吃的難題....老外在中國

一位大約20年前曾在中國學習過的朋友告訴我，他父親來中國時，除了白煮蛋什麽都不吃。無論早餐、中餐還是晚餐，他都隻是一個雞蛋解決。這位父親對自己周圍的食品全不信任，尤其是農產品，因為當時人們都說中國普遍使用未經處理的生活汙水澆莊稼。

當這位朋友向我說起這件事時，我們都對他父親的損失樂不可支。雖然這看似是件極端反應過度的荒唐之舉，但在中國，要確定你和家人能吃什麽可不是輕鬆的事。難就難在你搞不清楚什麽食品是安全的，什麽不安全；不知道合理關注健康和神經過敏之間的界限在哪裏。

在中國，你花很少的錢就能像個皇帝一樣享用各種美食，這裏食品品種繁多、供應充足。從家騎車10分鍾，我就能到附近一個小村子裏采購蔬菜和水果，小販們常常把運貨的拖拉機一停，就地做起生意來。就算買很多，花費也難得超過5美元，除非你買從南方運過來的熱帶水果。雖然這樣的采購讓我很開心，但我也不禁疑心起到那裏買東西是否安全和明智來。我還懷疑我們是否對飲食問題有足夠的重視，從家裏阿姨為我們燒的排骨到我上周六招待客人的烤雞，甚而至於我們在中國各處餐館裏享用過的一道道美食，細想之下似乎都難保安全。

最近，有關中國出口美國的某些食品據查受到汙染的新聞成了人們談論的一個熱點話題。實際上，並非隻有外國人才關注食品安全問題。中國當地媒體就跟蹤報導過在鹹鴨蛋裏發現違禁添加劑蘇丹紅的事，還有報導說，去年夏天北京有160人在食用福壽螺後發生食物中毒。官方媒體新華社最近報導，中國政府即將實施一項加強食品和藥品安全管理的五年規劃。

不過，我的頑固本性使我對那些負麵報導大多充耳不聞，還是固守自己的老習慣，那樣我會覺得很舒服。畢竟，美國也存在食品安全問題，去年秋天的大腸杆菌疫情就曾使數百名美國人染病。我對有些人在自己該吃些什麽方麵花費太多心思一直不以為然，因此在飲食問題上也從無禁忌。我在選擇食品時喜歡把決定權交給嘴巴、肚子和心理感覺，而不是大腦。但目前看來，食品安全已經日益成為一個我無法回避的問題，這一點從日常生活中就能察覺。

在中國生活的一些外國人盡量不喝中國啤酒，因為幾年前在一些中國啤酒中發現了甲醛。這個問題現在似乎已經解決了，中國名牌青島啤酒以及北京人愛喝的燕京啤酒的生產廠家都否認在釀酒過程中使用了甲醛。雖然有些人覺得還是小心為妙，但我從未放棄25美分一瓶的中國啤酒帶給我的享受。

但我確實已決定不再喝中國本地產的牛奶了，因為一位從事中國乳品行業谘詢工作的朋友去年對我說，中國的牛奶問題太多，他家現在隻喝從澳大利亞和新西蘭進口的超高溫消毒牛奶。自那以後我們家也這樣做了，不過我們現在也會購買幾種中國名牌牛奶，據說它們的質量較有保證。

我還在考慮是否要全部或部分改吃有機食品，北京有幾個地方賣這類食品。它們比普通食品要貴很多，但至少你在北京能夠買到，而在中國其他地方就不一定有這個條件了。

居住在深圳的美國人查理•金鮑爾(Charlie Kimball)一直在為尋找有機食品而發愁，當地一家沃爾瑪超市曾短暫出售過這類食品。而對金鮑爾和他的日本妻子來說，有機食品斷貨隻不過是他們在飲食問題上碰到的又一件倒黴事而已。

金鮑爾說：“大約四、五個月前，我在香港媒體看到一則報導說，深圳的一種魚已被禁止輸港，原因是有汙染。”他說，兩天後他在深圳本地媒體也看到了這條消息，這讓他們對海鮮也徹底喪失了安全感，他們一直很喜歡吃，可現在誰知道裏麵都有些什麽不安全的東西。

聽到這話，我開始覺得以前沒有更關心食品問題是個錯誤，因此開始向一些我看重的美食家們征詢意見，想看看他們如何看待這個問題。我首先給Lisa Minder-Wu打了電話，她是一位在北京住了13年的美國人，她的果園餐廳(Orchard)是我最喜愛的餐館之一。她自己在溫室裏種植綠葉蔬菜和香草，還有一個大果園，裏麵種植有機水果。我知道她是提倡新鮮的有機食品的，因此預計她可能會提醒我重視食品安全，沒想到她對大多數人擔心的食品安全問題卻並不怎麽在意。

