food by the elderly poor, but we are importing food in our supermarkets from China. Like garlic? Also, we dont know what is in the processed food. How much food is from China besides traditional oriental ingredients?

[opihimoimoi]

1. Goofy Garlic?? We gatta check it out....and what about all those ma tai?

[blondie58]

2. i agree

those were my thoughts, also. I had no idea that things as simple as foods were imported from China. As for me and my family, we will be reading labels and buying from the local farmers.

Now, I had thought the old rumor about elderly people eating dog food, also, but I wondered if that is just an old rumor or if it is true. I checked on Snopes with no success, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I first heard this story in 1974, the longevity making it a real legend.

And the economy was doing MUCH better in 1974 and the elderly were still isolated from their family and society in some cases, and yes, eating canned dog food.

In a TV movie, "Stone Gardens", Lucille Ball was a homeless woman, and they portrayed her eating canned dog food.

[jwirr]

4. It was true before the food stamps, NAPS and senior meals

came into being but I don't know about now. I suppose that there could be some elderly who fall through the cracks.

Food stamps gives an elderly person somewhere around $15.00 a month, NAPS provides a box of food usually including juices, evaporated and powdered milk, raisins,canned meats (chicken, beef and tuna), peanut butter, cereal, canned vegetables and fruits, pastas, spaghetti sauce and cheese. Senior meals is usually affordable and if it was not I do not think they would turn anyone away. Seniors are also welcome at food shelves.

I am not sure these services are actually available in all states/communities.

[thethinker]

5. What I think is more dangerous

is the ingredients of various foods. The labels don't tell you where the ingredients came from. When this broke that the gravy in pet food was made from wheat gluten, I wondered about the gravy in TV dinners and other frozen dinners. Wheat gluten is also used in making bread and pizza dough. How do we know where these manufacturers get their products from? It is not stated on the label. One thing is for sure, they buy the cheapest ingredients they can find to make a profit.

Our government is not looking out for our safety. Our government is looking out for corporate profit instead.

[Merlot]

6. I agree! I try to not buy processed foods

for just that reason. You see what the ingredients are, but where did they come from? How were they grown?

About a month ago, before all this started, I ran out of my usual brand of pet food, and came very close to trying one of the recalled brands. Instead, I made the trip across town to the Whole Foods and got some of the "better" pet foods.

Scary world sometimes.

[obaman08]

7. Isn't there an FDA for this purpose?

If this wheat or anything else, say garlic, could get into the public food cycle wouldn't the FDA have already put out a notice?

[WinkyDink]

8. Bwahahahahahaha!! "Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent,

according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

That's not all that's dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

• There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.

• Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency's own statistics.

After the September 11 attacks, the FDA, at the urging of Congress, increased the number of food inspectors and inspections amid fears that the nation's food system was vulnerable to terrorists. Inspectors and inspections spiked in 2003, but now both have fallen enough to erase the gains.

"The only difference is now it's worse, because there are more inspections to do -- more facilities -- and more food coming into America, which requires more inspections," said Tommy Thompson, who as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services pushed to increase the numbers. He's now part of a coalition lobbying to turn around several years of stagnant spending."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/02/26/food.safety.ap/index.html

Bush the Mass Murderer: Killing Us At Home and Abroad.

[obaman08]

9. I stand corrected..

n/t

[ramblin_dave]

10. Checked out apple juice lately?

Look for "Concentrate from China" in some obscure location.

[cap]

11. NYT article on importing food from China

For decades, the fiercely independent fruit and vegetable growers of California, Florida and other states have been the only farmers in America who shunned federal subsidies, delivering produce to the tables of millions of Americans on their own.

But now, in the face of tough new competition primarily from China, even these proud groups are buckling. Produce farmers, their hands newly outstretched, have joined forces for the first time, forming a lobby group intended to pressure politicians over the farm bill to be debated in Congress in January.

Nobody disputes that competitive pressures from abroad are squeezing fruit and vegetable growers, whose garlic, broccoli, lettuce, strawberries and other products are a mainstay of world kitchens. But the issue of whether the United States ought to broaden farm subsidies beyond the commodity crops like corn and cotton, which have historically been protected, is a big flashpoint.

“This is like the tectonic plates of farm policy shifting, because you have a completely new player coming in and demanding money,” said Kenneth A. Cook, president of Environmental Working Group, a research group in Washington that has been critical of farm subsidies, which are mandated by federal laws that date to the Great Depression.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/business/03farm.html?ex=1322802000&en=6a0801d6b2e31ba0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[knitter4democracy]

12. That's why I try to only by from my state.

Michigan produce tastes far better, and we get weekly deliveries from a local CSA group of several family farms.

The last time I bought garlic that was from China, I threw it out. I had no idea I was getting garlic, which we grow in our country quite well, thank you, from overseas.

[OhioChick]

13. Also....

Look on the labels of canned goods at the grocery store. I haven't purchased canned mushrooms in ages.......most brands state "Product of China" on their labels. The last time I looked, there were 5 different brands on the shelves...all from China. Even "Green Giant."