Food Safety and Corporate Interference

If there is anything that drives me nuts it is when finances take front stage where they don't belong. I just signed a petition concerning our food safety and how food rgulation in the United States is being largely hindered by corporate influence.

THIS IS RIDICULOUS.

Along with the form letter there was an option section to add in my own two cents. As I was limited to 700 characters (spaces included), I got a little creative with my editting, here's what I wrote:

Food & finances don’t mix. The former determines humanity’s survival while the latter is a man-made abstraction created to place value on things, services & time. NOTHING is more valuable than food. In a capitalist society, this reality is overshadowed by the “power” of $. The FDA & USDA are 2 organizations that should be freed of this conundrum. Those who regulate & determine the safety of what we eat, feed to our children & share w/ our families, shouldn’t be constrained by ANY institution. If we are to entrust the safety of our sustenance to any regulatory organization they should be unbiased, unfettered & given the appropriate resources to ensure that our people, not prices, are safe.

I hope that makes as much sense as it did before my brutal edit. Either way, I am writing this post today to bring this petition to your attention. We all need to sign this. We all need to add our two cents. The FDA and the USDA should not be hindered by any outside influnces.

To take part in the petition, click on the widget below, or if that does not work (it requires JAVA), please follow the link below it.



The link: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/667/237/208/?z00m=19968833

Please check out the petition, read the letter and share th petition with other action takers!

What are your feelings about corporate interference/influence over the FDA and/or USDA?

Is there some place that corporations belong in this regulation process that I am overlooking?

Think About This Thursday

Watch this


Scary, isn't it? Then TAKE ACTION HERE


Now, take a look at this:


And recognize that Nestlé is trying to do the same thing in Oregon. TAKE ACTION HERE.

What else should we be thinking about today? Do you have information about another action we should be taking?

Friday's Food Finds

All week I am all over the Internet blogging about food, commenting about food, reading about food and finding tons and tons of stuff! I simply can NOT dedicate a single post to each individual find, so here's what I am going to do: I am going to give you a CliffNotes version of some foodie finds that I think you might all be interested in, so you have stuff to read and tinker with over the weekend! Here it goes:

Food Web Sites and Tools

• two foods Here is a neat little tool for food nutrition comparisons. Let's say you are faced with almonds and cashews and you don't have a particular craving for one over the other, but you are curious about the nutritional facts run-down for each. Enter two foods. Type in each type of nut and click "Compare!" here's what you'll see:

•  Casabella Cutting Boards (set of 4) One concern in a kitchen is cross-contamination. To be honest, this is not something I ever thought of before I started watching all these chefs on TV - I had one cutting board that I washed in between uses. I am not a big fan of lots of stuff cluttering up my kitchen, so when I found these cutting "boards" I was super happy. They are super skinny, flexible and take up less space than my old cutting board! They have to be hand washed, but their bright colors and cute graphics make them so easy for me to use and keep straight! If you are looking into purchasing separate cutting boards for poultry, beef, fish and veggies, I highly recommend this very durable and affordable option!
  

Food Reads

• The perils of food nutrition and research This post from Marion Nestle on her Food Politics blog addresses issues that arise in all arenas of research - poorly designed studies, misread data and highly elevated claims. I taught Statistics before going on my medical leave and often take for granted that people can decipher the difference between a good study and one that can be thoroughly misleading. It is unfortunate that our media does not filter this for us. All "studies" should first be questioned: Who ran this study? Why did they run this study? How did they collect this data? ...I think you get the idea. For now I will leave you with Dr. Nestle's article, but we shall revisit this topic on the Searching for Sustenance blog!
• Eco-farming Could Double Food Output of Poor Countries, Says UN One of the huge arguments for industrialized agriculture is that it feeds the world. It is argued that the technology brought to the land is, in many places, the only hope. Well, the UN brings up some contrary evidence reported here. Excellent information.

