Just what shall we eat??

Started from the milk powder issue in China, more and more dairy products were recalled. Today I received 5-6 emails regarding other food that may be highly hazardous to our health too. By browsing through the list - milk products we have milk powder, condensed milk, milky candies, cakes, M&M, dairy products etc... then other food such as preserved vege/taufu/eggs, snacks, beans, sausages, biscuits, soya bean drinks etc... it's a long list. Few emails also show pix of factories with extremely dirty environment that made me wanna puke.

Just what is safe to eat then?? -> non-China products, or non-asian products, or simply non-factory-manufactured products??? How to tell what is safe when the lab can't possibly test everything??

Regarding the milk powder case, I think the culprit Sanlu should be presented an award. Why?? Well, the impact of melamine on human health was being detected and confirmed due to Sanlu added excessive melamine to the milk powder causing few cases of baby death due to kidney failure. This is in fact an undeniable case as these babies were all found drinking Sanlu milk powder.

Due to this, other brands were tested and found with melamine as well but with much less amount. Imagine without Sanlu's case, more and more babies and adults will be poisoned slowly with melamine and eventually we are looking at enormous outbreak of kidney failure years later. At that time, it would be hard to find the root cause as there are simply too many possibilities. So even though very ironic, Sanlu should be given an award for running an experiment with proven results in short period of time.

Do you get what I am trying to tell you here??... Now, there are so many other things that may content all kinds of harmful substances but because it's not EXCESSIVE, so there is no proof to relate these things to certain type of illness. Hence nothing will be done and we continue to be poisoned slowly everyday, and eventually more and more people were found with cancers, kidney failure, liver failure, mental illness etc...

In view of this, what shall we do?? (With problem statement defined, come the proposal for solution)... First let's look back at the root causes. Why are there more and more products with hazardous content?

1. Lack of knowledge and experience. As I say, not enough evidence to prove the impact of certain substances. Hence it is hard to define the specification for testing. Even there are tests to detect everything, just how high is high??

Solution: It takes time to develope knowledge and experience, so temporary no quick solution. What can be done is to simply ban all substances that can't be proven safe.

2. Lack of ethics and knowledge among many business owners and agents... $$$ come first.

Solution: No quick solution. Why?? Well, if one decides to hide something, or is stupid enough to do something without knowing the consequence, it's hard for others to find out unless something BIG happens (small things will usually be covered). Of course, improve education and knowledge sharing may help but come to the end, it's a battle between morality vs. $$$ for these people to decide what they should do.

3. Advancement in technology - The Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century made possible a transition in previously manual-labour-based economy towards machine-based manufacturing. This made food production and many other types of manufacturing more efficient and less labour-intensive. The trend spread from Britain to Europe and eventually to the whole world. In fact, there were not many factories before 18th century, while human have existed thousand years without it.

So what has machine-based manufacturing brought us?? Mass production, competition, price war, and jobs (high percentage of the labour market are involved in manufacturing). So in order to survive, cost must be low, production must be high, specification must pass etc. The results: Finding cheaper substitutes, food genetic re-engineering, adding additives to achieve certain desired results.

Solution: Again no short term solution except one... if we can't change the world, we can change ourselve. That means we can choose not to support factory products and go for fresh food. If there are doubts on fresh produce in the market, then we have to grow everything ourselve.

Alternatively, just forget about all these worries and continue to live as before, try our luck and see what's our karma. In that case, I have one idea to share on risk reduction, i.e. if we do not stick to eating same type of food on regular basis, the chances of developing illness in short period of time is lower. This means you can try to randomize your food menu everyday. Worst come to worst, today you may be melamine poisoned but if you don't consume milk product everyday, then the impact will be diluted. Tomorrow, you may be lead poisoned slightly, then the day after, some other things... but just don't eat the same thing everyday and let our liver and kidney have enough time to filter. At the same time, drink more water (I mean 'clean' water) to dilute whatever.

Hopefully, WHAT DIDN'T KILL US, WILL MAKE US STRONGER!!! Good luck!!