You talk about heath food stores and yet you post a picture of bunch of fat people shopping. LOL!

@c2d

but they are fat people shopping at a Trader Joe's - note the Hawaiian shirt clad employee, the word Joe in the background, and the impressive collection of soymilk.

It is amazing to me that despite having to ship produce all the way across the ocean, it is still cheaper to grow it in China.
Probably partially thanks to the lax rules about pesticides and the definition of "Organic".

@C2D and @surburbancowboy

I think you're both a bit confused. Trader Joe's is not a health food store, it's basically an upscale convenience store. While they do have some organic and healthy food, they are probably best known for moving cases of $2-a-bottle wine.

Don't get me wrong, I like TJ's, but a health food store it is not.

Definitely Trader Joe's is listening to the voice of the customer. Retailers don't stay in business by stocking things people don't want to buy. There's no excuse to tolerate even the slightest risk of being made ill by inappropriate ingredients, pesticides and other chemicals, or genetic modifications to foods, whether or not the food is considered "legal" or "safe" by the toady FDA. Since the FDA can't or won't force food producers and importers to clean up their act and provide foods the consumers want, consumers are forced to do the obvious -- not buy the suspect foods.

Trader Joe's and a few other groceries seem to be learning the lesson from the consumer backlash against the contaminated pet food -- many stopped buying pet food and started making their own...and never went back because our animals became so healthy on the homemade food it became obvious that either all of the food was contaminated or all of it was so inferior that it shouldn't be called "food."

Can you imagine the impact on grocer's bottom lines if very many people stopped buying the most commonly available (and profitable) processed and non-organic foods, and started making their own meals from scratch again? What if people discover that many of their health problems go away when they eat foods they can identify and control? That has the power to change both the grocery business and the so-called health care business.

It is not only a disgrace but a very serious threat to national security that we are not able to produce basic foods to feed our people and have to import it...when I was little, my mother used to force me to clean my plate saying "think of all of the starving children in China." Why are we now reliant on "starving" people to feed us? We shouldn't be. This country used to feed the world...this change is not random.

way to demagogue an issue, lifehacker. a fear of foreign products doesn't necessarily constitutes a manifestation of xenophobia. xenophobia is by definition, an irrational, or unreasonable, fear of foreigners. and while xenophobia may manifest itself as a fear against foreign goods, the case against the chinese (as a people) as the root of consumer concerns, is subterfuge. a good portion of the people who fear products from china are reasonably relying on consumer product reports not only by trusted (believe that if you want) media agencies, but the inability of the main regulatory agencies to reassure consumers that such products are anomalies in commerce. so before you start calling consumers xenophobes, pay attention to the issue at hand: fear of chinese products is largely based on the information reasonable available to everyday consumers, and the ability of market and regulatory forces to mitigate those claims, and not primarily the fear of foreigners (not in this case at least).

It's nice that a store is listening to customer concerns, but in this case it seems like they're listening to the most vocal but rather uninformed contingent. As mentioned in the post, ceasing to stock single-ingredient items isn't likely to do anything to make people safer, it'll just shut up some loudmouthed xenophobes would would be better silenced by large quantities of duct tape.

I dislike loudmouthed agitators that don't know what they're talking about more than I dislike unresponsive companies, because it's the loudmouthed, ignorant agitators that cause companies to be unresponsive in the first place.

Carey, this would be xenophobia (look up the definition please, before embarrassing yourself) only if Trader Joe's banned all outside goods. By banning a single country only, they are not xenophobic according to the definition of the word.

[m-w.com]

I have no problems buying exotic food items from the other side of the world. But I do wonder what the hell is going on when ordinary stuff that grows just fine where I live is coming from places so far away.

My supermarket regularly has fresh apples from New Zealand. And I recently saw a jar of peaches from China.

Why on earth are we importing peaches from China when peaches grow quite well in many areas of the US? Why? And apples grow almost everywhere, so why the hell ship them all the way from New Zealand? It's not even like New Zealand is a dirt poor country with cheap labor. The economics of things like this just don't make sense to me. It just seems so unnecessary.

the bottom line is that when you're buying Chinese goods, you cannot depend on them to deliver what you're paying for.

they will spend so much time lying, concealing and conniving that if they put all that effort into making a good product... they would be world-leaders in quality.