Good Food (Recipes)

•  Raw Chili Cheese Fries My husband and I discovered our deep connection with chili cheese fries on our first vacation together to Walt Disney World - they were amazing! Since seeing the light about the insanity of our ways (we were eating them all the time after that vacation), we have cut out this delectable treat. When I found Poppy's recipe from her first adventure at a Raw Foods Class this week on her From Fried Chicken to TOFU blog, I knew I found something I would have to try and share.  So, I am getting my shopping list together, but let us know how s goes if you get to it first!
• The Homemade Twix Bar (...because I can't). OK, OK I know... I am usually preaching all wonderful kind of healthy stuff, but this would be HOME-MADE - that has to count for something! And I would really like to live vicariously through you! Twix are one of my favorite bars and with my dairy-free/gluten-free life, I have also been Twix-free! Kim at Incandescent Blue Flame is the one who exposed me to this torture earlier this week. I forgive her, but it was rough at first ;)

Food FiGHTS

• Rally for the Right to Know on March 26, 2011 in Washington, DC  is getting organized. Millions Against Monsanto - RALLY FOR THE RIGHT TO KNOW - Genetically Modified Foods need to be labeled! Saturday, March 26, 2011, 11am - 3pm on The White House Sidewalk. The mission: Spread awareness of genetically modified foods and Monsanto's increasing monopoly of our foods. To get involved, either visit their facebook page, or e-mail millionsagainst@gmail.com
• Protect Food & Water Safety Funding

Do you have a food website, tool, food read, recipe or food fight you think I should check out and share with the readers of Searching for Sustenance? If so e-mail me at BlogWithNV@gmail.com!

Dr. Oz and the GMO Debate Part 3

In the first part of The Dr. Oz Show Segment on GMO foods, the discussion began about non-GMO food labels and a short education of what GMO actually means. In the second part, Dr. Oz began a discussion with three expert panelists discussing the viewpoint of both proponents and opponents to the GMO debate. Here, we will take a lok at the third and final part of the segment.

Dr. Oz Takes the Conversation International and Then, Back to Labels
Genetically Modified Foods, Pt. 3 (The Dr. Oz Show video clip is 4 minutes and 11 seconds long)

Dr. Oz continued to probe the one proponent of GMOs on his panel, Dr. Pamela Ronald, by taking a look at the international community. He raised a pretty good question.

Why are GMO crops banned in a number of  European nations?

image from The Dr. Oz Show originally aired on 12/7/2010

This is the point where I always start to take sides. Perhaps I am being naive in some way, but why would an entire country ban a farming practice if it was safe? Dr. Oz asked this question - I just wished some scientist from one of these countries could have been there to answer. All we can do is speculate.

And then Dr. Michael Hansen, piggy-backing off of Dr. Ronald's statements about using the best science for determining GMO safety in part 2, piped in and said what someone needed to say during this entire debate:

"One thing that should be pointed out is that we do need more science... in this country... the FDA does not require any extra safety testing at all."

This, of course, had me thinking, again, about that pesky Food Safety Bill and whether or not it truly was up to snuff. I am going to have to go back into that one and see if there are any things I would like to speak out about before it makes it to the House of Representatives. 

To finish the segment, the conversation turned back to labeling and what the benefits are and what the drawbacks might be. They each can be summarized quite simply. The labeling of GMOs benefits us with informing us, we then have the opportunity to use our "capitalist vote" to decide what types of food we wish to support and, ultimately, consume. The drawbacks of any labeling system are two-fold; (1) who does the labeling, and (2) the limitations of the labeling process. Even the Non-GMO Project we looked at in Part 1 of this series, clearly states on their website that they can not guarantee that the products labeled non-GMO are 100% GMO free.So we are left, once again, making a leap of faith, only this time, when armed with a label the leap should be over a puddle, not the Atlantic Ocean!

