Toxic China: Eat Food, and Die!

Rotten peaches pickled in outdoor pools surrounded by garbage are spiked with sodium metabisulfite to keep the fruit looking fresh and with bleaching agents and additives harmful to the human liver and kidneys. The peaches are packed in uncleaned bags that previously held animal feed and then shipped off to big-brands stores. _NYT

In China, there are two sorts of food supply: One for the elite, and one for everyone else.

...the State General Administration of Sports forbids its athletes from consuming meat outside of official training facilities. As far back as 2008, the government started setting up Special Food Supply Centers to make sure the elite eats organic....

Toxic preserved fruit is the latest item on China’s expanding list of unsafe food products. Baby formula adulterated with melamine is the best known, but there is also meat containing the banned steroid clenbuterol, rice contaminated with cadmium, noodles flavored with ink and paraffin, mushrooms treated with fluorescent bleach and cooking oil recycled from street gutters. A 2011 study published in the Chinese Journal of Food Hygiene estimated that more than 94 million people in China become ill each year from bacterial food-borne diseases, leading to about 8,500 deaths annually.

... _NYT

Chinese officials are routinely bribed to allow defective products to pass inspection. This is not only true for the food industry, but for pharmaceuticals, construction materials, and for all manner of products where public safety is at risk.

This ongoing crisis of public morality reveals more about China than any amount of official government economic statistics.

Read between the lines. That is often where the truth resides.