China to USA: $30M of substandard food

China exported 30.4 million dollars of substandard food to the USA in 2006. Wow, that's a lot of crappy food!

This information was proudly provided by China.

According to an article in the China Daily, in 2006 "the sale of Chinese food reached 3.8 billion dollars." Yep, that's a lot of food!

In a Reuters article, China whines about unfair criticism because "99.2 percent of whose food exports to the United States in 2006 met quality standards." But doesn't that mean that .8 percent was substandard?

Sort of like the disgruntled wife who prepared a nice breakfast for her husband for 4 months, but one day in the fifth month, she slips arsenic into his cereal. As he lies choking and gasping on the floor, she might say, "But dear, 99.2% of your breakfasts were fine!" Sounds nice when you put it that way, but I still don't think he would be too happy about it.

Here's one more fact you might want to consider, from USA Today: Imported food is rarely inspected. Only 1.3% of food into the USA is inpected.

How about that. Food for thought. The way things are today, this might be the only food you're likely to get that is guaranteed safe for human consumption.