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Beijing Officials: Olympic Food Will Be Safe Because We're Using Technology!

from the the-answer-to-all-our-prayers dept

Tue, Aug 7th 2007 6:28am — Mike Masnick

There have been a number of food safety problems coming out of China lately, and it's no wonder that this has officials in Beijing more than a little on edge about the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It's amusing, though, to see Olympic officials explain that the food during the Olympics will be safe because of technology. It's as if they only need to say that they're using technology to keep people safe and everyone will automatically assume it's so. However, the details simply suggest that this is just for the logistics aspect. They'll be tracking where food goes, but that doesn't mean they'll be doing anything to make sure the food is really safe. At the same time, why should there be any difference in emphasis over the safety of the food used for the Olympics as opposed to the safety of food in general? If anything, this announcement sounds more like officials trying to calm any worries by invoking the magic word "technology," rather than taking real efforts to improve the safety of Chinese products.

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Filed Under: beijing, food, olympics

15 Comments

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Omnistop, 7 Aug 2007 @ 6:51am

That's like sayin' Mad Cow Disease won't get you 'cause we're eating sheep. Leave it to China to say something completely backwards. Hey Beijing how 'bout puttin the horse before the cart?
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CmdrOberon, 7 Aug 2007 @ 7:29am

BSE
> That's like sayin' Mad Cow Disease won't get you 'cause
> we're eating sheep.

Or it's like saying BSE can't happen in the US because
we test a statistically insignificant number of animals
and have shown that there aren't any cases.
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Ajax 4Hire, 7 Aug 2007 @ 7:35am

Your votes are safe because we use technology.
we use Diebold Voting Machine technology!
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dorpus, 7 Aug 2007 @ 7:37am

By the way
It snowed yesterday in Beijing. Could Chinese weather scientists make it snow during the olympics so there won't be rotten food?

http://www.recordchina.co.jp/group/g10302.html
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2007 @ 8:04am

Wow...
the Great Firewall is so powerful that it can protect the food supply as well? Awesome...
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James, 7 Aug 2007 @ 8:22am

Hmmmm...
..lets hope the same company in charge of the pet food dibocle isn't in charge of the human food. DOH!
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JS Beckerist, 7 Aug 2007 @ 8:31am

how else?
Unsafe food = cheaper food. How else do you propose to feed billions of mouths?

...I mean...they HAVE to, right? It's the absolute core of their government's philosophy to distribute evenly......right? So, if you can't afford to distribute good food to everyone, and you can't philosophically afford to distribute good food to some...you HAVE to distribute bad food to all......RIGHT?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2007 @ 9:10am

Re: how else?
Watch your tongue! You may be on to their clever scheme to "remedy the overpopulation" problem.
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James Calvin, 7 Aug 2007 @ 9:20am

Who care?
I can hear it in my sleep: "Who care they die, I make twenty cent!"

I would be amusing if it were just the Chinese, but this has been a problem since forever in all cultures around the planet. The only preventative is extremely harsh punishment for such practioners and even then it still pops up regularly.
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JGM, 7 Aug 2007 @ 9:43am

Whaddaya want?
This post strikes me as an unfair interpretation of the actual content of the article. What would you propose to assure food safety in this situation? The focus of the article is on the labeling/logistics plan to assure that the food delivered into the athletes' village is a known quantity, and the process described seems eminently reasonable. There is less focus in the article on the original source of the food but that doesn't mean there isn't any work being done there. Technology may not be the panacea to all problems, but it has appropriate applications.
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chris (profile), 7 Aug 2007 @ 9:56am

step one:
stop selling food in public toilets.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2007 @ 10:11am

"Although most athletes will eat specialized diets provided by their own team officials, Olympic organizers have also promised to test food samples on mice, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported recently."

They will bring some mice to your table to take the first bite. If the mouse stays alive for 5 minutes, it's good to eat.
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Daddy, 7 Aug 2007 @ 10:45am

Re: Whaddaya want?
wow, that was a whole lot of meaningless ramblings. thanks for wasting 1 min of my life on it :(. there was no unfair interpretation of the article at all whatsoever. what you merely did in your post here is make assumptions that things are being done that they did not address to the general public. now don't you think they would've wanted to outline ALL the precautions they're taking to ease the concerns of all involved rather than be so vague as to say satellites are watching the truck drive this food to the olympians? their description of their precautionary methods was very questionable and as such, it should certainly be questioned.

as far as your last sentence, not sure where you were hoping to go with that, but again it seems to be meaningless ramblings. big words aren't gonna make you sound any more intelligent guy. you're trying to defend a p*ss-poor description of a countries methods to protect people. my question to you, as well as to beijing would be why was there NOT any description of what precautionary measures are being taken on where and how the food is grown and processed rather than simply how it's being shipped?
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JGM, 7 Aug 2007 @ 12:52pm

The blog entry accused them (Chinese officials in charge of this stuff) of deliberately misleading people into thinking the situation was safer than it is by applying "technology" as a magic concept. Given that this is the subject of the article I'm not sure what the gripe is (and the article does, in fact, talk about efforts beyond the tech including pork farming -- no computer chips there -- and restaurant inspections).

My intent is not to defend China, but to point out some of the knee-jerkiness that seems to prevail here in place of critical thought: if it's China, it's bad. If it's a big corporation, it's bad. If it's the RIAA, it's bad (well, okay, I agree with that one).

So sorry about all the "big words", by the way: what got you, "panacea"? No, it's not the thing that came out of your mom after you did.
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eric dune, 16 Mar 2008 @ 2:51am

propaganda parrots
People in the west have no original thought, just propaganda parrots.
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