IS YOUR FOOD FAKE?

Every time I order coffee at Dunkin Doughnuts they give me warm brown water.

IN CHINA , I understand that Fake baby food is being sold.

Has anything here brought fake food?

Chinese fears of cover-up in fake food scare
CHRISTOPHER BODEEN IN SHANGHAI

TOFU made from paint, fake rabies vaccine that is nothing but saltwater, bogus whisky packing a toxic wood-alcohol punch - China's thriving product pirates are best known for bootleg DVDs and designer shirts but they do their worst damage peddling phoney medicines and foods that are widely sold and can be deadly.

Even Chinese officials say they fear for their safety following a spate of deaths and gruesome revelations.

"It's hard to know what you can eat anymore. I have the exact same kind of food-safety fears as ordinary citizens," Zheng Xiaoyun, the director of the National Food Medicine Inspection Bureau, said on state television last week.

China's leaders were jolted into action in April following the deaths of 12 babies who were fed fake infant formula, made of sugar and starch, with few nutrients.

Scores of malnourished infants who survived were hospitalised with swollen heads and wasted bodies.

The Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, ordered a nationwide investigation into the scandal. Authorities reported 137 arrests - including two officials accused of covering up the sales and faking an investigation.

More than 100,000 bags of the fake formula sold under dozens of brand names were seized.

Yet new reports of "big-head babies" blamed on the phoney formula continue to crop up in areas throughout China, and it is reportedly still on sale in many places.

"Making and selling unsafe food is so lucrative and so rampant that we don't have the means to control it," said Cai Shouqiu, the head of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Law. "Everyone just wants to make money."

The victims are often China's poorest, least educated people, who know little other than that the products are cheap.

But cities are not safe, either.

Supermarkets in Shanghai recently pulled pickled vegetables from their shelves after reports that they were made using toxic industrial salts and pesticides such as DDT.

Last week, cod-fish oil vitamin capsules had to be pulled from the market after they were found to be fake, though apparently not harmful.

In the southern business capital of Guangzhou, one of China's most cosmopolitan areas, at least 11 people died this month after drinking liquor made with methanol, a toxic wood-alcohol. The government says it has arrested six suppliers and is looking for 17 other people.

John Huang, a Shanghai office worker, displayed the growing cynicism as he emerged from a suburban train station into a crowd of shouting farmers hawking lychees, kebabs and tofu cakes.

"I don't dare buy from them. All they sell is phoney stuff," Mr Huang said.

Still, he showed no aversion to other counterfeits, turning a second later to flip through a rack of pirated DVDs.

No official statistics on the human cost of fake products are available.

But in the south-western province of Yunnan, 17 deaths from tainted food have been reported this year.

A recent survey of 2,415 people in seven Chinese cities found that just 45 per cent of those who responded have confidence in the safety of their food.

The rest ranged from highly sceptical to only marginally confident, according to the survey published in the newspaper Shanghai Daily.

Such sentiments have not been helped by media reports showing officials to be largely unconcerned - or colluding with the cheats.

In one case, medical inspectors were believed to be working with distributors who sold a rabies vaccine made of only saline to small country clinics, according to a police official speaking on state television.

Authorities in four eastern provinces reportedly seized 40,000 boxes of bogus vaccines that provided no protection against rabies, a major killer in China's countryside.

In Shanghai, illegal producers made phoney tofu cakes mashed together from gypsum, paint and starch, then fried in oil made from kitchen waste, swill and intestines, the Shanghai Youth Daily newspaper reported.

The makers paid police about 9,200 yuan (£600) a year to avoid inspections, according to the newspaper, which said it sent two reporters to pose as tofu merchants.

"Once a product is on shelves, it is very hard to tell what is poisonous and to get anyone to spend the time and the money to pursue a case," said Mr Cai, an environmental law specialist.

Public outrage has prompted some punishments of negligent officials and stepped-up inspections.

Shanghai has launched a "Fear-Free Food Campaign" and says it will close small slaughterhouses and step up quality inspections of grocery stores, outdoor markets and cafeterias.

"I only buy from the original producers, because distributors can't be trusted," said Ms Xuan, the owner of the Three Thousand Mile grocery in the north-eastern city of Dandong.

"There is so much fake stuff around," she said. "Even fruit juice and noodles."

Source: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=625522004