WHEN BEIJING electrician Lu Bing shops for vegetables, he picks those with blemishes. 'If I buy tomatoes, I check that they're fresh, but I also check that they have some spots on them,' he says. The 52-year-old believes imperfections indicate that the produce isn't loaded with excessive pesticides and insecticides. 'I care about my health and I don't want to swallow chemicals,' he says.
If the recent series of food scares has Hong Kong people feeling anxious, consider the lot of consumers such as Lu who have to contend with the mainland's countless food scandals.
The Health Ministry reports 29,660 people were affected in 1,481 food poisoning incidents in 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available. But under-reporting is endemic and there is no statistical input from 12 provinces and autonomous regions, which represent one third of the country. One mainland food safety expert estimates that the true number is 200 to 300 times higher, with many cases caused by the use of toxic chemicals or by unhygienic agricultural and packaging processes.
Fears over food safety have spawned a small organic food movement on the mainland. But its roots are shallow even if it is growing, and further expansion is hindered by lack of quality control and bureaucratic muddling.
The high cost of organic foods generally puts them beyond the reach of ordinary mainlanders. Still, people such as Lu have found a solution of sorts. The self-taught safe-food warrior spends his weekends visiting farms around Beijing, checking what farmers are using on their crops. 'You can go to a supermarket now and spend 2.50 yuan on an organic cucumber, or you can find out for yourself what's in the food, like I do,' he says.
Lu even visits wholesale markets to observe what pesticides the growers are buying. 'If you know what you're doing, you can really find out a lot about what you're putting into your mouth,' he says.