My Final Thoughts About The Dr. Oz Show's Panel on GMOs

First of all, I am extremely happy that Dr. Oz devoted a segment of his show to this topic. I wish it were the entire episode, but there was a lot of info in this half of the show, regardless. When I first found out about this show, I was excited at the prospect of hearing Dr. Pamela Ronald's viewpoints, but, due to lack of time I feel my curiosity is not yet satiated. I think, due to this fact, Tomorrow's Table is going to be on my reading list. I am also curious about Dr. Michael Hansen's work and will be on the lookout for more word from him, as he seems to be a rational man opposed to GMOs, rather than an extremist opposed to GMOs (I believe there is a significant difference).

For now, personally, I am still going to try to maintain a GMO-free diet when possible on my search for sustenance. I have two chronic conditions, one of which is idiopathic (unknown origin) in nature and I don't believe I have the body or the time to waste waiting for science to decide which way to go. So, unless some GMO seed is going to cure Intracranial Hypertension or eradicate Crohn's disease from my family tree, I'll take my genes unmodified, thank you.

Resources, Links & Further Info:

•  Even MORE resources from The Dr. Oz Show about Genetically Modified Foods
• A must read: Dr. Pamela Ronald's Response to her time on The Dr. Oz Show 
• Search results of Dr. Michael Hansen's writings for ConsumersUnion.org
• Opportunity to win a copy of Jeffrey Smith's Seeds of Deception
  
• Books written by people on the show:

Food Safety Bill Passes

UPDATE

The Food Safety Bill (S 510) I wrote about in yesterday's post, passed the Senate today. It needed 50% of the "aye" votes and received 73%. It still has several steps to go before it becomes law, so if there is something you don't like about it, there is still time to let your Representative in the House know about it.


My Take

As for me, I will continue to attempt to read it through (lord help me!), but I do believe I am in support of this bill. When asked today, in the comment section of a CNN article about the passing bill, why I was in support, this is the response I gave:

...As for why I am in support of this, well, that's a really good question. I've gone back and forth for awhile, but when I sat down to actually blog about this yesterday (searching for sustenance) I finally decided I was a "yay".

The funny thing is I am in support with the same opinions as many of the commenters here who are not! Our laws and regulations are out of date and not working - too many infected foods are making it to our plates. We DO need to become more educated consumers, but in the meantime shouldn't there be some sort of protection? I fear, although reading through this small unrepresentative sample of Americans commenting here you would think otherwise, that there is still an INCREDIBLE amount of trust placed in the food industry by the public as a whole. The food industry's job is not our safety, their job is to make money for their company - those are the facts. We need an UNBIASED group to come in and regulate.
I emphasize "unbiased" because I, too, have fears that the FDA may not live up to this lofty ideal, however, does that mean we should leave NO ONE to watch our backs for this lack of trust?? I say NO. I say we demand better of the FDA. I say we make sure that they are TRANSPARENT and understand that they work for us, not for big business.

So, in short, I support it because I think it leans in the right direction. I know, however, that there is still more to be done!

Let's Get To Work!

To continue briefly on that point, I believe one of the places that work needs to be done is on Farm Bill 2012. I got to the game on this Food Safety Bill a little late and have been playing catch up, but this Farm Bill will be getting its update soon. I think it is really important to stay informed and make sure that our representatives and President know exactly how we believe this money (OUR money) should be divvied up to support farms, nutrition programs, forestry, etc. I worry that so many people are going to get caught up in the food safety argument that they might unknowingly turn a blind eye to where the money goes!

I like to pay taxes.  With them I buy civilization.  

~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I like this quote. Let's just remember that we can control the type of civilization we live in by participating in government when it is something that we hold near and dear to our hearts. To that end, if you did not have the opportunity to check out the website OpenCongress yesterday, I think it is worth a look. It is a non-profit, non-partisan public resource run by the Participatory Politics Foundation. It is truly difficult to get unbiased information these days, even if you are reading my blog you are getting my view of things, so why not check out the primary sources? They aren't always the easiest reads out there, but isn't it better to question primary sources than second and third party interpretations?

Well, I guess without intending it, this post turned into another Take Action Tuesday post! Think about it, share it and get in on the action of the world around you!

