Over spoiled milk

So it seemed that the repercussion of the tainted milk scandal in China is becoming more far-reaching that anyone has first thought..

First it was the baby formulas which had cost the lives of 4 infants and sickened tens of thousands in China, then it was milk-related products that were caught in this scandal... No adult has been made sick, but that doesn't mean that melamine hasn't been ingested by them/us and will not manifest in other harmful ways in future, unknown to them/us at this time..

So far, dairy goods laced with tainted Chinese exports have been found in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore and Japan. A dozen of Asian and African nations have banned Chinese dairy products including European Union, South Korea, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Burundi, Gabon, Malaysia and Tanzania..

Just this morning news broke about the affected Cadbury Eclairs sold in Australia together with the news of recall of chocolates in Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The production of, my favorite candy, White Rabbit Creamy Sweets (大白兔奶糖) had ceased almost 2 weeks ago as it contains 45% dairy and has been taken off the shelves around Asia and Britain.. The recent problematic products include, but not limited to, baby cereal(Heinz baby cereal) and Silang House steamed potato wasabi crackers in Hong Kong, and snack foods, cream buns, meat buns and creamed corn crepes in Japan...

In a way, a lot of what we eat contains ingredients made from dairy products.. Not counting fresh milk, homogenized milk, skimmed milk, milk powder, condensed milk and any other products that have the word "milk", there are many more.. chocolates, coffee products (unless it is black or uses creamer), ice-creams, snacks, cereals, yogurts, candies, biscuits, curry products (some uses milk instead of coconut milk), potato crackers, rice balls, and many more...

This contamination scandal erupted because the producers put too much melamine into the milk, but how can we be sure that they haven't been messing around with the amount of melamine before this? Isn't it possible that they have been putting X amount of melamine for n-years and only recently did they put in X+1 amount of melamine that had triggered the kidney stones? Who can be sure that this is not the case for other high-profit products, not just from China but any food producing companies??

Aren't we all familiar with the presence of high pesticide vegetables, herbicide-laced fruits, hormone-injected poultry, meat from unhealthy animals, low-grade substitutions claiming to be otherwise, products with extended expiry dates or no expiry dates, fake produce, and many others?? There has to be a strong sense of credibility and integrity in the parts of these food companies and governments should be able to be depended on to safe-guard and ensure the quality of the food on our dining tables.. We, as citizens and consumers have the power to punish both if they failed in their roles.. We can boycott the former's products and let their shares plummet in the free market.. We can use our rights to vote and protest to let the latter know what we expect from them..

But for now, what we can do is to rely on ourselves to read and scrutinize the ingredients of everything we eat.. This will also be a good time to start changing our eating habits by cutting down our consumption of processed foods and try to eat healthily and naturally.. Or at least make an effort to..

After all, we are what we eat...