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It all begins with an apple

Ordinarily I’m not a fan of government meddling, but sometimes I am ready for a regulation requiring products made in whole or part in China to be labeled as such. Poisoned toothpaste, animal food, infant formula, building products that rot and emit toxic fumes, and now deadly children’s jewelry indicate — as if we needed any reminder — the low value placed on business ethics and human life among that country’s governing institutions.

Of course the problem with such regulation is that it leads to clever evasions, and then more regulation, and so on and so on, all because people can’t be trusted any more than, well, human nature. The latest cadmium scare is a consequence, in fact, of U.S. prohibitions on lead in children’s jewelry. So it certainly would be nice if American companies could be trusted to be vigilant — or at least forthcoming – about their outsourcing.

With that said, I predict sooner or later we’ll see a scandal involving apple juice, 60 percent of which in America comes from Chinese producers. And then it will be katy bar the door on regulation, because Americans don’t cotton to their apple juice being fiddled with.

In case you’re wondering, Musselman’s is the only major apple juice provider I know of that guarantees its product is 100 percent American-made. I’d be happy to learn of others. I never thought I’d get animated about something being American-made, but there you go.