Is Apple Juice Imported From China Safe?

Photo: Darren Fisher / Istock

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Washington and New York are the top two apple producing states in the country, but even their prodigious orchards don't compare to the production from China, which now supplies 40% of the apple juice consumed in the United States.

No tainted apple juice has been discovered, though a number of foods and products from China have turned up contaminated this year, and American apple growers have long warned that China doesn't adhere to the same safety and environmental standards that the U.S. producers do. That's traditionally been an economic argument: It's tough to compete in a free market if the rules of production differ from one nation to another. But, now, it's emerging as a health concern.

The Food and Drug Administration has strict rules for juice safety, according to the Dallas Morning News, but the FDA has also proved unable to keep up with the monitoring of other imported food and drugs, leaving some doubt in the minds of many consumers.

The entrance of China into the American market in the past 10 years has been a huge worry for another reason dear to the hearts of the green legion: It's tough competing with cheap apples and juice from China, and that puts yet another stress on local farms. The juice market, particularly, hurt many growers because they lost the ability to sell apples that looked less-than perfect. (Consumers in grocery stores rarely choose blemished apples, even if they taste just as good.) In 2001, for instance, growers in New York's Hudson Valley lost most of their crop to freak hail storms, but they had trouble selling the damaged apples because the juice market was saturated with concentrate from China.

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