16 March, 2013

The Cost when you can't trust the state with your kids' food.

From One Hub, a View of China’s Worldwide Underground Milk Powder Network | Tea Leaf Nation: For Chinese citizens, and especially young parents, milk powder safety—and food safety in general—has been an incessant worry, with new small-scale scandals erupting every few months, including a recent finding of some baby formula tainted with mercury and aflaxotonin, a highly carcinogenic substance. A new food safety law and central government statements claiming that 99% of Chinese dairy products are safe have been unable to restore consumer trust. Middle-class parents choosing to feed their child foreign milk powder might spend anywhere from 25-40% of their monthly salary (at an average price of 200.7 RMB per kilogram in 2012).