Not in Hong Kong anyway. A recent Greenpeace study on vegetables available at leading supermarket chains Wellcome and Park N' Shop demonstrated that the veggies they were selling to hapless consumers had pesticide levels well in excess of recommended limits, and used banned substances such as DDT.

The unspoken, shocking thing about this, of course, is that most consumers go to those supermarkets because they think that the beans and tomatoes there are somehow 'cleaner' and less 'local' that the produce on hand at the wet markets. But a Wellcome choi sum offering, for instance, had 240 times the EU limit on pesticides, and other fresh veggies offered by both stores were tainted by up to 5 different pesticides that act like a 'cocktail effect' that can multiply their effects by up to 100 times. All this produce is naturally coming from China.

Aside from prompting questions of why people on the mainland aren't just dropping dead (and in the countryside, many are), is there really any way local consumers can stop poisoning themselves? In the short-term, aside from the option of paying megabucks for a Japanese radish or a Dutch tomato, there really aren't any foolproof methods. One hopes though that China will eventually impose some sort of standards for their agricultural exports, and failing that, that Hong Kong perhaps needs to set one up for imports to set its citizens' minds at ease.