
Nervous Parents In One Country Clear Supermarket Shelves In Another - septerr
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/04/26/179222522/nervous-parents-in-one-country-clear-supermarket-shelves-in-another
======
TeMPOraL
There's a common belief in Poland that the very same goods (down to
package/barcode) sold in countries west of it (Germany in particular) are much
better in quality than the ones sold domestically. It's especially common when
discussing cleaning chemicals - people believe that local products are
diluted, or sth. I don't know whether this is a case of "grass is greener on
the other side" or it is based on reality.

(And there's one exception to this I've heard of - some people believe here
that Lipton tea brought from US tastes much, much worse than one bought
locally ;)).

~~~
Swizec
That's because Lipton is _terrible_. Seriously the lowest quality and worst
tasting tea I have ever tasted anywhere.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
There is one place in the US that has a tea culture, and it's an _iced_ tea
culture. Lipton would most likely sell tea that meets that demand and let's
the rest of the tea drinkers cope than, even if it does make a cup of
something not entirely unlike tea for people who were raised on the stuff.

~~~
protomyth
Its a historical artifact. The US is the one country iced tea is consumed more
than hot tea. This dates back to the revolution and the resentment of tea
taxes that lead to coffee being the "patriot's drink". Iced tea became popular
in the 1900's.

------
hrktb
There was a very mediatised incident in Japan a few years ago [1], with toxic
substance getting into frozen food packages.

As public opinion was focused on the issue, a lot reporting got done on the
general practicies of the chinese factories in the food industry, and some of
them were having a 'low cost' line with simpler quality checks for domestic
foods, and a 'high profile' line with increased checks and attention to sanity
for goods to be exported.

A lot of it was sensationnalized I supposed, but there still seemed to be a
radically different thinking about food quality on the manufactoring side.

[1] [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2008/03/05/business/jt-
to-t...](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2008/03/05/business/jt-to-trim-
frozen-food-production-in-china/#.UXtyeMsaySM)

------
GliterZhang
I bought 20+ cans Aptamil online from an international student at a nearly
double higher price than it is in Germany supermarket last year,although my
wife gave sufficient breast milk to my son.Yes I am a nervous parent too.There
were so many babies poisoned by milk powder in China.No one really trust
manufacturers and Gov of China,even those officials themselves. You know,there
is only one market on this little planet.Those manufacturers produce best
products survive and get stronger. They can buy Gov and the Gov can deceive or
even threaten people,but what if everyone buy nothing from them?

~~~
bayesianhorse
On the other hand, probably the one safest food in China right now is probably
milk powder. People have been jailed and executed over it, and officials at
all levels have no interest in loosing face again.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
No. The milk industry is still a mess, only some scapegoats got executed.
Officials don't care about face.

But at least we've moved on from bad milk to bad bottled water.

------
ck2
Except there is no regulation in the USA.

You _think_ there is regulation but congress has defunded all inspection so it
barely happens.

That fertilizer plant that exploded was last inspected in the EIGHTIES.

It's just that lawsuits are easier in the USA so that might cause food
manufacturers to behave better.

Plus I am starting to see food and supplements now made/grown in China on the
shelves in the USA. So how much regulation you think each batch gets? I'd
guess something close to zero.

But when congress needs to fly home, well then they will fund things like air-
traffic controllers so they do not have to wait on the tarmac like everyone
else.

~~~
mistercow
>It's just that lawsuits are easier in the USA so that might cause food
manufacturers to behave better.

On the other hand, the 2008 melamine scandal in China resulted in
_executions_.

~~~
ck2
While I am against any governments executing people, it sure would be nice to
see decision making executives serve time here instead of just paying a fine.

I mean BP simply paid a fine for all the people they killed. Not one executive
even lost a night of sleep, or their vacation home. And I suspect people who
buy their products are actually paying for the fine over time, so basically
everyone but BP is paying for what they did.

~~~
newbie12
Pull yourself together, your posts are easily proven factually wrong and your
garbage posts are destroying HN.

In addition to BP's $4billion criminal settlement, BP executives were
individually indicted for manslaughter and other crimes, and many of the
subcontractors also face charges:

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/11/15/bp-n...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/11/15/bp-
near-settlement-with-us-over-gulf-spill/1706209/)

~~~
mistercow
It's pretty melodramatic to tell someone that their posts are "destroying HN",
not to mention rude. Why not just politely cite your evidence instead of
tearing someone down?

------
nwh
Buying Chinese made products has always got me a little on edge, mainly just
due to their lack of regulation. I was going to buy a reasonably well known
miniature camera recently, but was completely put off when I read a note by
some other purchasers who had somehow realised that the case of the camera
contained insane amounts of lead. I wasn't particularly impressed by the
recommendation that they're fine to use, just don't let your children touch it
and wash your hands afterwards.

Things like this seem to pop up with alarming frequency.

