Apple Juice from China?

How many of us have really checked to see country of origin on our kids' juice boxes? Hands please....yeah probably not many. While in with M's awesome Speech Therapist, Dawn Winkelmann, last week she showed me an article she found. Most of our apple juice comes from other countries. What's the big deal you ask? Well, even though I don't think our FDA does what it should to protect our food supply, it does regulate our water quality in relation to food and drink production evidently. Other countries don't regulate their water supply as much and China is reported to have the most polluted water source (including arsenic which is now found in rice from China and also apple juice). Yummy. I could not find Dawn's original article (may have been from a Speech Therapy magazine) but here are a few I did find on the subject.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/120807dnbusjuice.28107a0.html
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=1878
http://www.wri.org/publication/content/7833

I checked the only apple juice we had in the house, Fresh and Easy brand organic, yep, concentrate from China. Great. We don't give apple juice anyways, feeds yeast, and I was never big on juice for kids anyways, the whole tooth decay thing. But, he has had some....yucko.

Personally I think that outsourcing to the lowest bidder is not smart when it comes to food - milk chocolate with melamine from China anyone?? And then add in the issue with the carbon footprint and the impact on our environment by shipping all this stuff across the globe. I am reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver right now so expect a few more posts about food production/etc in the near future. I think we need to eat locally, eat in season and learn how to preserve our own foods. And most importantly, grow your own garden!!!! Then buy a juicer and make your own juices, no pasteurization which kills all the beneficial enzymes, so much healthier for you and you know exactly what is in it!