OT: Not really manufactured.......but some more outsourcing to be aware of.

I bought a pack of Pennsylvania Dutchmen mushrooms and noticed some chinese writing on the bottom of the box. Checked the cans, and was completely surprised by the "MADE IN CHINA" on the can. I've been buying this brand of mushroom for years. Found this video, and thought I would share. I totally agree with his assesment.



SAVE THE AMISH PEOPLE! PENNSYLVANIA DUTCHMAN MUSHROOMS ARE MADE IN CHINA! - YouTube




Frank

A lot of food products are made in china. And some drugs (or ingredients)are as well.

Some of the food products are sourced in the US for normal retailers, but the dollar store products are chinese sourced. Namely apple products.

This topic brings up a question... a lot of times I see a product that says 'distributed by (insert store name) with no point of manufacture mentioned. Nowhere does it state where made or grown.
I know they want us to assume the product is sourced locally but is it or is this just a slippery way to avoid stating country of origin?

It's still amazing what the food industry gets away with. I often see the "Prepared for ..." but no origin.
No food that can be grown in a country to supply all its demand should be imported from any other, simple as that, just like no food your population needs should be exported to feed another...

But you know, most people will keep on eating it even if they dump a bunch of melamine in it, with all the mc-do and other crap people eat I'm sure they can take it.

I read labels, too.

We have a real problem with importing food into the US. I always thought that we fed the world?

Canned pineapple comes from indonesia. what happened to Hawaii?
Apples come from China. Don't we grow them here anymore?

Most of the brand name packaged fruit I look at is imported. And especially the famous name brands like Dole and DelMonte. I have found that the Wal-Mart house brand of pears and peaches is USA, while the big brands are foriegn.

It's still amazing what the food industry gets away with.

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They must have more money than the oil industry to keep it that way. (factory farms, anti-raw milk, gmo seeds, etc).

As it applies to Canada (from 'Made in Canada' - via China - The Globe and Mail )

"Made in Canada" simply means that 51 per cent of the production cost was incurred in Canada; the ingredients could come from anywhere, and increasingly they come from China. For example, manufacturers can import apple juice concentrate from China - for about one-fifth the cost of Canadian concentrate - add water to it in Canada, and mark it "Made in Canada."

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Frozen fish was what really broke the story a number of years ago, apparently pre frozen blocks of fish are imported from china, and boxed up here in Canada and labelled Made in Canada simply because of the production cost clause. If I remember right, the boxes where also printed in China. Nobody but an aware consumer is going to rally against it and so it goes on. Ask people where their garlic comes from, unless they bought it from the local farm/market it all comes from china now.

Alex.

I don't know much about the Amish way-of-life, but I bet they didn't make this stuff down on the farm:

Swiss Mocha Cappuccino , 0.75 Lb [918] - $2.69 : Welcome to Yoder's Amish Market, Quality: Plain & Simple

here's the makin's!!


sugar, non-dairy creamer (partially hydrogenated soybean oil, corn syrup solids, potassium caseinate, sugar, dipotassium phosphate, mono and diglycerides, salt, sodium stearoyl lactylate, carrageenan, artificial flavor and an extract of turmeric and annatto), sweet dairy whey, cocoa processed with alkali), coffee, cellulose gum, sodium citrate, salt, artificial flavor.

Doesn't seem to list coffee or chocolate

This family refuses to eat products imported from certain countries. We do it for health and safety reasons as well as for our private battle against human rights.
It does not matter to us who imports the product or whose name is on it.
If we could somehow take the money out of politics, rest assured we would know exactly where our food stuffs were sourced.

Gordon B. Clarke said:

Much of the medicine being sent (and sold) to several African countries is I believe banned in wealthier countries.

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I hate to defend big business, but if it where not for that banned medicine (presumably at much lower cost) then it is entirely possible the people taking it would have non at all.

This subject is near to my heart, since I'm a local farmer. A very small local farmer


About all I can say is do a search on the terms "buy local food" and "slow food" and look for links from your state or region or country. The "Buy Local" slogan is a catchword for a marketing campaign designed to help smaller American farmers regain market share from large multinational producers and distributors. Several states have started Buy Local campaigns--which means they throw a pittance of advertising money at it. But it should inform you who to buy from.

This campaign has little or no chance of succeeding in the long run of course, but it gives guys like me a bit of short-term relief.