~~~
mhurron
Exactly what danger did you believe there would be in touching something
containing lead?

Leaded gas was done away with because you could breath in the fumes, because
the gas was, you know, incinerated and released the lead in fumes. Leaded
paint was removed from homes, not because touching the paint was bad, not
because having it was bad but because children were eating the paint chips.
Lead piping was again a problem because of drinking water with lead now in it.

So unless you were planning on inhaling or eating the camera, what danger did
you think there was from it.

~~~
nwh
Contact with lead leaves it on your skin, and people tend to pick up food with
their fingers. It was always mentioned to me at school to wash my hands after
handeling solder (which is tin + lead), and I assumed that the same would
apply here. Without doing any more research into the stuff, I would much
rather just spend a few more dollars and get one that is not going to poison
me.

------
shanev
Babies shouldn't be eating crap that comes in a package anyway. They should be
drinking breast milk, and eventually graduate to eggs (not the plastic kind)
and normal human food.

~~~
jere
I imagine you won't get much support with that comment, but you're absolutely
right.

Everyone responding to you is going to say mothers can't breastfeed. Bullshit.
Only perhaps 5% of mothers can't breastfeed because of medical conditions.
_71%_ of babies in China aren't breastfed. Do you see a discrepancy here?
Framing it in terms of being physically unable to breastfeed is disingenuous.

Among other reasons, women aren't breastfeeding because they are being
misinformed and marketed to by corporations. It really is ridiculous when poor
families who have a free way to feed their children are putting in the time
and expense to get subpar nutrition from overseas.

>However, Save the Children said in its report that a quarter of mothers in
China have received gifts from dairy companies, while 40% were given samples
of baby formula from companies including Nestle, Wyeth and Mead Johnson.

>The British group also found that 16 out of 35 food shops in six Chinese
cities had promoted breast milk substitutes through salespersons, posters or
gifts.

>Save the Children said such marketing has resulted in the percentage of
breastfeeding mothers in East Asia and the Pacific to drop from 2006's 45% to
2012's 29%.

[http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-
cnt.aspx?id=2013...](http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-
cnt.aspx?id=20130304000020&cid=1102)

>But even Wolynn, who is also a certified lactation consultant, seemed
skeptical when I related Kelly's tale -- usually women struggle because they
haven't had enough support in the first few days after giving birth, in his
experience. "Very few women really can't breastfeed," he said. "That's very,
very, uncommon." It's a "normal mammalian function," he said. Almost everyone
can do it.

<http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/03/health/medical-breastfeeding>

~~~
rayiner
He's totally not right. He's regurgitating intensely unscientific hippie
bullshit (the technical term for it is appeal to nature fallacy). See the
articles in my other post: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5618299>

> It really is ridiculous when poor families who have a free way to feed their
> children are putting in the time and expense to get subpar nutrition from
> overseas.

Breastfeeding is only free if a woman's time has no value. This is especially
relevant in poor families where women have to get back to working as quickly
as possible to help support the family.

~~~
smokey_the_bear
I'm breastfeeding my first child, who is now six months. Breastfeeding is
extraordinarily convenient and time efficient when I compare it to my friends
using formula. I can just sit down and feed him. My friends have to bring
formula, water and bottles everywhere. Then they have to mix it, and wash the
bottles. And they have less hands free while doing the actual feeding. This is
especially true at his 6 am wake up feeding, which I can do while sleeping.

I do work full time, and I have to pump twice a day. Which makes it less
convenient. But it takes less than 15 minutes each time. I'm fortunate to have
a very flexible work environment though.

