In case anyone wonders what the elite eat in China

[heli]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-09-24-403735093_x.htm

Amid milk scare, China's elite get special food
By Anita Chang, Associated Press Writer
Posted 9/24/2008

BEIJING — While China grapples with its latest tainted food crisis, the political elite are served the choicest, safest delicacies. They get hormone-free beef from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, organic tea from the foothills of Tibet and rice watered by melted mountain snow. And it's all supplied by a special government outfit that provides all-organic goods from farms working under the strictest guidelines. That secure food supply stands in stark contrast to the frustrations of ordinary citizens who have faced recurring food scandals - vegetables with harmful pesticide residue, fish tainted with a cancer-causing chemical, eggs colored with industrial dye, fake liquor causing blindness or death, holiday pastries with bacteria-laden filling...

The State Council Central Government Offices Special Food Supply Center is specifically designed to avoid the problems troubling the general population. "We all know that average production facilities use large quantities of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Antibiotics and hormones are commonly used in raising livestock and poultry. Farmed aquatic products are contaminated by various kinds of water pollution," the center's director, Zhu Yonglan, said in a speech. "It goes without saying that these are harmful when consumed by humans," Zhu told executives at supplier Shandong Ke'er Biological Medical Technology Development Co., which posted it on its Web site earlier this year.

Zhu's speech has been widely circulated by Chinese Internet users on blogs and forums in recent days, with many expressing outrage that top government officials have a separate - and safer - food supply than the public. The special food center enforces strict standards on suppliers like Shandong Ke'er, which makes health supplements designed to boost immunity and energy. Foods must be organic, not genetically modified and meet international food standards, said a manager in the center's product department. The reason: its A-list clientele of government officials and retirees of vice minister rank or higher...

Set up in 2004, China's Special Food Supply Center is almost as secretive as its high-end clientele, whose precise number is unclear, but includes hundreds of top political leaders, their families and retired cadres. Much of the information on its Web site was removed after media inquiries and interview requests this week...

[TransitJohn]

1. This should be posted over in that Friedman thread. n/t

n/t

[Hekate]

2. Crap. 5th Rec.

[HeresyLives]

3. What do American leaders eat?

[Joe the Liberal]

5. The same no doubt, while the rest of us have to eat chemically processed garbage. n/t

[HeresyLives]

6. Yet people are living longer healthier lives than at any time

in all of history.

[Codeine]

10. Really?

They have special stores only they get to shop at, while you're not allowed to access simple, clean ingredients to make your meals?

Wow. Must be rough.

[anonymous171]

12. Wow. These days even neoliberals won't bash China.

[HeresyLives]

13. LOL well if I was a neoliberal...

[leftstreet]

21. Kittens!

[Codeine]

25. In all fairness,

that's a damned tasty-lookin' kitten.

[City Lights]

31. Junior ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. nt

[EvolveOrConvolve]

4. They're communists, so don't they eat babies?

I'm so confused...

[KamaAina]

7. Actually this differs from our system in one important respect

they actually admit in public what crap they're feeding their serfs. :eyes:

[HeresyLives]

8. Serfs? AHAHAHAHAHAHA

[femrap]

9. Gee...China is just like the

United States! Only the rich and powerful get healthy food!

ETA: But here we ridicule poor people for being fat. And why are they fat? Cheap, filling food is bad for one's health and makes one fat. White bread, pasta, peanut butter, high-fat hamburger, etc.

[Codeine]

11. Christ.

Healthy food is cheap and plentiful if you're willing to cook for yourself. If you eat out of packages it's your own damn fault.

[Leftist Agitator]

14. Try getting enough fresh vegetables in your diet on a minimum wage salary...

Then get back to me.

[Codeine]

15. I've been a minimum wage vegan.

Veggies are cheap as fuck. Carrots, potatoes, onions, beans , and rice don't cost shit. Hell, that was half the reason I managed to get through the period of adjusting to a vegan diet some twenty-odd years ago -- "Damn, this food ain't costing me SHIT! More money to spend on used paperbacks!"

[Whisp]

16. must be nice for you to know what foods are genetically modified.

sheesh.

can you share with us? a list perhaps?

[HeresyLives]

17. All of them are.

[Codeine]

19. They hate hearing that.

:evilgrin:

[HeresyLives]

22. LOL I know, sort of a confused view on science.

Science is wonderful and totally believable when it comes to global warming, but all wrong and frightening when it comes to GM food.

[Codeine]

18. I am not an easily frightened child

who cowers before the letters GMO.

[Whisp]

32. nice of you to have trust in places like Monsanto and Cargill...

Me, I cower. Because GMO is good for corporations and not us serfs. yes, serfs.

[Lyric]

30. You mean if you have the time and the resources to cook for yourself.

Free hours, safe food-storage supplies, a functional oven and stove (with gas/electric service to make it work,) basic spices, a freezer, a car (because veggies, beans, and rice are heavy, bulky items that are hard to cart home on a bus when you're buying for a family.) You know, the stuff that poor people, all too often, DON'T have?

Your compassion is overwhelming. I have a damned hard time believing that you were ever a true "minimum-wage vegan". Maybe, MAYBE if you had nobody to support but yourself, and you lived in a city with fantastic public transit, and somebody donated plastic wrap and tupperware to you, and your living space had a good, functional stove and freezer with adequate cookware and money for dish soap and bus fare and spare hours to WAIT for the bus. Maybe. But YOUR experiences are YOURS. They do not invalidate other peoples' experiences. Anecdote is not the singular of data, and if you think you're justified in passing snotty-ass judgement on others just because YOU were lucky enough to make it work, you're full of shit, and no different than the idiotic "bootstrappers."

[upi402]

20. Real Chinese food is great

Not the crap we get in America.

[Johonny]

26. depends where you live

You can get "real" Chinese food in places like LA, San Francisco or Vancouver no problem. Is it great? Depends on your tastes, I certainly like it.

As for the food in China. Well I ate at some of the best places in China and I still thought the food quality was a step below what you get here in the USA.

[ztlore]

28. They leave bones & skin on chicken & fish in China

and they don't separate white meat versus dark meat

[gmoney]

23. Chinese manufacturing operations seem to be run by sociopaths

if the toxic ingredient is cheaper or readily available, just use it. who will notice? If it kills 'em how can they complain?

[HeresyLives]

24. On the whole, they do just fine.

But with 1.5 billion people there are bound to be a few bad apples.

[gmoney]

27. gosh, you're right!

they're doing a dandy job!

[BadgerKid]

29. Reminds me of dinner out with US pharma.

The pharma company was hosting, and their reps ordered the organic meat. Must be nice to have an expense account.

[blueworld]

33. Elite in a Communist country? I am on Mars I guess. n/t