Sichuan mooncakes were deemed 80% inedible this year by the government
inspectors.

In 2002, it was Nanjing mooncakes:

Safety lapses poison Chinese food reputation
By Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING - China's self-esteem as a country of great culinary
traditions is being poisoned by a spate of food-safety scares, which
have brought down hundreds of students and workers across the country
with sometimes deadly illnesses over the past year.

Dining and wining at sumptuous feasts these days, Chinese people often
congratulate themselves for the abundance of food that a growing
economy has put on their tables. However, a shocking array of
food-related hazards are alerting diners to the fact that not all is
well with China's booming food industry.

Honey contaminated with the banned antibiotic chloramphenicol, widely
used in China to treat infections and promote rapid growth, is being
exported abroad. Moldy rice, bleached and polished to look normal by
adding mineral oil, is sold in many of the country's markets. Cheaper
industrial salt is commonly used for cooking in restaurants instead of
the processed salt available in supermarkets.

"Have you eaten?" is the Chinese people's traditional way of greeting
friends and neighbors throughout the day, highlighting the importance
of food in a country long plagued by food scarcity. But soon, as
Beijing cook Lang Haohe jokes, Chinese people may well start greeting
each other with the anxious: "How is your stomach?"

Last year, food poisoning killed 146 people and affected more than
15,000 others in China, the state media reported. Alarmed by concerns
over food safety, the government launched a nationwide crackdown on
fake and inferior foods. But worse was still to come.

On September 14, more than 400 people, many of them students and
construction workers, were rushed to the hospital in Tangshan, near
the central city of Nanjing, after they ate breakfast supplied by a
breakfast shop that had been tainted with rat poison.

The government later said 38 people died, but local residents claimed
that the toll was much higher. The food-poisoning case appeared to be
the biggest in recent memory in China, but was also the second major
food scandal to hit Nanjing in as many years.

Last autumn, state television broadcaster CCTV accused a well-known
Nanjing bakery of recycling old moon-cake fillings and wrapping them
in fresh crusts. The traditional sweet delicacy is associated with
celebrating the full-moon harvest during China's mid-autumn festival.

Public fears over food safety were hardly calmed with the disclosure
that the Nanjing food-poisoning case was a deliberate one, caused by a
business rivalry.

A week later, another food-poisoning outbreak hit an elementary school
in Hebei province, in China's north. Some 110 students were admitted
to hospitals for stomach pain and headaches after they ate fried
chicken, bean strips and bread from a snack vendor outside the school.

As a developing country with a population of about 1.3 billion,
China's food problems are most often caused by polluted soil and
water. Meanwhile, weak government supervision of food production and
storage and an underdeveloped public health system only serve to
aggravate the food-safety situation.

Much of the contamination of China's soil and water took place during
the early decades of communist rule, when China's leaders strove to
sustain rapid agricultural growth with excessive use of toxic
pesticides. However, some of the more recent contamination scares have
been deliberate. Local food producers often sell food beyond its
expiry date to minimize losses and resort to mixing food with
additives to increase its weight.

"Greed for exorbitant prices has driven some immoral and lawless
people to ignore laws and adulterate or even use toxic and harmful
materials in food making," state media quoted Peng Peiyun, vice
chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress
or parliament, as saying this year.

Peng was assigned to lead a government inquiry into the implementation
of a national law on food hygiene, which became effective in 1995.

With some 5 million companies operating throughout China, the food
industry became the leading sector in terms of annual output value
five years ago. Food accounts for about 40 percent of the total
consumer purchases in China, according to the Chinese Association of
Consumers, a national watchdog on consumer rights. But problems with
food only accounted for 20 percent of the total complaints received
during the 1998-2000 period.

Already, China's food-processing practices are causing concern beyond
its borders. As a large agricultural producer, China exports
vegetable, meat and aquatic products to more than 40 countries.

In August, the US Customs Service seized bulk imports of Chinese honey
that were contaminated with low levels of chloramphenicol, a
potentially harmful antibiotic and banned food additive. The European
Union continues to ban Chinese poultry, shrimp, prawns and other food
products because of suspicions that they are contaminated with the
same antibiotic. Similarly, tensions over Chinese agricultural produce
banned by Japan, because of serious pesticide-residue problems,
continue between Beijing and Tokyo.

Now that China has become a member of the World Trade Organization,
its food exports are expected not only to increase rapidly. China is
also empowered to use WTO mechanisms to fight non-tariff barriers to
trade, such as safety standard requirements for food products.

(Inter Press Service)