Organic Food in China

[Caidanbi]

I'm just curious, are organic foods becoming more prominent in China? I know in other parts of the world they are, including, it seems, South Korea. Since I can't actually go to China, I have no way of finding this out, so I was hoping some of you who are there or have recently been there could let me know ^-^

[liuzhou]

You might be interested in this.

[yonglin]

You might be interested in this.

This was very interesting, especially #3.

In general, organic food is a luxury good. So as people get richer, it will become more prevalent. For better or worse.

[Caidanbi]

Liuzhou, thanks so much for the link, I will check it out (don't have time to watch now) ^-^

Yonglin, you are right. It's sad. Those pesticides are messing up so many things *sigh*

[yonglin]

Those pesticides are messing up so many things *sigh*

Well, pesticides and other "modern" methods of farming are also the main reason why it's possible to feed the world's population leaving a couple of forests around. (I try not to consume organic food because I find it unethical, but that's just my personal opinion.)

Actually, I think the above TV show is somewhat biased in the sense that they make it seem like no one used pesticides or chemical fertilizers prior to opening up in 1978. Thus, the whole chemical business seems attributable to the capitalist forces of the post-reform era. In fact, one of the reasons agriculture was collectivized in the 1950s was to ease the spread of modern farming methods, including the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides...

[presidentevil]

I'm confused. i thought all food was organic, with some exceptions like salt.

[Caidanbi]

I don't want to get into an argument with anyone, so I'm choosing not to comment on whether people should eat organic foods or not. I have multiple chemical sensitivity, and I become very ill if I eat foods grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, or that have chemical preservatives, colors, flavors etc added to them. That is the main reason that I am interested in this sort of thing. That, and the fact that those things are severely polluting the air and water. But, whatever, that really wasn't the reason I asked this question. It was more out of curiosity than anything else.

I do think that they were most likely using chemical fertilizers and such much earlier than the videos suggest though, they were in most places.

Presidentevil, in this case "organic" refers to foods grown without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. ^-^

[roddy]

The supermarket I used to use had 无公害 vegetables alongside the normal types. This isn't quite the same as organic - it means that there aren't any harmful chemicals left in the veg, it doesn't mean they didn't use any. But even that is kind of new.

There's definitely a lot of concern about food safety, and organic produce will benefit from that. But consumers have zero faith in labeling - there's no credible, trusted mark which means they can be sure a product has been produced in any particular way. The assumption is going to be that someone is fooling someone somewhere. Might be the grower fooling the wholesaler, the wholesaler the supermarket, the supermarket the consumer. Hence there's little willingness to pay more.

There's definitely some market there - otherwise that supermarket wouldn't bother giving over several square meters of space. But in overall percentage terms, it'll be absolutely minuscule, I wouldn't lay a single penny on any given product labeled as organic actually being so, and for consumers the overriding issue is not whether or not something is poisoning the environment, but whether or not it's poisoning them. There's overlap there, but it's not the same thing.

[yonitabonita]

In October last year, a little organic hole in the wall opened up next to the regular fruit and veg market in Hepingmen, just near Tiananmen Sq. The fellow said he had a farm on the outskirts of Beijing and was testing the market. He had a very small range of seasonal veggies - carrots, jiu cai, bai luobo, tomatoes and some free range eggs. He was big on organic farming techniques and while he did the hard sell on why organic was better for the body, to his credit, he also waxed lyrical about soil erosion and living in harmony with the local ecosystem.

Two days ago, he closed his little shop. He said the laobaixing just didn't have enough cash and didn't trust him when he said his food was organic.

[imron]

There's definitely a lot of concern about food safety, and organic produce will benefit from that. But consumers have zero faith in labeling

and didn't trust him when he said his food was organic.

This hits the nail on the head. I would have zero faith that any food labeled or certified as organic in China was actually organic. I remember once I'd ran out of eggs and the closest place open selling eggs was a supermarket that only had AA Certified-Green Eggs (or something like that) available. They were considerably more expensive, but I needed eggs and figured maybe I'd be getting better quality eggs than the ones I usually picked up from the market so why not.

Anyway, there was definitely a noticeable difference in the eggs. The ones I normally bought at the market typically had yellow yolks whereas these ones had deep orange yolks. Which was worrying because now I wasn't sure which was actually the correct colour. Luckily I was just about to head back to Australia for a visit, and when staying with my parents I checked the colour of the eggs they had in their kitchen. My parents are big on organic stuff, and I've personally been to the farm that sells the eggs they buy, which are laid by chooks that are free to roam around, and aren't fed chemicals/hormones or anything else, and so I can be fairly confident about the naturalness of those eggs, which were not deep orange. Needless to say, I didn't buy the AA Certified-Green Eggs again.

