dmccarty
Super Star Member
The top Apple producer in the world is China followed by Chile, France, Italy and the US. There is only about a 5-6% difference in the amount of Apples they produce. But when I first read that China produced the most Apples that really surprised me. I wonder how much of our Apple juice and other fruit juices are from China. And I worry about Chile a bit as well.
I used to eat fruit in a cup for lunch. When buying I would read the label and if the fruit was from China I did not buy it. I remember seeing other fruits where from China as well.
I like Asian food especially Sushi. :thumbsup: There are two Asian markets in my area one of which is a large grocery store while the other is a very itty bitty store run by an old Japanese women. The larger store has Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, etc., food products and a huge selection. The little itty bitty store is mostly Japanese products. I favor the itty bitty store since she has what I want and great service. :thumbsup:
Thankfully for food to be sold in the US it has to have ingredients labeled in English.
Because I can't read Japanese or Chinese! What has been most disturbing about my buying the Asian food is how much of even the Japanese products are made in China. There are frozen dumpling we like to get but I stopped buying them because they were from China. I would hope/think that the Japanese would be very strict on quality and cleanliness but we just stopped buying that product for now. What is worse for us Sushi lovers is the knowledge that the shrimp and BBQ eel is cooked in a factory, frozen, and ready to eat. The Sushi chief in most restaurants is NOT cleaning and filleting a big shrimp while he waits for the eel to BBQ.
You can buy it frozen and ready to go. Which is good and bad.
And it is from China.
One of the fun things about my buying expeditions to the Asian stores is that I am usually the only non Asian in the market. And usually one of the few men. :laughing: The bigger store has a good gender mix but I am usually the only non Asian. One day I was on the long aisle that had a gabizzilon different sauces. Including Heinz ketchup. I was reading the ingredient labels trying to pick out a sauce and I noticed that there were two other non Asian men on the aisle. They looked more confused than I. One of them walked over to me and asked about a certain sauce. Surprisingly I KNEW what he wanted and what to buy! Of course the other guy came over at that point to ask questions. :laughing:
This just cracked me up since my "expert" knowledge was based on a couple of Asian cookbooks I had read and one in particular about Sushi that was very informative. In that book the author mentioned WHAT ingredients that were good and bad.
This one book was very good but also surprising to me. At the end of the book they had a list of places to buy Japanese food and equipment. Now those lists usually are pretty inaccurate. But in the back in actually listed the little itty bitty Japanese store! I showed the book to the store owner and she had never heard of the book. This store is in an area of town that has quite a few ethnic restaurants and grocery stores. The area is away from most neighborhoods and is almost industrial and most people just drive buy the place. HOW the cook book found this place is a surprise to me. And the owner.
I still try to stay away from the Chinese food if I can.
The Chinese Drywall lawsuits are getting interesting. It looks like some of the manufactuers knew the product was defective and so did some of the larger builders....
Just read a story about Energy Star. Basically many/some products have no proof they actually meet the Energy Star standard....
Later,
Dan
I used to eat fruit in a cup for lunch. When buying I would read the label and if the fruit was from China I did not buy it. I remember seeing other fruits where from China as well.
I like Asian food especially Sushi. :thumbsup: There are two Asian markets in my area one of which is a large grocery store while the other is a very itty bitty store run by an old Japanese women. The larger store has Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, etc., food products and a huge selection. The little itty bitty store is mostly Japanese products. I favor the itty bitty store since she has what I want and great service. :thumbsup:
Thankfully for food to be sold in the US it has to have ingredients labeled in English.
Because I can't read Japanese or Chinese! What has been most disturbing about my buying the Asian food is how much of even the Japanese products are made in China. There are frozen dumpling we like to get but I stopped buying them because they were from China. I would hope/think that the Japanese would be very strict on quality and cleanliness but we just stopped buying that product for now. What is worse for us Sushi lovers is the knowledge that the shrimp and BBQ eel is cooked in a factory, frozen, and ready to eat. The Sushi chief in most restaurants is NOT cleaning and filleting a big shrimp while he waits for the eel to BBQ. You can buy it frozen and ready to go. Which is good and bad.
And it is from China.
One of the fun things about my buying expeditions to the Asian stores is that I am usually the only non Asian in the market. And usually one of the few men. :laughing: The bigger store has a good gender mix but I am usually the only non Asian. One day I was on the long aisle that had a gabizzilon different sauces. Including Heinz ketchup.
I was reading the ingredient labels trying to pick out a sauce and I noticed that there were two other non Asian men on the aisle. They looked more confused than I. One of them walked over to me and asked about a certain sauce. Surprisingly I KNEW what he wanted and what to buy! Of course the other guy came over at that point to ask questions. :laughing:This just cracked me up since my "expert" knowledge was based on a couple of Asian cookbooks I had read and one in particular about Sushi that was very informative. In that book the author mentioned WHAT ingredients that were good and bad.
This one book was very good but also surprising to me. At the end of the book they had a list of places to buy Japanese food and equipment. Now those lists usually are pretty inaccurate. But in the back in actually listed the little itty bitty Japanese store!
I showed the book to the store owner and she had never heard of the book. This store is in an area of town that has quite a few ethnic restaurants and grocery stores. The area is away from most neighborhoods and is almost industrial and most people just drive buy the place. HOW the cook book found this place is a surprise to me. And the owner.I still try to stay away from the Chinese food if I can.
The Chinese Drywall lawsuits are getting interesting. It looks like some of the manufactuers knew the product was defective and so did some of the larger builders....
Just read a story about Energy Star. Basically many/some products have no proof they actually meet the Energy Star standard....
Later,
Dan