GOOD! This is not xenophobia, it's "fuck-china-ism"-- and I for one agree with it. ANY reduction in Chinese crap is welcome. And I will shop there more because of it. It doesn't matter that it's only single-ingredients. It's still a step in the right direction.

For all you who think this is terrible xenophobia, how about you tell me ONE GOOD REASON why I should trust anything from that filthy, corrupt, unregulated den of thieves. Pardon me for being a little unforgiving when it comes to my family's health and well-being, but I would NEVER trust FOOD from China after seeing how poisonous most of their non-food items are.

Can you imagine what would happen to China if the whole world just said, "BZZT! Unacceptable. Go away and come back when you can guarantee quality and guarantee no human rights abuses. Until then we're not buying any of your shit." Now that would be awesome.

@TWinter:
Your market has New Zealand apples for the same reason they have Chilean raspberries and asparagus, and South African apples: their growing seasons are reversed from ours, and with the advent of "cheap" shipping, all different kinds of fresh produce is now available at all times of the year.

It may or may not taste good, uses a whole lot of carbon to bring it to the US, and other countries' working conditions and pesticide regulations are probably more lax than ours, but all that be damned if it means we (the country) get blueberries in January.

Our society is fast becoming accustomed to eating produce out of season. This is not a good thing.

I know this seems kind of stupid to ask, but what counts as a single-ingredient item?

I always went to TJ's for their cheese selection, but other stores have surpassed them for that.

@buckus: Probably items, such as vegetables, fruits, and juices that are labeled with a country of origin.

Other products often have several component ingredients and are not required to label their country of origin, so it would be impossible to identify which ones contained Chinese ingredients or not.

Why is this xenophobia? TJ obviously has to say that there is no problem with their current products (they could be liable for selling them if they acknowledged a problem). And there's plenty of evidence that the Chinese are going to kill us with their lead disposal program. Then there's the issue of the Chinese killing our souls, with their tons of cheap, tasteless, plastic crap products...

Sorry to those who think it is xenophobic, but I am glad. With the environmental questions surrounding Chinese water and soil and with questionable oversight by their government, I refuse to buy any food grown in China (at least knowingly!)

Trader Joe's sells "organic" spinach from China. How on Earth can anything from China be organic when their water is so polluted? Besides, I don't trust China enough not to believe that when the inspectors are not looking that they are spraying pesticides on their vegetables.

I personally called Trader Joes to complain so I am glad they listened. This is not xenophobia.

Just a month ago we started looking for the country of origin on cans. We stopped buying beans labeled "made in china" at Trader Joes and started buying beans labeled "made in USA" at Whole Foods. I guess we weren't the only ones.

In our case, the "poison train" wasn't the main motivator so much as disgust at the amount of resources used to ship food half-way around the planet when the same stuff is grown forty miles away.

Oi, Consumerist! Seems inconsistent to run dozens of "Chinese Poison Train" tagged articles and then when a company makes a response to the Train you tag that article with "Xenophobia".

Also, instead of "Xenophobia" how about "responding to customer demands"?

@C2D: Trader Joe's will emphatically insist they are not a health food store.

I don't see how this is xenophobia when there is a pretty clear relation between tainted products and their origin or production in China.
I quit buying Salmon that was produced in Chile because there is no regulation on things like pesticides and malachite green in their fisheries. It has nothing to do with a dislike or distrust of Chile as a country, government or people.

Frankly I have a level of distrust of just about everything I buy that I do not have a direct knowledge about how it was produced.

@artki: I was just going to write the same thing. I totally agree that Consumerist is being a little disengenuous here.

People are perfectly happy with goods from foreign countries with track records of providing quality products. As such, they are NOT xenophobic when they refuse to buy products from a country that has constantly been in the news for dangerous and poisonous products. Those customers are practicing common sense.

This call of xenophobia is inaccurate, sensationalist, and race-baiting.

This is xenophobia. We have extensively covered the quality control issues facing China's regulatory system; however, no reasonable person would categorically condemn imports worth almost $1 trillion as poison.

"Chinese Poison Train" is a phrase we coined in jest, a handy catch-all for the damage caused by the unbridled profit motive's introduction to rapidly industrializing markets. Just because a company claims to be responding to the Chinese Poison Train does not automatically make their response reasonable.

We have always advocated for a reasonable response: policy makers need to erode the profit motive that drives corrupt manufacturers in any nation. Whether that involves increased inspections, a revamped domestic regulatory system, or trust in the free market is a conversation being played out in Washington, one that we continue to cover.

