ColumnWhile the latest food safety stories are shocking, there are solutions.

Once a month, The Green Plate harvests the most interesting, biggest, weirdest, and puzzling recent news stories on food politics, the food industry, eating trends, and edible discoveries from around the web, and shares them with you.

This month, intentionally mismarked Chinese honey contaminated with heavy metals and illegal antibiotics is being shipped to the U.S. through India, preventing the U.S. from collecting tariffs and endangering your health, yet the FDA doesn’t want to inspect the honey entering the country. What gives? The country’s latest food poisoning outbreak has killed one person and sickened many others, resulting in the slow-speed recall of 36 million pounds of turkey due to its contamination by antibiotic resistant salmonella. The worst spin on this, and what’s perhaps most distributing, is turkey contaminated with salmonella isn’t even illegal. Find out how the current resurgence in co-op grocery stores is helping more Americans take charge of what they eat.

Stir a little lead into your tea

The best argument I’ve ever read for buying honey from a local, trusted producer (no matter the cost) is this incredibly well-researched piece in Food Safety News. The report revealed, among other things, that millions of pounds of honey that has been officially banned by the 27 countries of the European Union has entered the United States to be packed by large packers and sold to unsuspected consumers under familiar brand names. Much of this honey is contaminated and much more of it is so adulterated, it’s not even honey anymore. The FDA checks few of the thousands of shipments arriving through 22 American ports each year, because then they’d have to actually test the honey for antibiotics, heavy metals and adulteration, something they, according to an anonymous FDA source, do not want to do.  Since a lot of the honey purchased by large packers is used in processed food and food service applications, check the ingredients of anything you buy. Some very common food items that you might think of as healthy could very likely contain tainted honey.

Lettuce? Tomato? Biohazard?

Last week’s recall of ground turkey proved that, even in the convoluted world of food politics, there’s still room for surprise. The USDA has the power to promote the safety of the nation’s meat supply through testing. However, USDA rules allow 49.9 percent of tested samples of ground turkey to be contaminated with salmonella. When the contamination rate is high enough to warrant action, however, the USDA lacks the power to do anything about it. This is because the agency in charge of mandatory recalls of the sort issued last week is the FDA, not the USDA.  This may partially explain why it took until last week to issue a recall, even though illnesses linked to the turkey were reported starting in March. Apparently, it’s not even illegal to distribute turkey contaminated with salmonella because its presence is so common in food. Consumers Union is calling for the government to classify salmonella as an adulterant and to give the USDA recall power.

Power to the People

Consumers are increasingly taking the responsibility for ensuring the safety of their food into their own hands. Member owned co-ops are on the rise, with roughly 10-12 new stores opening each year and around 250 currently in development. Besides food safety, other drivers include a desire to support local farmers, a desire to shop in bulk to save money and packaging, and a craving for community.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Altemark, JoelK75, muffet

The post Fit to Eat: (Shocking) News from the Food World appeared first on EcoSalon.

The New York Times reports that federal regulators rejected the idea of mandating egg farmers to vaccinate their hens against salmonella, ruling that there was insufficient evidence to support such a stance (hat tip to The Daily Beast for the link). The vaccination would have only cost a penny per dozen eggs and was introduced in Britain a decade ago, with resounding success.

Given the serious consequences of salmonella and the low cost of vaccination, this seems like a sensible precaution. However, it’s far from the root cause of the problem.

To me the most shocking thing about this outbreak is that we’re talking about a recall of more than half a billion eggs from just two producers in Iowa. Half a billion eggs; two producers. Doesn’t that seem wrong?

The egg producers in question have been linked to a string of past abuses, ranging from environmental to worker rights, according to a Democracy Now story I heard on PBS Radio this week. (Unfortunately, there’s no link online yet). It seems to me that salmonella is the natural outcome of factory farming – producing eggs in a relentlessly profit-driven industrial environment. A vaccine would reduce salmonella, and that would be a darn good thing, but it wouldn’t fix all the other problems associated with battery egg farming, from chicken welfare to water contamination to worker safety. Europe has already banned battery egg farms and California is now doing the same. But perhaps Iowa is the state that really needs to act?

Small-scale free-range or organic egg farming is far less likely to foster the environment for outbreaks like this. And if an outbreak does occur, the resulting recall would involve thousands of eggs, not half a billion.

To me, the moral of the story is clear: Cheap food makes you ill.

Photo credit: Boiled egg photo by Craig Hatfield on Flickr, licensed for commercial use under Creative Commons.

The post Bad Eggs: Why the Salmonella Outbreak Was Preventable appeared first on EcoSalon.

Have you ever had food poisoning? I have and tend to refer to that time as “3-Mile-Island of the Digestive System.” It is awful, terrible, and miserable. Did I say miserable? I can’t imagine anyone with a compromised immune system getting through it without hospitalization. And now the U.S. is in the grips of a bad outbreak.

Why? Because the food industry has messed with salmonella, and consumers are paying big time. A national outbreak has forced massive egg recalls all over the nations. As of the writing of this article, 1,300 people have been sickened nationwide. Over half a billion eggs have been recalled and the FDA says more are on the way.

