Was It Something We Ate?
Forgive me if I have to excuse myself from writing this post and sprint to my Chinese bathroom for a minute or twenty.  At least you'll know why.  The food in China is rotten.  The Asian Development Bank issued a report Monday warning China that the high incidence of tainted food here could lead to a outbreak more disastrous than SARS.  The report claims that over 300 million people in China are affected by food-related disease each year and that the cost of treating such disease is over USD$5 billion.  According to the report, "China has no basic food safety law and no legal framework to develop a structure to ensure the safety of food."  With the Beijing Olympics approaching and the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, an AFP article Monday points out how devastating a large-scale food epidemic would be.  Changing China's attitude about food safety will not be easy.  After all, this is the country that celebrates a baby's birth by eating plastic-wrapped hard-boiled eggs that have never seen the inside of a refrigerator.  And the food waiting outside of Shanghai's bars is lamb skewers that are pulled out of a hot and dirty cooler before being placed on an equally hot and dirty grill.  And then there are the dead dogs, chickens and pigs I've seen piled high in the back of pickup trucks.  The problem with preventing food sickness in China, as anyone here will tell you, is that the food is just so damn tasty.  Especially those dirty lamb sticks.  Mmmm. 

•AFP: Tainted Food Affects 300 Million Chinese a Year

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