My tour bus last week was just passing Tiananmen Square where, in one of the huge official buildings, The Peoples Congress was being held to address Chinas major issues, such as pollution and agriculture expansion. I expected a respectful assessment from our articulate tour guide about how the congress was organized and conducted its business.
Nothing doing. Most of my friends and I dont care too much about politics, he said. We care about one thing–making money. He chuckled, and most of the Western tourists chuckled as well.
But he was serious. Its always difficult to generalize from just a few people (especially in a country of 1.2 billion or so), yet that refrain was one I heard any number of times from Chinese I met. One of them was Shanen, a 46-year-old farmer-entrepreneur. He is the husband of Lejen Chen, whom I had met a little over two years ago when she visited the U.S., and whose involvement in making clean milk available in China I described in a blog post.
When I knew I was going to visit Beijing, I made contact with Lejen and Shanen, and arranged to visit the farm, on the outskirts of Beijing (Lejen was out of the country then).
Shanen, an energetic and upbeat man (even in the endless traffic jams that plague Beijing), spent a day showing my wife and me around his business empire. First on the agenda was the 12-acre farm, where he and Lejen have 14 Holstein cows, four of which are producing milk. (He apologized for not having jerseys, but said that they are not available in the Beijing area…even with the organic hay he has shipped to the farm from Inner Mongolia, because of bad experiences with inferior quality local hay.)
The milk the cows produce is low-temperature pasteurized, to comply with regulations, and is not homogenized. There are also a few dozen pigs and a couple hundred chickens, and four long greenhouses full of several varieties of lettuce, Swiss chard, onions, and other green delicacies.
The farms milk, eggs, pork, chicken, and veggies are used to supply two main enterprises–a twenty-member CSA and a delicatessen restaurant catering to Americans, Canadians, and Europeans associated with an area private school. In addition, some food is sold to a few of the city’s five-star hotels, whose chefs are increasingly committed to searching out safe top-quality food.
Besides the commitment to producing high-quality wholesome food, Shanen and Lejen have made a commitment to spreading the word about their food production techniques. They have set up multiple classrooms around the farm, where school groups come and watch demonstrations of planting, equipment usage, and such.
We stopped for lunch at Mrs. Shanen’s which is just a few miles from the farm, and had a delicious lunch, including mozzarella and tomato salads, sausage pizzas (the cheese and sausage from the farm), and even a very respectable matzoball chicken soup.
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Mrs. Shanen’s
In the afternoon, we drove back into Beijing proper and stopped at the enterprises factory–the low-ceiling series of rooms with stainless steel machinery where about half a dozen workers cook up dozens and dozens of bagels and breads. Those supply the deli, as well as the hotels.
Shanen was as disinclined to discuss politics as the tour guide. For all the discouraging aspects of Beijing life–the brutal traffic, the seriously worsening air pollution, the corruption that gets routinely exposed–he was appreciative of all the progress the country has experienced via its economic expansion. There is a huge amount of opportunity here. It is exciting to be part of such exciting growth.
His enterprise is benefiting from the expanding concerns over the integrity of Chinas food system. Increasing numbers of knowledgeable and concerned families are seeking out serious food producers like Shanen and paying premium prices to access his food.
Even the likely possibility that Mrs. Shanen’s, the deli, will be displaced by an expanding apartment development doesnt faze him. Hes already picked out a site a couple of kilometers away, on a lake, where he is prepared to move the business. Will customers be inclined to find his new place? Yes, many people love our food. They will come to the new location.
(This post has been edited further since it was first published.)
“Increasing numbers of knowledgeable and concerned families are seeking out serious food producers like Shanen and paying premium prices to access his food.”
This is what is happening here in the US too.
Money seems to be the universal human incentive. Good ol Mao would not be too enthused about all of this. But it does motivate and drive innovation for sure.
In 2003 a delegation from PRC toured OPDC. Their goal was to increase the height of Chinese people by increasing dairy product access. They thought that more dairy would increase the physical height and tallness of the Chinese people….they did not want to be short anymore.
I found this very interesting. I also remember that their eyes glazed over when I spoke of immune systems and whole unprocessed foods ie….raw milk.
They wanted UHT organic milk….they had been sold a bill of dead goods. Their ability to appreciate what the immune system is or he roll of Bacteria was negligible.
I wonder if any progress on his front has been made? Perhaps the Chinese should cyber tap into the human genomics project and truly get a clue about life and the origins of immunity and human health.
Ancient Chinese secrets have been lost and replaced by the drunk ness of modern greed. To profit from the wisdom of ancient Chinese wisdom would be good….profiting from western models assures me that the Chinese will be weaker as they grow….not stronger. Very sad…but somewhat comforting in my patriotic centric American heart.
It is amazing the lies the govt tells. It is also amazing that so many believe them.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jf8lGEn8o5yIxnqBNgyafYXXeCOg?docId=CNG.5c91690b1a678beaa8d07563d6976a93.6c1
http://bangordailynews.com/2013/02/15/news/hancock/brooksville-may-join-local-food-turf-war-between-towns-state-government/?ref=latest
There was a time when I’d at least try just about anything from which-ever country I was in. Being young and naive has advantages (and disadvantages). Now a days, I’m much more selective about what I consume and where I go. I am sure China isn’t the only country that serves questionable foods and contaminates the environment…we here in the US are a perfect example of that type of exploitation. They have regulators, we have regulators and yet, the contamination goes on, on so many levels.
