You’re Eating From A Lot of Places

Frozen catfish from China, beans from Belgium, jalapenos from Peru, blackberries from Guatemala, baked goods from Canada, India and the Philippines. About 150 countries, from Canada to Cambodia to China, export FDA-regulated goods to the USA. That’s a lot of “chefs” in the kitchen and no one can validate if they consistently turn out safe products. We’re literally getting our food from all over the globe and from countless suppliers.This globalization of American food with loose inspection procedures creates a theater for risk.- I will submit this, take control measures to insure safe imported food, and health care cost in the US will decline dramatically. Now lets throw in pot the fact that the average American eats about 260 pounds of imported foods, including processed, ready-to-eat products and single ingredients. Imports account for about 13 percent of the annual diet. Sooner than later under the existing system somebody is going to get something bad.

Consider this list of Chinese products detained by the FDA in March 2007: frozen catfish tainted with illegal veterinary drugs, fresh ginger polluted with pesticides, melon seeds contaminated with a cancer-causing toxin and filthy dried dates. From – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18132087/ Why we are importing catfish from China I’ll never know. Anyway this is the short list real short list

With the latest meat recalls I’ve have found myself skeptical about consumption. I’m not about to convert to a total vegetable diet, but I do wonder if one day it’ll be the only solution to a safe meal. You see the thing about most food recalls is they do nothing if you’ve already consumed the recalled product. Sure it eliminates some percentage of future consumption. But lets be real. There are always those that miss the recall announcements, there are the mom and pop side road cafes that are unaware that they may be serving bad product, and going out on a limb here, there are probably shady, under the health department radar establishments that would rather not know about recalls. Add in the fact, there is no way every pound of contaminated product shipped could be accounted for any way.

Point is, the FDA and USDA has to come up with a better solution to stop tainted food from ever leaving the processing premises. They have to come up with the staff, plans and tools to address this as the import industry is continuing to grow. This results in more food not being inspected increasing the risk of consumption of contaminated food. This should be some politican’s #1 priority. For us, we should keep it on the radar.
That’s the memo. Comments???


Interesting Reads
The Carnivore Project: “A USA Today analysis of USDA recall data has turned up two pieces of surprising news. First, that USA Today does ‘analysis’, and secondly that the majority of recalled meat is never actually returned. For the 73 meat recalls over the past two years, recovery rates have only averaged around 44%. For five recalls, the recovery rate was blow 20%A USA Today analysis of USDA recall data has turned up two pieces of surprising news. First, that USA Today does ‘analysis’, and secondly that the majority of recalled meat is never actually returned. For the 73 meat recalls over the past two years, recovery rates have only averaged around 44%. For five recalls, the recovery rate was blow 20%”