Walk around any grocery store and look at what's for sale. Lots of colorful boxes
and bags – but what's in them? Who grew the food and what happened to it between
the farm and the store? Knowing where your food comes from and how it is grown is
a vital and fascinating part of healthy living. The Kitchen Table Gazette will be
a lively monthly column that looks inside the food system and brings you
interesting facts about the social and environmental side of food, the lives of
farmers, and the connections we can make to nature and to each other through
food. We will cover the problems and the solutions facing the food system. We
will discuss the dramatic changes created by industrialized agriculture and
hazardous technologies such as genetic engineering, irradiation and pesticides as
well as bring you stories about the growing new food movement that promotes
local, seasonal, food grown by farmers who are linked directly with consumers and
who use sustainable and organic methods.
We're starting with a fundamental concern: food safety. This month is an
overview. Over the next few months we will explore specific topics in more depth.
Each month we will provide links and resources, so you can find out more on your
own and take action.
Food Safety I
While food safety is something we are all care about, there is a limit to what
consumers can do to ensure safe food handling, storing and preparation. So, what
are government agencies, growers and food processors doing to prevent
contamination in the first place?
Food safety regulation goes back to Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, published
in 1906, which told of unsanitary conditions in stockyards and meat packing
plants. The resulting public outcry led to new laws and government programs.
Almost a century later, we have another jungle to contend with–a jumble of
disconnected laws and agencies that are supposed to oversee food safety, but
which, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen says, are actually making the
situation worse.
Our fragmented regulatory structure is made up of 12 federal government agencies
as well as various state and local governments who inspect, investigate and
enforce a patchwork of rules and regulations, some of which are outdated and many
of which are inadequate.
Although a 1998 National Academy of Sciences report recommended restructuring the
system and appointment of a "food safety czar," Public Citizen says such a move
will not result in improved food safety. They are concerned that a central
bureaucracy will give agribusiness more ways to avoid food safety measures. And
it appears that regulation has been favoring industry. Since the deregulation
days of the Reagan White House, in industry is left to monitor itself and new
laws rely not on government inspection as much as on voluntary reporting. The
current system does little to address common causes of contamination, such as
high speed meat packing lines, or deal with the lack of corporate accountability.
The food industry is now leading an effort in Congress to drastically cut back on
a state's ability to set food safety standards. Known as the National Uniformity
for Food Act of 2000 (S.1155) it would restrict a state's ability to set tough
standards. To find out more about this bill and about what action to take, click
here: http://www.purefood.org/Organic/Stealthbill.cfm
Food safety has changed from the time of cholera outbreaks and before
pasteurization. There are still frightening outbreaks of E coli and other common
infections in everything from meat to fruit juice and the Center for Disease
Control estimates that there are up to 9,000 deaths and over 76 million illnesses
cause by food contamination each year in the U.S.
On September 7th Public Citizen's Government Accountability Project said that
Americans face a greater risk of contaminated meat because the USDA allows
companies to perform their own inspections. We will look at that study here next
month. Our concern should be that as rules are relaxed, food processors will be
using other toxic technologies like food irradiation to cover up contamination,
rather than cleaning up the feed in the first place.
Today, the most important issues in food safety are recent problems–such as disease organisms that are resistant to antibiotics and the new toxic technologies like genetically engineered crops, irradiation, pesticides, sewage sludge, antibiotics and hormones in animals, growth hormones in dairy cows, and animal feeding practices that cause mad cow disease.
With these new pathogens and novel threats, food contamination may not just be a stomach ache anymore. Rapid changes taking place in the food system increase the dangers, and some reports say, this has increased the number of food contamination cases. For example, food is increasingly imported from countries with very lax standards, and it slips through customs or is not adequately monitored. And because of national food distribution systems, when an outbreak occurs, it can rapidly become a widespread public health threat.
The key is to know where your food comes from, to buy from producers that you know and trust – such as local organic farmers or food manufacturers, and to insist on high safety standards and a regulatory system that is accountable to the public, not the corporate food industry.
Resources to find out more about Food Safety:
Consumer advocacy groups:
Organic Consumers Association
Public Citizen
Links to most of the government agencies and initiatives involved can be found
through the
National Food Safety Initiative.
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service Home Page
Yahoo's web page on food safety
Claire Hope Cummings produces and hosts a weekly radio show on food and
farming. She is a writer, a lawyer and is active in the growing new
food movement that is working to reinvigorate local food systems and
support sustainable, organic family farms. She has been a farmer, both
in California and in Vietnam, and was an environmental litigator for 18
years, as well as formerly staff counsel at the USDA.
Claire enjoys growing food in her large organic garden and does native plant restoration on her land in Marin County, California. She is the author of two guides to agricultural genetic
engineering, has published numerous articles on food, and is a popular public
speaker. Her radio show is broadcast live at 7:30 AM every Tuesday morning on KPFA–FM in Berkeley, KFCF in Fresno, or on the web at that time at www.kpfa.org.
