Chinas Latest Food Scandal: Exploding Watermelons
I go to a coffee shop around the corner from my office a couple of times a week for a coffee and a bagel. It’s often enough that I can order the usual and the owner gave Derek and I a “treat” the other day. A couple of small slices of watermelon. It’s May and there certainly aren’t any watermelons in season in Vancouver. But, as food-aware as I may be, I also believe it is rude to refuse food offered in kindness. So I ate the not-very-delicious watermelon and said thank-you.
Seeing this story about another chemical scheme to boost profits and make whole foods like fruit more like their manufactured counterparts makes me wish I hadn’t eaten the watermelon.
Chinas Latest Food Scandal: Exploding Watermelons – China Real Time Report – WSJ.
But it also reminds me of the watermelon I’ll be paying a princely sum for later this summer. Sure, I won’t be eating much watermelon, but it will be a delicious treat. And, I’ll have peace of mind knowing its provenance.
Glen Valley Organic Farm: Watermelons and the Price of Local Food.
While living in Zhuhai China, I had come across watermelons that smelled like petrol (from the outside and inside, once cut open), since local farmers watered crops from ditch water that are often contaminated with anything and everything. Talk about the opposite issue, not being able to eat local foods. The wealthy will pay for higher priced certified ‘safe’ produce from better known farms over the local ones, and no wonder why. Luckily there were university farms run by Taiwanese professors in the area we lived in, that stressed the importance of health safety and food purity. It was worth the 1 hour drive to visit and buy some produce from them. I sense that they will be or already are making headways in building a name for quality, as well as spearheading education advocacy towards responsible farming for safe, quality produce.