Chemical Cocktail With Your Salad?

Those food safety concerns just won’t go away. It’s a few months old, but we recently came upon this Greenpeace report on the use of pesticides in China. The findings are frightening.

When I first arrived in Beijing, I assumed food purchased in supermarkets would be safer than the random supplies found in markets. My Chinese wife soon set me straight on that count, telling me market foods were less likely to be contaminated with unwanted chemicals. Not having the means to test the food myself, I had to take her word for it. The Greenpeace report seems to back up her assertions.

According to the study, “the fruits and vegetables from big name supermarkets like Lotus, Vanguard and Wal-Mart are even more polluted than those collected from the wet markets … vegetables with illegal pesticide traces and those with 10 different pesticides were all from supermarkets and not wet markets.”

TEN different pesticides! What are farmers thinking?

While market food appears to be marginally safer, the study’s findings generally are hardly encouraging. Of the 45 samples Greenpeace tested, only five were found to be free of pesticides. Many had traces of multiple pesticides. Two samples contained traces of substances banned by the Chinese government, while a cocktail of chemicals linked to cancer and hormone disruption were found in most of the food tested.

Washing fruit and vegetables obviously helps, but there is no way to remove all toxic substances from food once it's contaminated. Guess we’ll all just have to stick to a glass of milk a day for our sustenance … oh wait …