[xiaocai]

You know there are many different species of chicken that lay different eggs. When I was little my grand parents also used to rear their own chicken in the backyard, and of course the chicken were free-range and fed with natural corns. As I remember the yolks of the eggs were orange in colour instead of yellow. Of course it does means that the AA Certified-Green Eggs you came across were for sure organic; and as a matter of fact, me myself will not trust the organic labels on food in China as well. Nevertheless, organic eggs can have orange yolks.

[Caidanbi]

I can see where there would be a problem with trusting the labels, definitely.

As for the orange yolks, some chickens do lay eggs with orange yolks, it depends on the type and what they have been eating. In some cases, the darker the yolk color, the more vitamins and minerals it contains.

[imron]

What is yellow and what is orange? There's quite an amount of room for variation and what I'm calling yellow, you might calling orange because really, most egg yolks are usually a yellowy-orange anyway rather than an absolute one or the other. Anyway, I know egg yolks can vary in colour, but these weren't just orange, but a very deep orange. Perhaps it was because they contained more vitamins or more minerals, but it could just as easily have been because they fed the chickens various things to make the egg yolks more orange, because when you're charging the consumer 2-3 times the price of regular eggs you'd better have a way to ensure they're obviously different from the other eggs people buy, otherwise your customers will wonder what is the point of paying so much extra.

In any event, the biggest problem is not the colour as such, but in not knowing either way which is the case, and not being able to trust the answer once you are given it.

All I have to compare it with are eggs that I know for sure are 100% completely organic, and these eggs were not like those eggs.

[rob07]

But consumers have zero faith in labeling

My favourite label was a special sticker that said something like "White Rabbit sweets do not contain any melamine. Please do not worry and eat them". I bought a couple of packets for the souvenir value.

[abcdefg]

Kunming has a source.

http://www.greenkunming.com/en/

[pancake]

What is yellow and what is orange? There's quite an amount of room for variation and what I'm calling yellow, you might calling orange because really, most egg yolks are usually a yellowy-orange anyway rather than an absolute one or the other.

Indeed, that's why the DMS Yolk Colour Fan exists. (Yes, I'm actually googling about egg yolks instead of studying.)

For what it's worth, the good people at the poultry site state that:

The colour of the yolk is due to substances called carotenoids. The nutritional value of the egg is not affected by the yolk colour. [...] Most egg marketing authorities require deep-yellow to orange-yellow yolk colours in the range 9 to 12 on the DSM Yolk Colour Fan. Yolks of more intense colour may be required for specifi c [sic] markets.

Yeah alright, enough reading about egg yolks for me.

I do agree that the whole food situation in China calls for regulation and accountability, the present situation kinda reminds me of the tales of what American "hot dogs" contained prior to FDA regulation.

[imron]

The eggs I was talking about were definitely in the 14-15 range. Incidentally, that link mentions that by feeding the chickens CAROPHYLL ® you can maintain whatever yolk colour you want on that chart. That's all very well and good, and maybe carophyll and related products are completely harmless, but personally I prefer not having stuff like that added to the food I eat, and maybe it was just a natural 14 colour, but like I said, the key issue is that I have no way of knowing or trusting that.

[Caidanbi]

I wouldn't want to eat those either, I don't like it when things like that are added to my food. I feel like if I was meant to be eating it, it would naturally be there

[xiaocai]

I don't mind the eggs with carophyll, but I think I will be very reluctant to pay the price premium just because they fed the chicken with some artificial dye. Chemicals are supposed to make our lives good and cheap, or at least cheaper than without them, IMHO. I think one of the reasons of why our life expectancy is so much longer than our ancestors despite the fact that they had almost everything pure "natural" and "organic" is partially because the use of many chemicals that we have found in the past hundred years or so. Most of us will need some of these chemicals to save our lives at the end of the day after all.

[tenchy]

In the nutrition view, "the super rice" is a too "fat" rice, not nature but feed billions people. Artificial? Yes, it's everywhere now. So, sometimes, something just like destiny which is inevitable by "history wheel" and "giving up affectation" reveal a "privilege" which maybe the best or worest.