How food scandals are forcing Beijingers to search out organic alternatives

Rat meat is passed off as mutton, ginger is laced with pesticide and, more recently, rice products are found to contain high levels of cadmium, a heavy metal that causes kidney failure, osteoporosis, cancer and other conditions when ingested. On the mainland, how can you be sure that anything you put on the dinner table is safe these days?

Constant rounds of food scandals in recent years have made consumers across China suspicious and fearful of the groceries and produce that they're getting. Better-off families are increasingly seeking alternative avenues to ensure a safe supply of food.

Catherine Ho Wai-man and her husband, a telecoms executive, have lived in Beijing for nearly a decade. But in the past year, they have stopped buying fresh produce from neighbourhood markets, Ho says, recalling with a shudder how she found a suspicious white substance leaching out from the greens she had bought at a stall.

The couple, who have two young children, have since resorted to growing their own greens. In the backyard of their spacious home in the northern suburbs of Beijing, they have carved out a patch where they grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and other vegetables. When that comes to a halt during the freezing winter months, Ho shops for organic produce at high-end supermarkets instead.

"I have slightly more confidence in the produce there," she says. "But I always soak vegetables in water before cooking, and peel the fruits before eating."

For a recent dinner, Ho's nine-year-old daughter Felice Cheng helped prepare a family favourite - bean sheet rolls stuffed with dried shrimp, turnip and mushroom from Hong Kong - and stir-fried choy sum from their garden.