Jim Goodman: Time ripe for change to improve food safety

Jim Goodman \ Opinion

The Capital Times - Madison, Wisconsin

11/04/2008 5:30 am

How many times have we been told we have the safest food supply in the world? Do we really? I suppose it depends on the comparison. Somalia? Kenya ? In developing countries close to 2 million children die every year from contaminated food and water. How do we fare compared to other industrialized countries?

The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions estimates that there are 76 million cases of food-borne illness yearly in the U.S., roughly 1 out of every 4 people. Food-borne illness strikes the United Kingdom at a rate of roughly 1 in 10 people and hits Australia at the rate of around 3.7 per 100. Clearly, our food is not as safe as we are led to believe. As for it being the safest in the world, maybe not.

Most food-borne illness is caused by bacterial contamination -- E. coli, salmonella and other bacteria that generally just make us ill. In recent years, however, we are seeing new more virulent forms of these bacterial contaminants that can make food poisoning potentially lethal. Bacteria are also developing resistance to antibiotics, in part a direct result of overuse of antibiotics in the livestock industry.

E. coli 0157:H7 showed up in the 1990s in undercooked hamburger and now kills upward of 60 people yearly in the US. E. coli 0157:H7 thrives in the stomach of cattle fed high-grain diets, a standard practice in large commercial feedlots in the U.S. Meat becomes contaminated when it comes in contact with manure, an all to common occurrence in huge processing plants where overworked, underpaid workers are expected to process too many animals in too little time. USDA budget cuts have left too few inspectors to adequately monitor those plants.

Spinach contaminated with 0157:H7, probably from irrigation water that flowed too close to large cattle lots, caused a real problem since spinach is often eaten raw. So again the contamination is a result of industrial farming practices.

Melamine is extracted from coal by the use of heat and chemicals and has been illegally used in China as an additive to raise the protein tests of human and animal food. This new food contaminant adds no nutritional value to the food and is, in fact, a toxin that can cause illness and death. In China it was responsible for sickening over 90,000 infants. In a globalized food economy, melamine has gone worldwide in Chinese dairy products, eggs and therefore many, many processed foods.

It could just be a coincidence, but on the same day that Congress passed a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street (money we will no doubt have to borrow from China) the FDA set a tolerance level of 2.5 parts per million for melamine in food. Tolerance level! Should we have to tolerate any? It is a poison, but if it makes China happy ...

While we expect domestically produced foods to meet certain safety requirements, foreign producers and processors are not bound by those requirements and imported food enters our food chain every day. Additionally, poorly regulated domestic processing plants value profit over food safety and hope to place the burden of contaminated food on the consumer when they hide behind the "Safe Handling Statement" on the package.

So why, other than the obvious reasons, are the issues of food safety, industrial farming and a globalized food supply so critical now? In a few months a new president will be inaugurated and a new administration will hopefully change Washington. New agency appointees at the FDA and USDA could reform our food system.

It is not difficult to produce safe food. It is not difficult to keep the food safe through processing. It is not difficult for farmers, workers and consumers to share the benefits of a local food system. What is difficult is expecting safe food from a system run by profit-oriented corporations and overseen by bureaucrats who were part of that same corporate food system.

Both candidates called for change, so let's see it.

Jim Goodman is a farmer in Wonewoc and a policy fellow for the Food and Society Fellows Program.

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