China gets a big GRRRR from me today.
It's no secret that the use of pesticides in China is unregulated. An article I read last week in the English version of the China Daily stated that in a survey of 4,000 residents 73% said they felt the food in China was unsafe. Those are Chinese residents, not cautious foreigners like me.
It's no wonder. Just a day after seeing our apartment complex spray weed killer I noticed a few ladies pulling up dandelions leaves out of the front lawn to take home to their families to eat or to sell at the market. The signs posted say it's not safe to touch the plants for 15 days after spraying, but of course those signs are posted inside the building where the people pulling the dandelions don't see them.
Situations like this give me the heeby jeebies and I am constantly thinking about what I might be ingesting, which is something I feel as a human being I should have the right not to have to think about. Which brings me to Lipton Tea. Steve in particular drinks Lipton tea on a daily basis, in fact several cups a day (people drink tea instead of coffee in China). All the Chinese people in his office drink Lipton too.
Today as I was glancing through a local expat magazine I came across an article. I will include a few sections of it below.
"Lipton, the world's top selling brand, was an obvious choice for Greenpeace's tea audit. All the tested leaves were found to be saturated in pesticide residue at levels exceeding the European Union's legal limits. The worst samples featured pesticides banned by the EU, including bifenthrin, a human carcinogen."
"Even the widely used pesticides we found...have long term effects. Exposure to these kinds of pesticides as a low dose may impact fertility, harm unborn children or cause heritable genetic damage"
"In its public statement, Lipton says, "All testing of our products has confirmed full compliance to Chinese regulatory requirements."
Shame on Lipton for lowering its standard for Chinese consumers just because they can. I don't know whether to hate China for not regulating anything (other than the Internet) or hate the companies that know better and do it any way.
Grrr.
