Using new media, Chinese try out food activism

In this photo taken on May 3, 2012, Wu Heng, a Shanghai grad student, poses with his web design titled: “Zhichuchuangwai,” or “Throw it Out the Window,” a site giving daily news feeds about the latest food scandals, that underscores the deep anger in China over the country’s persistent food safety problems to the publics, in Shanghai, China. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

The Associated Press

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A iPhone application “China Survival Guide” that has a searchable database of food problems and updates daily, is shown Friday June 15, 2012 in Shanghai, China. The application and other tech tools underscore the deep anger in China over the country’s persistent food safety problems and a new willingness among ordinary people to take the matter into their own hands.

Eugene Hoshiko, Associated Press

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BEIJING — Shanghai grad student Wu Heng hadn't planned to become a food activist but he couldn't stop himself after reading a news story about cooks slathering pork in chemicals to make it look and smell like costlier cuts of beef.

Wu says he was shocked and disgusted that people were making fake beef, and decided to create a Web site so that consumers could be better informed about these kinds of scams.

Furious over nonstop food scandals, from poison milk to toxic cooking oil, ordinary Chinese are taking food safety into their own hands and getting a help from technology.

Consumers are spreading the word about the latest scares with Web sites and a mobile phone applications. The empowerment is unusual in a country where the authoritarian government discourages activism.

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