Level of food inspection should make everyone gag

[Blue_Tires]

In a nutshell, the widening recall of contaminated peanut butter has exposed yet again the glaring vulnerabilities in America's food supply.

First, spinach; then, jalapenos; next, tomatoes -- and on and on goes the list of tainted food products. Will it take an attack on apple pie before lawmakers accept and respond to the obvious need for more food inspectors?

The FDA's inspection staff should at least be on par with that of the Department of Agriculture, which has 8,000 inspectors assigned to safeguard meat and poultry. Just 2,000 staffers at the FDA are responsible for examining other food products, which account for three-quarters of the nation's food production.

Leaving the staffing imbalance unaddressed is a ripe invitation to further contamination outbreaks or worse.

The criminal investigation federal authorities have opened against the Peanut Corp. of America, owner of the Georgia plant identified as the starting point of the current outbreak, can't be the end of the story. Congress needs to look seriously at food security, an urgency heightened by the fact that Peanut Corp.'s owner, Stewart Parnell, refused to testify before a House subcommittee Wednesday.

http://www.freep.com/article/20090212/OPINION01/902120363

[napi21]

1. Sure they could use some more inspectors, but something has

also happened to their powers. I worked in a fg, environment for years, and believe me, when somebody from the FDA made a surprise visit, they were viewed as people from on high! There was real fear from the top mgmt. on down to the floor sweeper! Actually, the same reaction existed in the mgmt. & the acctg. Dept. when someone mentioned the SEC! ShrubCo backed these regulators off sooo much, it seems that no company cares or fears them anymore!

I didn' see or hear of any reduction in their powers, but they sure appear to be GONE!

[pipi_k]

2. Yet another example

of Americans being afraid of the wrong people.

It's not the swarthy brown guys who are terrorizing the country on a continual basis, it's the people we trust with our food supply. And our money.

But, as someone in the W administration so aptly put it, we "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here". Diversion allows criminals to get away with lots of crimes...

[Tsiyu]

3. A Norquist Wet Dream

Shrunk that FDA so well it drowned in a bathtub full of e. coli.

[daggahead]

4. Read "Slaughterhouse," by Gail Eisnitz.

She talks about how USDA inspections of our food supply inhibit a company's ability to make money.

Until the profit-over-people motive is nullified, regulation will be a nuisance, instead of a protection for citizens that buy a particular food product ( I refrain from calling dignified citizens "consumers.").

[bvar22]

5. WE were so concerned about this issue....

....that my wife and I moved far out in the country in 2006, and started growing our own.
We are still not 100% free from CorpoProduce & Packaged Foods, but we are getting close.

Focusing on the FDA is Tunnel Vision.
NAFTA and the other Free Trade agreements along with corporate deregulation are the REAL culprits. The is NO way the USA can police the agricultural habits of other countries, and NO way to adequately inspect imported produce, or to certify the conditions under which that produce was grown.


This problem will get worse.
The only way to know for sure is to grow your own.
Even the Farmers Markets can't be trusted.
Some small farmers use MORE pesticides/herbicides than large commercial operations, AND they will SWEAR their stuff is "Organic".

[Blue_Tires]

6. good points

and nice garden, if that one is yours...

[bvar22]

7. Yes. That is last year.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x7979

But it wasn't just the corruption and contamination of the Corporate Food Production & Delivery System that motivated our move. We see that as one of the symptoms of a much greater problem.

We are expanding this year.
We planted Blueberries, Boysenberries, Raspberries, and more fruit trees over the Winter, and have a good flock of Free Range chickens. We are going to expand from 2 honeybee colonies to 4 this Spring.

[daggahead]

12. Are you familiar with ...

Food, not lawns?

http://www.foodnotlawns.com/

[bvar22]

13. Yes!

That is a great concept, and as the economy continues to tank, I hope we will see the suburbs plowed up, and planted in produce.

But the suburbs (and urbs) are already too contaminated for our comfort. Suburban "lawns" and golf courses will be toxic for a long, long time.

Too many small farmers and suburban "organic" gardeners will use MORE pesticides/herbicides than a factory farm, especially if their "crop" is threatened. A single particle of Sevin carried back to the hive by a foraging Worker Bee can kill the whole hive.

[daggahead]

14. There is a golf course behind my house ...

that could be used to feed a lot of people ...

[Two Americas]

8. important point

The FDA has become a rubber-stamp for the pharmaceutical industry. They are ill-equipped there to deal with food safety issues involving real food, as opposed to processed food products and drugs and tonics and such. All inspections and regulations of real food belong in the domain of the USDA, where the expertise and professionalism needed can be found.

(The "real food" is the stuff on the perimeter of the super market - produce and meat and dairy, and to some extent in canned products.)

By the way, the agricultural safety inspection and research public infrastructure is near collapse thanks to the Republicans, and needs to be restored quickly and thoroughly if public health is to be protected.

[bvar22]

9. What authority does the USDA have.....

..over crops that are grown in sewage in Mexico?

[Two Americas]

10. that is a big problem

"Sewage" by the way is "organic." That highlights the ignorance and misconceptions on the part of the public, a public more divorced from and ignorant about their food supply than any ever in history. This is a big challenge in agriculture. Much of the public's conceptions of food issues is driven by marketers, be they "organic" or "Monsanto." The organic movement has opened up a demand for imported produce that is less safe than anything grown here - "inspection" consists of bribing a local official. Most of the produce labeled "organic" in a survey I was involved in turned out to be imported and not inspected at all. Organic has come to mean higher profits for corporations, while they are selling inferior produce.

Most of the food safety problems are coming from imports. We worked hard for the COOL provision (country of origin labeling) in the latest farm bill, which helps. This gets into fair trade - importing food from countries that have similar environmental, food safety and labor laws to ours. But if there is anything we should be producing domestically it is food and if there is any domestic industry we should protect, it is farming.

[Optical.Catalyst]

11. A good read