Worry about Clenbuterol! More than 70% of people agree with food history

The storm over ractopamine in American beef continues to spread. In order to understand the public's open attitude towards ractopamine, the Consumers Foundation of the Republic of China released a survey data this morning on the 20th. The results showed that 75.73% of the public agreed to immediately implement a "food history" system, 74% of the public were worried about whether the meat they ate was safe, and did not agree with the import of American beef containing ractopamine; and 27% of the respondents were worried that they had no idea where the American beef containing ractopamine would go, and they could only wish for the best.

The survey results show that 73.95% of respondents are worried about the safety of the meat they eat; 75.48% do not approve of the import of American beef containing ractopamine, and another 17.92% believe that "the situation is stronger than people and we have to accept it"; if American beef containing ractopamine is really imported, 69.7% said they would not buy it, but 26.81% of respondents believe that "there is no way to know where it will flow into, there is no reason to worry, and we can only hope for the best."

The Consumers' Foundation stated that the food history is like the "birth certificate" and "identity card" of the food, which can be used to understand the food's origin, producer, medical treatment or medication, and other information about the food. The end consumer can use the traceability system to find out information about the food from the upstream to the store, that is, the process "from farm (ranch) to table", all of which can be traced.

For example, in order to combat mad cow disease, Japan once established a complete cattle production history system, which made the entire process, from breeding, slaughtering, processing to transportation, and the inspection results, public. When consumers purchase beef products at retail outlets, they can find complete information about the product by simply entering the label number attached to the product into the Internet.

The Consumer Foundation pointed out that although Taiwan has a "three controls and five cards" policy for American beef, since the related products imported from the United States have no food history, tracing the source becomes a major problem. Based on the public's right to know, the government should establish a food history system as soon as possible to thoroughly trace the source and flow of food, so as to avoid food safety incidents like mad cow disease, the "melamine" milk scandal, plasticizer-toxic food and the clenbuterol controversy, which often affect public confidence in food.

The survey was conducted by the Consumers' Foundation and the 104 Market Research Center from March 6 to 9, with an online opinion poll of 1,575 valid samples, a confidence level of 95%, and a positive or negative error of 2.47%.