Two Iowa hatcheries are at the center of it all. Hillandale Farms and Wright County Egg have recalled around half a billion eggs. Both hatcheries have a history of producing tainted eggs after violating both state and federal law. Chickens can get salmonella when raised in unsanitary conditions. As the New York Times reports: “Infected hens can lay eggs with the bacteria inside them, and people can become sick if they eat tainted eggs that are not fully cooked.”

How Serious is This?
Carol Tucker Foreman is a food safety expert of the Consumer Federation of America. As she told The NY Times, “you have to treat eggs with the assumption that they’re contaminated with salmonella.” Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg has promised aggressive investigations as to how this happened in the first place. The egg industry has consolidated in recent years, with fewer, larger companies controlling the production of eggs.

And there is a trail of violations that date back decades. As one attorney told the Associated Press: “The history of ignoring the law makes the sickening of 1,300 and the forced recall of 550 million eggs shockingly understandable “¦ You have to wonder where the USDA and FDA inspectors were.”

Can You Still Eat Eggs?
Yes, if you are careful. As experts advise, do not eat raw or undercooked eggs. Also beware of foods made with raw eggs, such as homemade hollandaise sauce, salad dressings, homemade ice cream, homemade mayonnaise, cookie dough, and frostings. You can check your egg cartons for tainted batches by following this link from the FDA.

If You Get It – What Now?
You can’t really stop food poisoning, especially if it hits 72 hours after you’ve processed the tainted food. Instead, you have to ride it out and hope you don’t accidentally vomit out your foot. First and foremost, consult a trained medical professional for advice. (Or have someone do it for you because you are probably not able to get off the couch.) Salmonella poisoning is not to be trifled with, especially if you are a child, elderly, pregnant, or have a compromised immune system.

Unfortunately, you can expect to feel as bad as you have ever felt. Diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and abdominal cramps are part of the deal. Your symptoms will develop 12 to 72 hours after infection, and the illness usually lasts four to seven days.

But there are some things you can do to ride out the green wave. First of all, keep yourself hydrated. Dehydration caused by vomiting and diarrhea is your biggest enemy. Plain, room-temperature water works best – or you can sip on a rehydration drink like Pedialyte. Avoid drinks high in sugars.

Some suggest swallowing charcoal tablets. Charcoal is thought to absorb toxins and poisons in your system. Others suggest one to two tablespoons of undiluted apple cider vinegar to help with nausea, followed by a lot more water. Also try to return to your healthy, normal diet as soon as you can keep something down, as proper nutrition will aid your system in recovery. Avoid salty or sugary foods high in fat.

How did this happen? Take a look at the award-winning documentary Food Inc. for an in-depth analysis of the American food industry.

Photo Source

The post When Eggs Attack: What You Need to Know about Salmonella and the Bad Egg Recall appeared first on EcoSalon.

On the heels of the devastating article in the New York Times about a young woman who paid dearly for the horrifying practices and lack of oversight in the meat industry, the Center for Science in the Public Interest released a list of the top 10 riskiest foods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Some of your favorite foods are on this list, including ice cream, berries and leafy greens, with tuna being the most surprising culprit. Though meat contains some of the most virulent contaminants, like the strain of E. coli that almost killed Stephanie Smith, it’s missing from the list, because it isn’t regulated by the FDA. It’s regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Confused yet?

Thousands of people are dying every year from food-borne illness and we have a confusing morass of regulations and agencies charged with enforcing them. Clearly we need a better system, but how to sort out the mess?

There’s a lot of action happening now in the realm of food safety. We can only hope that despite the tangled web of Congressional bills, consumer and industry lobbying, cooperation agreements between the FDA and the USDA and crazy-making sideshows like the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, we will actually end up with safer food, and hopefully not to the detriment of small-scale organic farmers.

Join me for a quick rundown on the most important recent developments in the world of food safety and their possible risks to small farmers.

Congressional Bills:

The House has already passed HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act, and the Senate is considering Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act.

But funny things sometimes happen on the way to a bill becoming law – compromises and deal brokering and exemptions and loopholes. The people and industries in power usually get more say than small farmers or consumers.

Both bills only deal with the FDA’s sphere of authority, giving meat and some other fresh agricultural products a pass for now, with the exception of some foods that are processed on site on smaller farms.

Value added products, like pickles, jams and preserves will be required to comply with some FDA regulations. This has small farm and good food activists picking up their pitchforks.

Thankfully, this administration’s appointees within the USDA and FDA, like Deputy Secretary of the USDA, Kathleen Merrigan, seem more inclined to listen to the concerns of consumers and small farmers. The final House bill included language to protect small producers from onerous regulations and we ended up with an ok bill.

With food borne illness victims testifying in Congress and demanding a final bill before the holidays, things are sure to heat up. Let’s hope victim testimony and articles like the one in the New York Times that put faces to the tragedy of tainted food, will influence Congress to attempt real reform in the final bill.