"Farming" long ago disappeared and was replaced by "agricultural production." Because agriculture is very well suited to mass production methods. And it is very hard to farm anything outside of an area already devoted to agriculture. There is a very strong NIMBY attitude towards farmers. After all, we do tend to make noise and dust very early in the morning, late in the evening, and even on weekends! And some farmers actually use pesticides! (Shellfish farms do not, by the way, nor artificial feed either).

I sit on my Town's Agricultural Commission, which is supposed to be a buffer between local farmers and the Town's regulatory apparatus. And sometimes we help the Town lease public land to farmers. And I have learned that most people love the idea of buying locally-produced food, as long as it's not grown TOO locally--like next door


And forget about coming to Cape Cod and trying to find a restaurant or fish market that sells locally-caught cod fish. Or any other locally-caught fish for that matter. The finfish business on the East Coast has been regulated to death. It could have been regulated to keep it alive, but someone messed up. They oughtta change the name of this place to Cape Golf Course.

But back to topic--as long as transportation is cheap, food production will keep moving to low-cost production areas. Garlic bulbs here are labelled as coming from China, if they're cheap. The American garlic is there too--cost twice as much. Probably has less pesticides in it, but at that price gap it won't sell well.

But remember that mushrooms are grown in compost. And what passes for compost in China probably wouldn't pass muster elsewhere.

NOTHING edible from China for my family, period. We don't need our body parts glowing!

Non-edible products will only be bought from China if we can't find anything else, and I will pay more for products that are not made in China.

This is only against mainland China, I will buy products from Taiwan before China. Of course if I can find products produced in the U.S., I'm first to buy those.

FWIW, I like how MSC/Enco lable the imported products clearly, as well as the USA made products. Yes, I will spend more on tooling that is made in the USA in almost ALL cases.

Gordon B. Clarke said:

In our neighbourhood we have many small farmers that sell their products in the summer on the road. The merchandise is in small boxes or bags, you take what you want and put money in a box. The boxes are often cardboard and not nailed down and even open as some need to take change out. The smallest note we have is about $10, everything below that is in coins. These "stalls" are almost always unattended. Yeps, people are also surprisingly honest

Gordon

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We have this here, too. In PA, near Lancaster is a large Amish farming area. They set out their produce the same way. On the honor system. They are not making a living off the stands, just some pocket money.

Frank

I was in the grocery store this evening and pulled a can of Pennsylvania Dutchman mushrooms off the shelf to check the label. Yup, same as rockfish noticed, "Product of China."

Mushrooms are grown in manure.

Sea Farmer,

"Mushrooms are grown in manure."

I am sure you are aware that ground farmers, those who also raise dairy cows, spread the "manure" on their fields, so just about all you buy when you "Buy Locally", is grown with chicken or cow excrement as the fertilizer, although it may be supplemented with petroleum based fertilizers.

Fowl, in particular, excrete a rich in Urea manure, as they do not have 2 apertures, how else shall I put it?

Millions of tons of excreta HAVE to be disposed of, annually, and fertilizing fields, plowing under, seems ideal. Better, to me, than petroleum based fertilizers.

We have lived for thousands of years with this. Why would, all of a sudden, the fact that mushrooms are grown in HEATED compost, it gets to 160 F, be so repulsive?

Sterile, HAS to be to grow mushrooms.

I would be leery of what the feed store sells YOU to feed Oysters. YOU might have excreta in there, too. HIGH in ALL the nutrients you need, and the cheaper you can get it, the better. Norm of manufacturing, and you "manufacture" oysters.I wouldn't eat one if you put a gun to my head, but, what the hell?

OTH, I have had opportunity to BUY marinated mushrooms, and in almost every case, they were "Product of China", so I passed. I LIKE them, but NOT from China. I really cannot say that is because they might not be as good, or because they ARE from China. I also like preserved garlic, and all THAT comes from China, too, so I don't eat that.

It will come down to where I can't eat ANYTHING, because it is all imported from where I do not want it to be imported from.

Is that the way the World is supposed to be? 5000 year ago, they sent people out to find spices, new foods, whatever, fabrics, State,as it was, think Columbus, paid for the trip.

NOW, we are so godDAMNED scared to eat ANYTHING!!!

We are OMNIVORES. Reason you eat a SALAD is because you like the taste, BEFORE you get that rare steak.. I ain't a piscadore. Fish is a lenten thing, and I only eat fish a couple times in that 6 weeks, and, truthfully, it is not all that satisfying. More a donation to whoever is holding a fish fry.

