Groceries!

[HowardCoombs]

See, not all Westerners can be labelled just because we don't purchase our food from the mainland.

If the shoe fits, wear it.

I did not label all westerners but there are definitely some who fit the criteria I listed in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

If it doesn't fit you then it must not be yours; move on without taking offence for something that didn't target you.

[MovingIn07]

The choice's you're making are fine for you, your money and your choices but your conclusion is down right idiotic.

WTF do you expect when you've decided that the closest source of foods (China & Taiwan) are no good for your family and you've purposefully decided to consume foods coming from far away and naturally a lot more expensive than local sources.

If you want cheap groceries in HK then change your buying habits. There is no shortage of food, inexpensive food, at your local wetmarket.

That's harsh and I know of a fair few others who choose this route too, and they are not all necessarily rich bankers. They just care about what they eat and since the OP too clearly cares what they eat, a very relevant post for her.

It is somewhat worrying the lack of food safety in China and I does concern me a little, and if I see two items labelled "Australia" and "China" that are nearly the same price, I will certainly always choose the Australian import. If the Aussie import is double the price, usually not.

[Brooklynexpat]

You're entitled to your opinion and the price it costs to pay for it.

Geez, it sure sounded like a complaint to me.
I dont care about your spending habits but when you make ridiculous statements like "I dont buy local, groceries are so expensive", on cant help but ridicule your logic.

Whether the groceries are locally produced or not they are still expensive compared to groceries in the U.S. or Japan. Obviously I see your point that local products cost less then imported products. By the way I do eat local products from HK, but not China.

[mid_gen]

Really? There's no chance I could shop in a UK supermarket and pay less than in a wet market, even if there is a little gweilo tax involved. No chance.

If I wanted to eat my UK diet then that's another matter. But the idea that feeding yourself here is more expensive than in the West is absurd.

[HowardCoombs]

That's harsh and I know of a fair few others who choose this route too, and they are not all necessarily rich bankers. They just care about what they eat and since the OP too clearly cares what they eat, a very relevant post for her.

And thats perfectly fine but their choices have cost consequences especially when their choices does not match up with local supply and demands.
Rice, local and plentiful with a lot of trade : cheap.
GrainFedBeef : raised far away and relatively low demand&production here : cheap there and expensive here.

It is somewhat worrying the lack of food safety in China and I does concern me a little, and if I see two items labelled "Australia" and "China" that are nearly the same price, I will certainly always choose the Australian import. If the Aussie import is double the price, usually not.

We are in total agreement. In my mind there is a small amount of worry about food safety but I console myself by knowing that we dont eat processed foods in our house as a general rule and buy things relatively raw. Cooking those purchases will kill most (if not all) bad things that may have been in them at one point.

[Brooklynexpat]

Err, if you post your shopping preferences in a discussion about shopping preferences, you kind of make it a topic for dicussion no?

Groceries can be very cheap here. You've clearly never been near a wet market so no surprise you have a misinformed opinion.

Personally I'll take the HK position on life expectancy rankings as proof enough that eating what locals eat isn't going to kill me.

Very true that HK men live longer then any other men Worldwide and the women have long lifespans as well. This may change considering China is now a major industrial power and the level of pollution is certainly taking a toll on the locals, healthwise. I think many of the locals eat products from HK but you have to admit that some of the products coming out of mainland China these days are quite dangerous. We have tourists from mainland China who venture into the international supermarket and start buying up products because they don't trust the products back home. Most of the locals here in HK are afraid of what is coming from the mainland as well. I guess it's all a matter of opinion.

[mid_gen]

What are these 'dangerous' products you speak of? Sounds like something I should be aware of....

[MovingIn07]

What are these 'dangerous' products you speak of? Sounds like something I should be aware of....

Melamin tainted milk is the obvious example.
Heavy metals in veggies because of water contamination.
E-coli risk due to poor hygiene and contamination.

Having said that, mad cows in the UK in the 80's were no different and I ate heaps of high risk (cheap mince) back then as I was newly graduated and poor.

[dear giant]

Our household's experience has been similar to BrooklynExpat's. Groceries are expensive if you don't eat like a local and are not interested in taking chances with from the Mainland.

We also like Australian/NZ meat and dairy.

Speaking of dairy, dairy products in HK are quite expensive compared to, say, the United States and, even if you're willing to pay more, you'll be stuck buying multiple teensy weensy packages. I haven't seen a container of fresh milk larger than a 1L carton in HK, for example, so we have to buy 3 or 4 at a time if we want to have enough milk for our coffees for more than a couple of days.

[dear giant]

What are these 'dangerous' products you speak of? Sounds like something I should be aware of....

On the slight chance that you aren't being facetious, here's a non-exhaustive list of Mainland food scandals, compiled in April 2011. It only goes back a few years, to 2008, though: isocarbophos-soaked beans, milk doped with leather-hydrolyzed protein (not melamine this time) to up its protein content, aluminum in dumplings, pork that literally glowed in the dark b/c it was host to a type of bacterium that produced glow-in-the-dark waste, clenbuterol-poisoned pork, toxic styrofoam takeaway containers (more toxic than 'regular' styrofoam containers), gutter oil, and cadmium-enriched rice.

For the full article, you can head over to: Top 10 Chinese Food Scandals

Those are just examples of what was noticed by someone and they didn't even bother including melamine-tainted milk/dairy (a recurring problem that seems as though it will never be stamped out) on the list.

Of course, you have no cause for concern, HK's diligent public servants are eternally vigilant and would never, ever allow any of that sort of stuff to end up in our food supply.