Cooperation Agreement Between USDA and FDA:

Also this week, it was announced that the FDA would begin working in concert with the USDA to regulate the safety of our food system. At first glance, it seems like a good thing for two food related departments within the government to work together to increase food safety.

Not necessarily. The FDA is charged with inspecting the food supply for safety (among other things), and the USDA is charged with helping farmers market their products (among other things). Can two agencies with very different mandates work together to protect consumers?

We’ve talked about the shenanigans and overlapping jurisdictions of the FDA and the USDA before here on EcoSalon, but prior to delving even deeper into the question of these agencies regulating food safety, it’s important to understand what the two agencies were designed to do.

The FDA was created in 1906 to administer The Pure Food, Drinks and Drug Act. The act was a legislative reaction to the horrors uncovered by Upton Sinclair in his expose of the meat industry, The Jungle, as well as discoveries about common practices in the food industry at the time, such as the use of heavy metals to color and preserve foods. It worked for awhile, but now we are in the midst of our own Jungle-like horror.

The FDA is responsible for food safety as it relates to processed food products (ironically excluding meat) pet and animal feed and imports. This agency is also responsible for regulating drugs, vaccines, cosmetics and dietary supplements. Its labeling jurisdiction extends to nutrition and health claims, nutrition information, and ingredient labeling.

President Lincoln created the USDA at the height of the Civil War. The stated purpose of the department was to serve the people that were involved in agriculture at the time – more than half the population. It inspired legislation like The Morrill Land-Grant College Act, authorizing public land grants to create agricultural colleges. The Act required the establishment of such colleges in all U.S. states and territories and the District of Columbia.

The USDA is responsible for regulating, inspecting and recalling raw agricultural products like meat (including processed and packaged meat products, like hot dogs) poultry and eggs. This gives the USDA jurisdiction over labeling claims about farming and production practices (marketing language) while the FDA regulates labeling claims that relate to ingredients. The USDA created and administers The National Organic Program (NOP). The USDA also administers the Farm Bill and its programs.

For a good rundown on why the dual role of the USDA in regulating raw agricultural products and helping to market them is problematic, look to this article in Grist.

This dual role is one of the reasons experts like Marion Nestle advocate for a single agency whose sole responsibility is regulating the safety of the food supply.

The Leafy Green Marketing Agreement:

Bear with me here if this doesn’t sound like a food safety measure. Recall the spinach debacle of 2006? The one in which E. coli was found in bagged spinach? This article talks about why small, independent farmers weren’t affected (which is why I wasn’t afraid to eat the spinach that came in my CSA box the week of the outbreak). The article also hints at the future Leafy Green Marketing agreement in the following passage.

“Next week, the FDA will also be reviewing voluntary guidelines offered by the produce industry to ensure agricultural and processing practices with spinach – and other leafy greens.”

The proposed guidelines would cover “the three Ws” of potential contamination – water, workforce and wildlife, says Thomas Nassif, president of Western Growers, which represents some 3,000 farmers and shippers in California and Arizona. These farmers produce about half of all the fresh produce in the country.

His group wants to keep the guidelines voluntary. “Obviously, the industry and most of the regulators would like to see us handle it,” Nassif said.

These voluntary guidelines are in effect now in California and Arizona, which is bad news for those very small farmers who weren’t part of the problem.

The reason the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement is in the news again is because the industry now wants to take the agreement national. The proposed marketing agreement would allow leafy green handlers to attach a USDA-backed “food safety seal” to lettuce, spinach, cabbage and other vegetables. The agreement would be voluntary for handlers, but since the big handlers control the industry, any small farmers who want to have the chance to expand their markets would have to comply.

Complying with the regulations requires excluding wildlife from the farm ecosystem (never mind that E. Coli comes from cows), leading to sterile farms devoid of wildlife, hedgerows, cover crops and all those other characteristics that make up a biologically diverse, ecologically sound farming system. So smaller farmers would have the choice of either sterilizing their farms, scaling up and becoming just like industrial growers, or staying small and appealing to a niche audience.

A marketing agreement does not a food safety regulation make. I don’t think consumers want to have to look for a seal on their food to assure themselves it’s safe to eat. I think most people would agree that food safety is careful handling practices, inspection, enforcement – you know, food safety, not marketing.

For a truly chilling, eyewitness account of what it actually looks like when industry writes its own rules with the help of the USDA, check out Elanor Starmer’s posts on the Ethicurean. She sat in the hearing rooms for three days straight so this is truly eyewitness. Day One, Day Two, Day three.

The president has said he’s committed to safer food. With all of the other issues on the agenda, it’s hard to tell where food safety on the urgency scale, but articles like that one in the New York Times definitely force momentum. If you want to keep up with breaking news in the realm of food safety there are two good resources, The President’s Food Safety Working Group and Food Safety News. Stay informed and whenever possible, buy whole foods from farmers you know.

Image: qmnonic

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

The post A Primer on Current Food Safety Politics for Non Policy Geeks appeared first on EcoSalon.