Lisa對我說，如果你從那些小販手裏買了少量種植的蔬菜水果，隻要仔細清洗，也不會有什麽大問題，人們對中國食品的擔心是過慮了。她說：“人們往往錯誤地認為中國所有的東西都不好。我認為在美國小鎮超市裏常見的那些東西並不新鮮，它們大多食之無味，可能也含有大量農藥成分。”

而美籍華人Lejen Chen卻不這麽看。這位單太太貝穀麵包房(Mrs. Shanen's Bagels)的老板娘與她在北京土生土長的丈夫單恩是北京有機食品消費圈子裏的核心人物。

Lejen Chen對我說，雖然中國的食品存在很多問題，但這也是個全世界普遍存在的問題。對她來說，不是要在進口和國產食品之間作選擇，而是要選擇那些以可持續方式生產的有機農產品，遠離那些以工業化方式生產的農產品。

她隻買有機豬肉；她從不吃雞肉，因為對質量信不過。她和丈夫當初創辦有機農場隻是為了滿足他們自己和餐館的需要，不過，農場的規模現在正越來越大。這對夫婦本周剛收獲了他們的頭茬麥子，接下來就可以自己加工有機麵粉了。

初次參觀他們的農場我就動了成為其會員的念頭，雖然每年的會員費要高達1000美元。幾位有機食品專家都向我誇讚這家農場，他們還向我介紹了其他幾處生產有機食品地方，並介紹了一些他們以可持續方式進行農業生產的項目。中國的食品安全情況似乎或多或少正在好轉。

為了對這一問題能有更多了解，我給一位多年來一直向中國農業部門提供谘詢的美國農業專家打了電話。這位專家在從事幫助中國農業生產達到西方標準的工作。

他對我說：“我對這類問題的回答取決於我的心情，還有我是否想讓什麽人(包括我自己)為我們所有人作出的決定感到後悔，包括是否該在這裏生活。”他家裏不吃魚，用他的話說，一看到餐桌上的魚，他就會聯想起魚塘的汙濁環境。

他對中國的農產品及農業水源的清潔問題感到擔心。他大多隻購買進口的家禽，認為這類家禽的藥物殘留會少些。他一般不買加工食品，尤其是中國工廠加工的食品，因為這裏的質量控製和監督工作更糟糕。

不過，他和家人還是吃了很多中國出產的水果、蔬菜和肉類。畢竟，我們兩人都覺得，如果你認為一個地方什麽東西都不能吃，那你還能住在這樣的地方嗎？

顯然，有關中國的食品安全問題並沒有一個明確答案。朋友們對我說，許多問題爭來爭去最後都得不出明確答案，其實，哪些問題值得爭論都沒人能說清楚。

Alan Paul
----------------(英版)

Balancing Food Safety With Eating Enjoyment


A friend who studied in China almost 20 years ago told me that his father refused to eat anything other than hard-boiled eggs when he came for a visit. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, he peeled and ate an egg. He didn't trust any of the food around him, particularly fearing produce because of the then-said-to-be-widespread practice of fertilizing crops with untreated human sewage.

When my friend told me that story, we had a good laugh at his fathers' expense. It still seems like an absurdly extreme overreaction, but deciding what to eat and feed your family in China is no laughing matter. It is not easy to decipher what is safe and what is not, or where to draw the line that crosses from healthy concern to obsessive neurosis.

You can eat like a king very cheaply here and there is an abundance of great and different food available. I can ride my bike 10 minutes to a small village and fill up bags with fruits and vegetables from small local vendors, often selling from the back of tractors. You have to try hard to spend more than five dollars, aiming for tropical fruit 'imported' from Southern China. It's an experience I enjoy on every level and yet I have begun to question the wisdom and safety of it. I also wonder if we give enough thought to our entire diet, from the spare ribs our ayi cooks to the chicken I barbecued and served guests last Saturday and including the many great restaurant meals we have enjoyed all over China.

Contaminated Chinese food products imported to the U.S. have been in the news lately. And it's not just foreigners who are concerned. Local news reports have followed cases of people ingesting banned red Sudan die in salted red-yolk eggs, and 160 Beijing residents were poisoned last summer after eating snails. The state Xinhua news agency recently reported that the government is launching a five-year plan for food and drug safety administration.