I think people will always seek out what they believe to be the best quality/healthiest foods, etc. What one person believes to be healthy, doesn’t mean it is to another person. (An example: many believe ‘Healthy Choice’ frozen dinners are healthy, I do not believe they are). It is a choice for most on what they consume, it is also a knowledge deficit regarding what their food truly is.
It seems, one solution is to teach people about the foods they are consuming and the alternatives. Teach them how to prepare the foods. People have been tossing foods into microwaves/opening boxes and the art of cooking is a skill not learned. There will always be those who believe the govt, et al that the herbicides/pesticides, pink slime,etc are harmless. That is their choice to believe and to consume those foods.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/carcasses-food-safety-concerns-afloat-in-china/article4497299.ece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
It’s important to appreciate that the Chinese have moved from a totally repressive system to one that is, by comparison, very tolerant. Less than 50 years ago, there was no foreign travel to or from China, and urban residents were being moved en masse to the countryside as part of Mao’s “Cultural Revolution.” To them, the current system is a breath of fresh air, even if it is polluted. By contrast, we in the U.S. have gradually moved toward a more controlling and repressive system that is discouraging and frustrating larger numbers of people. It’s all in your point of reference.
Here’s some of the best resources on Food Sovereignty.
http://www.nyeleni.org/spip.php?article290
http://viacampesina.org/en/
And in America:
http://foodformainesfuture.net/about/
http://usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org/
People think antibiotics are harmless, they affect more than just the gut.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2292601/Popular-antibiotic-Zithromax-cause-heart-rhythm-problems-warns-U-S-drug-regulator.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Unless it is your loved one who is afflicted…
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2013/03/13/study-confirms-slight-rise-in-paralysis-risk-after-swine-flu-shot
H. pylori is just one of many bacteria that have trouble being labeled as disease causing, because it’s absence also appears to cause disease.
http://www.jci.org/articles/view/45041
May 11, 2011.
“Atopic asthma is a chronic disease of the airways that has taken on epidemic proportions in the industrialized world. The increase in asthma rates has been linked epidemiologically to the rapid disappearance of Helicobacter pylori, a bacterial pathogen that persistently colonizes the human stomach, from Western societies. In this study, we have utilized mouse models of allergic airway disease induced by ovalbumin or house dust mite allergen to experimentally examine a possible inverse correlation between H. pylori and asthma. H. pylori infection efficiently protected mice from airway hyperresponsiveness, tissue inflammation, and goblet cell metaplasia, which are hallmarks of asthma, and prevented allergen-induced pulmonary and bronchoalveolar infiltration with eosinophils, Th2 cells, and Th17 cells. Protection against asthma was most robust in mice infected neonatally and was abrogated by antibiotic eradication of H. pylori. Asthma protection was further associated with impaired maturation of lung-infiltrating dendritic cells and the accumulation of highly suppressive Tregs in the lungs. Systemic Treg depletion abolished asthma protection; conversely, the adoptive transfer of purified Treg populations was sufficient to transfer protection from infected donor mice to uninfected recipients. Our results thus provide experimental evidence for a beneficial effect of H. pylori colonization on the development of allergen-induced asthma.”
Could the answer possibly be that we cannot separate one organism from an entire system and attribute cause and effect to it? Isn’t it really the relationships between organisms in a system that leads to either health or disease? Taken out of context , does the presence or absence of any one organism in a system have meaning?
I haven’t been following this stuff the last few years, so I don’t know to what extent they’re also making progress on favoring sites based on payments to the search engines, etc. And there’s lots of more subtle ways Google et.al. try to guide you to system sites and away from dissident ones.
“Flavored Milk; Petition to Amend the Standard of Identity for Milk and 17 Additional Dairy Products
78 FR 11791 – A Proposed Rule by the Food and Drug Administration published on 02/20/2013
The Food and Drug Administration is announcing that the International Dairy Foods Association and the National Milk Producers Federation have filed a petition requesting that the Agency amend the standard of identity for milk and 17 other dairy products to provide for the use of any safe and suitable sweetener as an optional ingredient.”
“This article has a comment period that ends in 67 days (05/21/2013)”
someone had posted a link to that story. I’ve no doubt that the morons who make these decisions will allow the further adulteration of the milk and our food supply. I did leave my opinion on the govt web site.
I cannot imagine why they feel any type of sweetener or other chemical additive is needed for milk. Another reason to avoid crap sold in stores.
Trying to find out exactly what is added to milk and what they really do with it is very difficult.
http://law.onecle.com/michigan/288-dairy-industry/mcl-288-699.html
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AV-Skeptics/message/7511
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/02/healthy-milk.html
http://butterbeliever.com/fat-free-dairy-skim-milk-secrets/
The comments in the following link shows that people are aware that the govt isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and that they are allowing toxins into our foods and environments. There is little to no trust in the govt.
http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/toy-filled-chocolate-eggs-legal-us-102607086–abc-news-savings-and-investment.html
I believe anything added to milk has to be shown on the label.
…………………
Isn’t it amazing that on the Internet a person can find out within minutes, who blowup the twin towers, whether AIDS is a real disease, or whether we really landed on the moon or not but you can’t find out what’s in milk?