Trader Joe's has chosen to placate their xenophobic customers. They have no problem with Chinese-made products - and as we wrote, their decision will keep a slew of Chinese goods on the shelf. It's great that Trader Joe's is responsive, but that doesn't make their response right. Shutting off foreign trade and crawling into a protectionist cave accomplishes nothing.

Carey, wtf? Eliminating Chinese goods is not the same thing as "shutting off foreign trade." You are not making sense on that soapbox.

I don't generally read labels for country of manufacture. But I am concerned that China seems to play fast and loose with ingredients and oversight there for many products seems to be lax. However, I do like their punishment response for the head of Food Safety who got convicted of taking bribes to certify products without testing - execution. We should consider similar punishment here for a variety of the big crooks in big business! That might send a lesson to get on the straight and narrow.

btw: Has anyone else noticed that many TJ products have had significant price increases over the last 6 months? For example, roasted sunflower seeds increased form $1.29 to $1.49/lb recently. That's about 15%.

@Carey: No its not. Did you not read the dictionary link I gave you?

[m-w.com]

Again, for this to be xenophobia, TJ and its customers would have to ban all non-domestic goods, which they are NOT doing. Therefore it is *NOT* xenophobia.

Get a grip, Carey.

Okay, so for the United States to have so many Chinese people, so many ethnic stores, full of produce and materials from China, how come everyone is so willing to blame the 'poison train'. Everywhere on this forum I see 'the Chinese did this' or 'those chinese'. Well excuse me, i'm Chinese and I've never put lead in toys or put chemicals in toothpaste.

The trend I'm starting to see is this anti-Chinese sentiment when it is not the Chinese who are the problem, it is bad business practiced by individuals who happen to be Chinese. It is disturbing to me to hear all of these thoughts.

It's starting to get aggravating, this assumption that the Chinese are responsible somehow as a whole people group, for the recent problems, and though I am American, I feel that a reflection on "Chinese" in general who have brought about these problems is a reflection and a statement about what certain people here feel about Chinese people as a whole, that we're a bunch of baby poisoners.

Yeah, China has problems. Yeah, there is a culture of cheap goods made cheaply, and it's a problem. But I am actually kind of offended at Trader Joe's decision - there is no PROOF that ALL single-ingredient goods shipped from China are contaminate in some way. To pull them off the shelf is to make assumptions about the Chinese companies involved.

@CoffeeCup: Nobody is blaming all Chinese for the problem. Who said this?

American consumers simply understand that there is a problem with many of the imports into their country from China. I'm sorry if you misconstrue this as to somehow blaming you and every single other Chinese person, but no such statement was made or implied.

Me Chinese, Me Pray Joke. Me Put Poison in Capitalist Pig's Coke!

@tadowguy:
HOW old are you?

All this argle-bargle about a few "chemicals" and "lead" in the food we get from our "strategic partners",the (Red as a baboon's ass) Chinese...Talk about fighting the last war ! While you are looking under your beds for bad juju in your chop suey, the bigger problem is the millions of crappy,low quality automobile tires that are on the road right now that come from the people's republic...Thats right boys and girls,these things will seperate at 70 miles and hour on the interstate and (if you survive the resulting crash),you're gonna get a object lesson in just how much you are worth to a big American company that "outsourced" the manufacture of their product to save a few NICKELS (the margin on tires is really that low)...I don't cars what "brand" is on the side, find out where that tire is made and if it is anyplace that you can't criticize the government,don't buy the damn things...

@CoffeeCup:

Way to prove my point that this article is inaccurate, sensationalist race-baiting.

To be xenophobic, Trader Joe's would have to ban ALL foreign goods, not just goods from one country. They did NOT do that and as such, are NOT xenophobic.

If you insist on sensationalist race-baiting, then at least use an accurate term to insult your opponents.

My wife works at TJs and she said "we have customers who refuse to buy things because it 'might' come from china"

Now that's fantastic. New reason for TJ's to increase their price. NO MO CHEAP CHINES LABOR!!!

Imagine a butcher, Sweeny Todd, who has a thriving business. It comes out that a small portion of his offerings are human flesh.

Word gets out, resulting in no one wanting to buy any meat from Sweeny.

Sucks to be Sweeny. Perhaps he shouldn't have let his standards slip in other areas; then people would have been happy to buy his chicken and beef.

