Using new media, Chinese try out food activism

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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