My mother forwarded me the following email (edited for grammar, hyperbole, and unnecessary capitalization):
Want to buy US made products? Buy USA by watching for ‘0’ at the beginning of the number. We need every boost we can get! If this concerns you, this may be useful to know when grocery shopping.
Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China?
If the first three digits of the barcode are 690, 691, or 692, the product is made in China.
471 is made in Taiwan.
We have a right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the public; therefore we have to educate ourselves.
Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that some consumers avoid products made in China, so they don’t show in which country it is made.
However, you may now refer to the barcode. If the first 3 digits are
690-692…then it is made in China
00-09…USA & Canada
30-37…France
40-44…Germany
47…Taiwan
49…Japan
50…UK
Buy USA by watching for ‘0’ at the beginning of the number.
I am not interested in getting into a discussion on the geopolitical ethics of purchasing, but I am aware that there is a boycott of Israeli products in Europe (and perhaps in the US). There are videos on YouTube showing these nutcases filling shopping carts with Israeli products and leaving them in the aisles to protest the “inhumanity, brutality, and violent occupation of Palestinian lands.” I’m not sure what effect these staged “demonstrations” have on anyone, except to provide their organizers with an opportunity to exercise their lungs and their Jew-hatred on camera and by extension, on the Internet. But thanks to these fruit loops, I was able to discover the barcode indicating products made in Israel for those who wish to boycott the boycott.
Israeli products begin with 729 in the barcode. Thanks, Mom, and anyone else, for buying Israeli.
Shimshonit 
I generally support buying locally grown products but that’s only in terms of sustainability. Boycotting products is just hurting yourself and not really a useful form of protest anyhow.
Plus, this method is pretty ridiculous. A lot of merchandise is made in one nation and packaged in another or have different parts made in different countries. A soup may be cooked in Mexico but the onions may come from China and the corn come from Argentina. A shirt may be made in the USA and barcoded as such but the cloth for it is made in India. Do people never think?
Obviously I buy as many Israeli products as I can. In my favorite store, this means grapefruit juice, herbs, sweet potatoes and some kosher products in the kosher stand. In other shops a few fruit and vegetables.
The boycott doesn’t seem to affect the purchases in the smaller places – like where I live – as it is something which is advocated on the Internet only. There are no posters or anything else urging people not to buy Israeli.
girlslashwoman: Some good points about the global reality of manufacturing. Thanks.
Ilana-Davita: It’s nice you have some Israeli things available. Thanks for buying.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/barcodes.asp
snopes states that theses are where the product code was assigned not where it necessarily came from.
Except… it’s not quite true. The country code is on EAN barcodes, but most products have UPC barcodes instead (at least here in the States). And the code is the code of the country where the code was issued, which was probably the country where the company has the business office responsible for obtaining codes, but possibly not the country where the company’s HQ is and almost never the country where the product was produced (never mind the question of where its parts came from). And some products (most notably books) have codes assigned from fictitious countries such as “Bookland”.
Rhu: Bookland? Sounds like a place the Cap’n and I would love to live! There or Freedonia. Thanks for completely deflating this whole boycott/barcode thing. I bow to your greater information, as usual.
Further details about barcodes and county of origins are at snopes.com
Thank you, Larry.