Same situation with China. Regrettable, and probably most of their stuff isn't poisoned. Too bad. Enough was that any reasonable person would rather buy elsewhere. No sympathies whatsoever.

It's AWESOME that TJs listens. I'll buy more there because of it.

This is a bit ridiculous. If people don't want something, they don't have to buy it. A better response would be to clearly label the country of origin on all products TJ sells. That way when the xenophobe target of the day changes TJ doesn't have to lift a finger.

@Darren666 @XopherMV: Xenophobia is the fear of anything foreign, not everything foreign.

[i]This is a bit ridiculous. If people don't want something, they don't have to buy it. A better response would be to clearly label the country of origin on all products TJ sells. That way when the xenophobe target of the day changes TJ doesn't have to lift a finger.[/i]

That's not a very adequate response. Yes, I "don't have to buy it", but I [i]will[/i] have to go elsewhere to get those products, and might decide to save myself the extra trip and only shop at the other store. That's what TJ fears.

Country of origin labeling has been the LAW in the US for 5 years. However, the Bush administration has refused to implement it. I do not buy anything without checking country of origin, and will not buy anything if it has Chinese content. This is not xenophobia on my part--I've lived on three different continents--rather, it is my disgust at many Chinese practices, from repression in Tibet and other places, slave labor, high pollution, worker exploitation, lack of regard for the environment, censorship, etc., ad infinitum. Good for Trader Joe's!

@EtherealStrife: No, in this context, anything and everything are interchangeable. You could hardly say you fear foreign things if you only feared things from one country.

A more correct term would be something like "Chinophobia".

@descend: You've nailed it on the head. Adequate response. What is an adequate response? Do we want to adequately appease the xenophobic masses, or do we want to adequately protect them? The two are not the same. TJ knows these people are nutjobs, but they also know they have to do something or risk losing those from the dregs of the gene pool. To truly do something other than grocery theater TJ would have to implement actual quality control, on a product by product basis. They already do this to an extent, but the xenophobes can't be concerned with silly "facts". Hence the theatrics.

@Darren666: "You could hardly say you fear foreign things if you only feared things from one country."
That's exactly what you could say. Look it up.

@EtherealStrife: I did look it up and your interpretation is not what it means.

If you do not fear all things foreign you are not a xenophobe. If you only specific outside groups, you are not xenophobic, you are only phobic.

The comment system ate part of my comment because it looked like HTML. I'll try again:

If you do not fear all things foreign you are not a xenophobe. If you only specific outside groups, you are not xenophobic, you are only name-of-outside-group phobic.

Unfortunately, people routinely engage in corruption of langauge because of poor understanding of the mechanics.

Again, one cannot apply a term that specifies a fear of all things to only mean you fear one group.

Xeno - foreign or strange
phobia - fear

xenophobia - fear of things foreign or strange

if Bob fears things from china but not from, say britan, argentina, or anywhere else, the statement that Bob is xenophobic is incorrect because Bob's lack of fear of of some things foreign would contradict the term.

I do not agree with the blanket ban on Chinese goods and I think it represents a misinformed and reactionary opinion, however, the term xenophobia cannot possibly apply here unless Trader Joe's is getting rid of all foreign products.

@Darren666: By that definition xenophobia could not possibly exist. The air we breath is not contained within the confines of our nation, nor is our water supply. Any xenophobes (by your interpretation) would be dead.

Calling this Xenophobic is pretty biased. Shouldn't Trader Joe's be hailed for leading the consumer industry towards a higher standard? Complain about the Chinese poison train and then complain about Trader Joes. Ugh.

Oh please. Every time there is a "Chinese Poison Train" recall, there are at least a dozen comments complaining about shoddy Chinese manufacturing and agriculture policies. How many commenters vowed not to buy Mattel products this holiday season? A store FINALLY decides to listen to consumers and ban Chinese imports and suddenly they are labeled xenophobic. Make up your damn minds.

Im sorry if this seems slightly off topic, but I can never get over how funny it is that we so openly trade with Communist China, but wont trade with Cuba because they are Communists.

But hey, as long as the majority of our national debt is owed to China, you better just eat those lead filled foods and smile like you like it!

:P

the Chinese have a huge international inferiority complex that gets played out on many, many levels. why is it that China is trying to land on the moon and more developed and reasonable countries like Japan and S. Korea could care less?

therefore any criticism of China will short out some people's logic centers, those who believe that China is paradise on Earth and its people are infalliable.