Still, my gut instinct is to stick my head in the sand and continue with my habits, which make me quite happy. After all, it's not like there are no concerns in America, as witnessed by the E coli outbreak that sickened hundreds of people last fall. I also have always been impatient with people who spend too much time obsessing over what they're ingesting, which is why I could never maintain a kosher, vegan, Atkins or other strictly proscribed diet. I like to lead with my mouth, belly and heart rather than my head. But it feels more and more like food safety is something I simply have to confront. And it's not like I needed the headlines to know that.

Some expats avoid drinking Chinese beer because it was found to contain formaldehyde a few years ago. That problem has apparently been solved, and national brew TsingTao and Beijing favorite Yanjing have both denied using the stuff in their brewing process. Some people don't like to take chances, but l have not given up my 25-cent liter bottles.

I did, however, decide to pass on local milk after a friend who was here advising the fast-growing dairy industry last year told me that there were enough problems that he served his own family UHT milk from Australia and New Zealand. We have done the same ever since and we now also have the option of several premium local brands said to have better quality control.

I have also contemplated switching wholly or partially to organic produce, which is available from several places in Beijing. You pay quite a premium but at least we have the option, which is not available to people living in other parts of China.

Charlie Kimball, an American living in Shenzhen, has struggled to find organic produce, which was briefly available at a local Wal-Mart. Its disappearance was just another food setback for Mr. Kimball and his Japanese wife.

'Four or five months ago I saw a note in the Hong Kong press that they had barred shipment of a particular type of fish from Shenzhen because it was contaminated,' says Mr. Kimball. 'Two days later, I saw the announcement here. That was the final straw for us in terms of buying seafood, which we really like; you just don't know what is in it.'

I was starting to feel bad that I wasn't more cautious about what we ate so I sought out the opinions of some food people I respect to see how they were feeling. I first called Lisa Minder-Wu, an American who has lived in Beijing for 13 years and owns the Orchard, one of my favorite restaurants. She grows her own greens and herbs in greenhouses and tends a large orchard of fruit trees in an organic manner (they can't be certifiably organic because of their previous stewardship). I know her to be an advocate of fresh, organic food and expected her to sound the alarm but she was largely dismissive of most peoples' food concerns.

'I think if you shop from small producers and clean things carefully, the local produce is very good and concerns about the food here are overblown,' she told me. 'People often wrongly assume anything Chinese is bad. I think American produce commonly found in small-town supermarkets is not fresh, usually tasteless and probably drenched in pesticides.'

Lejen Chen has a somewhat different take. The Chinese-American is the owner of Mrs. Shanen's Bagels bakery and restaurant. She and her Beijing-native husband Shan En are at the center of the city's organic food community.

'There are a lot of problems with food in China, but it's a universal problem too,' Ms. Chen told me. 'For me, the choice is not between imported and Chinese products but in favor of organic, sustainable agriculture over conventional industrial agriculture.'

She only buys organic pork and won't eat chicken because she doesn't trust it. She and Mr. Shan have started their own organic farm, a project launched largely to feed her family and service her restaurant but which keeps expanding. They harvested their first wheat crop this week, allowing them to begin milling their own organic flour.

A visit to the farm had me contemplating a membership, even at the very high cost of about $1000 U.S. per year. Several organic experts toured the farm with me and they told me about other places where one can get organic produce and new sustainable agriculture ventures they are launching. Things seem to be changing here for the better, at least on the margins.

Hoping to shed some more light onto this murky situation, I called an American agricultural expert who has consulted with Chinese farms for years, to help bring them up to Western standards.

'My answers to these types of questions depend on the mood I'm in and whether or not I want to put anyone -- myself included -- on a guilt trip for the decisions we all make, including that to live here,' he told me. His family won't eat fish, he said: 'When I see fish on a table I wonder what polluted body of water he came from.'

He worries about the cleanliness of local produce and the farmers' water sources. He mostly buys poultry from exporters because he thinks they have less drug residue. He tries to avoid processed food in general, but he's especially leery about anything made in a Chinese factory, where there is less quality control and inspection.

Still, he and his family eat plenty of Chinese meat, fruits and vegetables. After all, we both agreed, you really shouldn't live in a place if you don't feel you can eat anything there.

Obviously, the clarity I craved doesn't really exist. 'There are a lot of questions you can debate, with no clear answers,' my friend told me. 'Actually, it's not even clear which ones are worth debating.'

Alan Paul

--------------http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20070608/exp173205.asp?source=special

[無忌哥哥]

關鍵還是生活太好，可選的太多，讓他們過過困難日子，啥都吃了。

[cchere]

二十年前中國人用大糞澆菜，最有機。