Is your food safe?
On Thursday, July 30th, Congress passed HR2749 -or "The Food Safety" bill.
This piece of legislation seeks to ensure that we don't have future outbreaks of ecoli and salmonella in our food supply. That's a good thing. But are we truly aware as to how this legislation will accomplish that?
HR2749 gives new sweeping powers to the FDA including the ability to quarantine food, to audit food suppliers randomly and unnanounced, to subpoena old records and prosecute violators of "food safety" regulations. This all sounds well and good, but here are some troubling facts about HR2749:
- It sets no guidelines or vehicles to oversee and audit the FDA itself. If you are unaware of why this might be important, go see the movie "Food Inc" or read any of these books: "The Omnivore's Dilemma," "In Defense of Food" or "Fast Food Nation." You'll quickly find out that the FDA's and USDA's top seats are filled with former employees of big food corporations. This is a huge conflict of interest for obvious reasons.
- It sets no special considerations for small farmers and small organic producers. So the farm that processes 5,000 heads of cattle a day and the farm that has 20 or 30 are required to go through exactly the same registration, certification, fees, etc. These costs may be debilitating to the smaller producers.
- It sets no special guidelines for being more stringent on the large producers, who have been the sources of the salmonella contaminated food in the last two years.
- If you grow a garden in your back yard and you give your neighbor your extra tomatoes and zucchinis you might be considered a producer too! So you can be subpoenaed, fined and even prosecuted if you don’t follow the “food safety” regulations and register, etc.
My food has always been safe. I personally don't need HR2749 to "ensure" my food is safe, nor do I need the government imposing restrictions on my local farmers. I know them all well and can ask them about their growing practices and how they process their food. I can see their cows, chickens and crops if I choose to.
Food safety makes sense when there are gigantic, unsanitary, food-growing operations. But it’s important that we stand up and take notice when a bill that affects our food supply is deliberately pushed through Congress during the suspension calendar when there couldn't be any meaningful debate or revision.
Your food may well be safe. You may well not need HR2749 either. If you are not sure, go see the movie "Food Inc" or read "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
If everyone in the US knew how their food was produced many of these gigantic food operations would either be forced out of business because nobody would buy their unsanitary food, or market pressures would force them to change their practices to produce sanitary, edible food.
We now have a bill that if fully sanctioned is likely to negatively affect those who were producing good food all along. And the big companies it should regulate...we’ll see how much they do change their practices.