Now, take one of the Green fry pans, get it hot, throw a room temp steak in there for 2 minutes, side one, 2 more side 2, and you got a GOOD steak.That is for 1/2 inch thick. Still red in the middle. Thicker will take longer.

George

gmatov said:

Thicker will take longer.

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You decadent Yuppie, you

I ain't decadent at all. I didn't buy it, i had a younger brother who suffered a stroke, and brought hm to live with me till he was able to function his own.. HE bought everything that he got ads for, and I wound up with this "green skillet".

I will admit, it IS great.

I have had e-mails offering them for 20 for 2 plus s&h, I am seriously considering buying them or my kids. I Do like them!

George

I make a living making and selling tools for people who grown their own food, and for that and other reasons, try to walk-the-talk and buy fresh local in season as much as possible. What we spend on food is absurd. But food for the most part has been too cheap the last 40 years, on account of the damage done by industrial scale farming - soil erosion, pesticides etc. and also the damage done to the middle class - turning our country into a bunch of tenants on an economic race to the bottom.

Anyway, what we don't either buy from neighbors, the local farmers' market or grow ourselves, comes either from a large co-op grocery chain, or a small local organic market, that solves the problem of "where does it come from".

The co-op checks out absolutely everything it decides to carry, every item is held to a standard of the quality and chain of accountability of the product, among other things. In general we don't have to look at the label because except for the rare case where there is both no other choice and a good explanation, you can bet it isn't from China.

All for only about 2X the Walmart price. Its not so much that fresh-local-safe is expensive, its that mystery-grown-in-China is artificially cheap.

Toolbert,

I like my home grown tomatoes. I don't like "vine ripened" per the USDA, tomatoes. They, legally,only have to have a "blush" on them to BE called "vine ripened".

You could not send RIPE tomatoes 1500 miles from Florida, or 3,000 from Cali, and expect them to arrive as fruits. They would best be called sauce.

That said, when you go to a "Farmer's market", you will buy "fresh fruit". But if it does not sell that day, it will be put out the next day as "fresh fruit".

I am not a farmer, so my situation is different than a real farmer. I may put in 7 bucks of plants, I could put in many MORE for that cost, did I use seed, and make a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes, WHICH, I can't actually use.

I grow them just FOR my own use, and to give to my neighbors.

1/2 inch slab of a BIG tomato, 2 slices of bread, slather with mayo. Heaven!

This makes NO sense whatsoever:

"What we spend on food is absurd. But food for the most part has been too cheap the last 40 years,

Which is it? We pay too much,or it is too cheap. You can't have it both ways.

What is the part of food that is too cheap? 3 to 4 buck ground beef? 4 bucks for 10 to 12 ounces of cereal for your kid's breakfast? 5 buck chuck roast?

I do not know where you come from.

Buck and a half for a can of condensed Campbell's soup?

I shop, if it hadn't occurred to you. I KNOW what food costs. Corn goes for about 4-5 bucks a bushel, 46 to 56 pounds per, and corn product is 5 and more PER pound.

Farmers may NOT get all that money, BUT SOMEBODY IS making LOTS of money from very little cost of raw product.

George

Gordon B. Clarke said:

I'm wondering if any of those that have the same opinion have been to China and eaten there? There are also huge differences in the food culture depending on which part of China is visited.

I think I've eaten at a MacDonalds 5 or 6 times in my life

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Well, I've eaten all my meals in Southern China for the past 1.5 weeks. ('Im logged on from VPN, here for work). The supply chain isn't pretty. I don't eat salads, or raw anything. I avoid fruits without rinds.

Learning a lesson from previous trips, I avoid most American-style fast food. McDonalds is atrocious. KFC is less so.

The top restaurants are fine though. Great dimsum, great duck. The local supermarket...Local cafe, not so much. Sanitary standards in kitchens are...interesting. Food safety standards are mostly non-existent, and what does exist is usually voluntary. Meat supply chain is interesting. A lot of small farmers using questionable feed or environments. Fowl is often butchered in food prep areas in restaurants. Vegetables are inconsistent, often grown with chemicals banned in the US/EU.

Wal-mart, often derided in the US, is at least consistent in China, and that's the major worry here:

A restaurants is fine one day, but then causes food poisoning the next. Tap water is fine one day, causes eColi-like symptoms the next. One batch of apples is fine. The next are...strange.

That's the major difference: Most things are OK most of the time here. But that kind of sucks, and makes life literally very crappy sometimes.

For viewing pleasure: A pic from a meal last week.