Is the food you're eating safe?

Whether it’s cancer-causing chemicals in turbot, food warnings over contaminated pork or farmers feeding banned chemicals to ducks, I’m getting sick of food scares−quite literally.

Director General of Beijing's Health Bureau Jin Dapeng recently reported that the capital city does indeed have hundred of food poisoning cases reported annually. God only knows how many more are not even reported by pepole such as myself. While it’s irritating to get laoduzi, it’s true that many of us just take it as part and parcel of life in Beijing. But food safety is a serious issue.

So what to do? Greenpeace advises us to go organic, and more companies and restaurants are hoping that consumers will indeed make the switch.

As Larry Long, the energetic manager of Lohao City, China’s first organic chain, hands out free samples of fresh soya milk, customers flow steadily through the doors. The supermarket chain, which models its operations on the United States chain Whole Foods, plans to open 20 stores in Beijing and Shanghai by the end of the year. Sure, it’s more expensive. Six organic eggs from the store’s own farm go for ¥10, while fruit and vegetables are probably double what you’d normally pay, but if it stops me from swallowing Imodium on a regular basis, that’s fine with me and an increasing number of people. Small steps though; organic food still accounts for less than .02 percent of total food production in China. And there are other problems as well.

“We have to import a lot of organic food from abroad as you can’t get things like organic pasta or soft drinks here,” Long says.

But you don’t always have time to make meals from scratch. There are a growing number of places that try to be as organic as possible. Shan Zhai may be best known as superstar minx Zhang Ziyi’s place, but the Japanese restaurant is also the first certified organic restaurant in China. Other uncertified places (the whole process of certification takes three years) include family favorite The Orchid located out in Shunyi where they grow their own vegetables. There’s also Baihe Sushi next to the Jimen Hotel in Haidian which serves up organic rice, vegetables and tea. The Italian restaurants Peter Pan in Sanlitun and Il Casale in Lido are supplied by the partially organic farm Agrilandia in Shunyi. Dalton Dorn, a regular at Il Casale, says, “Ingredients here always seem noticeably fresh to me. Try the rucola salad and you’ll see what I mean.”

But here’s the pickle: guaranteeing what’s on your plate is easier said than done. As it turns out, along with fake Rolexes and North Face jackets, fake food could be on a shelf near you. Last year, the Beijing Consumers Association warned people to watch out for fake organic food, which was estimated to account for about 10 percent of all sales of "green" food in the capital.

I guess I’ll keep on buying that Imodium just in case.