FDA sets up China bureau to safeguard “trillions of dollars in imports”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt speaks at the opening for the new U.S. Food and Drug Administration office in Beijing , China, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration opened a new office Wednesday in China's capital, its first outside the United States, as part of a new global strategy to ensure the safety of trillions of dollars of imports.(AP Photo/ Elizabeth Dalziel) -- Caption & photo from Associated Press.

In case anyone is in any doubt about intentions to offshore North-America’s food and dairy production, here’s a chilling story from Associated Press about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration setting up a branch in Bejing.

And of course they’re cleaning up China’s dairy operations to meet world standards, or so they say.

Here’s an excerpt from the recent Associated Press story by Tina Tran:

“…Milk and milk products tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical, have been blamed in the deaths of at least three infants and have sickened more than 50,000 others. The government has detained dozens of people in the scandal, but there have been no court cases so far.

Turning raw milk into “Gouda gold”

Here’s an excerpt from a story on the San Francisco Chronicle’s “SF Gate” website about a Dutch farmer who processes his own raw milk into Gouda cheese.

Cows as far as the eye can see; clearly this is not a small scale operation.

And judging from what they say in the story it sounds like what is produced is raw milk cheese; however you’d think if that was truly the case, they’d put a little more emphasis on that aspect of the product, rather than leaving it ambiguous as to whether the milk is at some point pasteurized. But judging from the procedures detailed on the farm’s website, it does sounds like the milk is not pasteurized.

Pressed Gouda cheeses aging in refrigerated storage.

“Turning milk into cheese more than doubles the milk’s value, which is why so many dairy farmers have turned to cheesemaking in recent years. One dairyman who has successfully rerouted all his cow’s milk to cheese is Jules Wesselink of the Winchester Cheese Company, near San Diego.