Poisoned rice

China has pulled off an amazing feat: it feeds a quarter of the world’s population with just 7% of the planet’s arable land, but…

Is it a miracle? Not quite. Eating more certainly does not equate to being healthier in 2013 China, and, according to the British medical magazine The Lancet, food is still one of the major causes of death in the country. In the past, Beijing had to deal with the problem of empty granaries whereas today it faces an even more serious emergency: the now frequent food scandals that poison a population increasingly nervous about sitting down for a meal. And it makes little difference if it’s at home or in a restaurant. In recent years, Chinese people of all ages have literally swallowed milk laced with nitrate, used recycled drainage oil for frying, eaten mice peddled as mutton, cadmium flavoured rice, completely artificial honey containing aluminium, insta-grow chickens and even bizarre ‘bodybuilder’ pigs fed on Clenbuterol. Fortunately, the sensational watermelon bombs grown in Jiangsu, pumped full of forchlorfenuron to accelerate growth, exploded in the fields and not in consumers’ fridges. And every Chinese parent is haunted by the indelible memory of the scandal of Sanlu’s powdered baby milk containing the industrial chemical melamine, which killed six infants in 2008 and poisoned another 300,000.

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