It's true his father can't help with the feedings this way, but there are
plenty of chores to go around.

~~~
rayiner
We're mostly bottle feeding our 5 month old right now. She eats a lot (97th
percentile height and weight), and there is no way pumping just twice a day
would be enough. She tried to breastfeed and pump from day one, and it would
take her forever just to get a couple of ounces out.

The baby still wakes up to eat twice at night, and I take the night feedings.
It's a huge benefit for us to be able to do that, because my wife needs 6-7
hours of uninterrupted sleep to function the next day, while I don't. As for
other chores, they're trivial and easily outsourced. If I couldn't take on
some of the feedings, I just wouldn't be carrying my weight.

And for a career woman, starting out from day 1 with the husband taking a
lesser role in child-rearing is a sure way to become the primary care giver
and the one who will ultimately have to downshift if push comes to shove.

I'm glad it works for you, but it would be very inconvenient for us, and given
the tenuous medical benefits of doing so it isn't worth it to try and make it
work. And I think if doctors encouraged women, especially women with careers,
to evaluate the costs and benefits of breastfeeding rationally instead of
regurgitating highly unscientific dreck the way they do, a lot more women
would bottle feed without feeling guilty about it.

What grates on me is that a lot of people who breastfeed make other decisions
that endanger their children, totally guilt free. Living in a suburban area
where driving is a necessity and it is common for teenagers to drive is going
to have more of a practical impact on your child than whether you breastfeed
or not.

~~~
smokey_the_bear
I'm fully supportive of parents doing whatever is right for their families,
and I don't think there's anything wrong with formula.

I think that the breastfeeding advocates frequently don't mention how hard
that first month of breastfeeding is, because they think it might be
discouraging. But it is much, much harder than breastfeeding once it is
established. Even if it goes perfectly, it feels like you are chained to the
baby. To add to that, I had a lot of trouble the first two weeks, which was
incredibly frustrating. Luckily, we got to see an amazing lactation consultant
at Kaiser and it worked out.

So people start supplementing during the first month, and don't get to see how
responsive to demand lactation is once supply is established. My son is 99th
percentile, 29 inches and 22 pounds at 6 months. I pump about 18 oz a day for
him in the two sessions, and that's a slight oversupply.

It's wonderful you were able to share night duties, that part was very hard on
me. I don't think it's true that other chores are trivial though, the baby
needs constant supervision, holding, diapering, etc, which my husband does a
lot of. He also does most of the feeding of solids since we started that a few
weeks ago.

I don't really think breastfeeding is any cheaper for us though, nursing bras
and pumps are really expensive too.

------
BSousa
There was a news story last week here in Portugal saying basically the same.
Some supermarkets ran out of formula since there was a big Chinese committee
here and bought them all to take/ship home.

I also know a lot of folks that work in Angola, and whenever they come here,
they buy some products (baby formula included) like they own a boarding school
or something. 3-4 car trunks full of stuff to send over.

------
dlib
In the Netherlands, Chinese investors are building a factory to produce baby
formula that will export the baby formula back to China. There are in fact
limits to how much baby formula you can buy in Dutch supermarkets due to the
Chinese demand. I'm always amazed at how money flows, to where profits can be
made.

------
milktrust
If anyone here is qualified to facilitate testing milk powder, please get in
touch and I'll send samples from China. email milktrust@hushmail.com

I'm not going to publicly list my HN id or email. I would like to participate
in getting useful information to the public. Not just milk. If you have other
food products you can help test, I'll see what I can do to get samples.

------
vsh426
OTOH Hersheys chocolate syrup made in India (by Godrej) tastes better than the
imported US version. Don't know why, iirc the main difference in ingredients
was invert sugar in the Indian version and hfcs in the US version, or maybe
it's the quality of the other ingredients.

~~~
pyre
One Christmas we had some Hershey's Kisses from both the US and Canada. Both
tasted different. It's been a while, so I don't remember which I preferred or
what the taste difference was (i.e. if one was sweeter than the other).

~~~
mistercow
Neither of these are surprising. Hershey's makes very low quality products, so
I would expect them to use whatever ingredients are cheapest locally.

------
orr721
But the same food really IS different across borders. There was a test of
Coca-Cola published, within 8 close countries of European Union, each had
different composition (esp. type and amount of sugar):

<http://i.sme.sk/cdata/5/58/5843725/800-med.jpg>

I remember a similar test done with Milka chocolate, the content was even
different on the packaging label, only the artwork on the front was the same.

------
tenpoundhammer
This is exactly why we should be happy when the quality of life in other
countries improves, it gives those people an opportunity a chance to buy
higher quality goods and is a net benefit to importers and exporters. So I
don't want to hear "They took our jerrrrbbbs",because they will also start
providing new ones.

------
fnordfnordfnord
Of course it is illegal to poison babies in China. It was before 2008 as well.
That didn't stop greedy idiots from trying to enrich themselves by poisoning
people. It didn't stop at baby formula either. It was also discovered to be
common that milk was adulterated with melamine.