Food Safety Day: S. 510

At around 4:00pm (EST) today, the Senate will resume talks about S. 510, more commonly known as The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. It seems, upon hearing about this bill and what it aims to do, that it should get a very simple thumbs-up. I do not think I am speaking out of turn if I say that we can all agree that something is amiss in food safety regulation in the United States and that whatever litmus test has been used in the past by the FDA is simply not cutting the mustard anymore - it needs modernization. However, the feverish debate over the passage of this bill shows that this may not be as cut and dry as it should be. Those who are in favor of the bill seem to take a stance of, "If this is the best we can get for now, I'll take it," and those who oppose are up in arms about the dramatic effects it will have on small and local farms, saying things like, "This is the end of food as we know it."

From my perspective, at the center of the debate are two virtues that always find themselves amidst all types of turmoil of the human condition: Trust and Money. One is so subjective and personal and the other, well... selective and often discriminatory.

Money

Let me begin with what has been often claimed to be the root of all evil: money. Whether you are talking about big agri-businesses or small local farms, one issue at the center of the debate is cost.

• How much will it cost those subject to this regulation to bring their business up to snuff with the new hoop they have to jump through? 
• Will they have to redesign their facilities, hire more staff or purchase different products in their production? 

Obviously, this is something that is going to be a larger burden on a smaller business. Many farmers opt not to be "certified organic" simply because of the cost, even though their product is just as organic as one with the label. This is a choice farmers knowingly make and hope that customers will understand. In terms of an FDA regulation, these same farmers will not be able to opt out of add on costs and hope for understanding... they do it or they are out of business. The evil side of money: IF they do it, they may STILL go out of business due to expense. 

Trust

The other 3,000 pound tomato in the room is trust.

• Who is the FDA?
• Will the FDA play buddy-buddy with old big-business pals?
• Has this bill been designed with loopholes for the big businesses to squeeze through in the guise of small business support?

Over the years, I have learned that many of the people behind the acronym FDA were folks who seemed to have a major conflict of interest in their past. Whether they were former employees, current shareholders or just taking a sabbatical from a food industry giant, it seemed once their past was unveiled my suspicion was engaged. So I understand the lack of trust in the FDA. I decided to see if that writing was still on the wall. Upon checking out the current organization of the FDA (this is really a light-handed investigation) I decided to focus on two positions: Director of Food Safety & Nutrition, and the current Commissioner.

Michael M. Landa, J.D., Acting Director of Food Safety & Nutrition Mr. Landa has spent at least the last ten years in the FDA, and many of them focusing on food safety. It seems as though he was a lawyer before that time. I have not been able to find any specific information on the work he did as a lawyer, but on his FDA profile page it does say that he spent at least some of that time as a council for them.

Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., Commissioner of Food & Drugs Could I biased because she spent some time here in New York? Sure. Anyway, I can't find too much to scrutinize here. She's young and she has a background in medicine. This is helpful for the "drugs" end of the title and when there are outbreaks, but hopefully she is gaining all types of on the job food experience. She also worked in bioterrorism and seems to be quite a go-getter. The fact of the matter is, I don't see any history with any big food businesses!

I am sure there are a ton of other players in the game here. I don't know enough about the food politics to even know what to worry about in terms of who could be the problem, but I feel a little bit better knowing that the coaches of this team weren't trained in some other sport.

As for the loopholes in the bill... well, the real problem is I don't know how one could fix that. It seems as though the amendment to the bill has allowed for some leeway for smaller farms, so one issue being raised is: What's to stop a bigger farm from breaking itself into smaller farms just to take advantage? I don't know - vigilance from the regulators? Educated consumers?  I mean if we make up an amendment for every single "what if" then we will never get passed go on this one.


It is not perfect. I don't think it is horrible either. I think the  new amendment with considerations for the smaller businesses was needed. I think this is a step in the right direction... I hope.

The REAL Problem 
 
Let's think about it this way. Every single business - big, small, local, whatever - that is in operation right now has some way of making their ends meet (that's why they are in business right now). They each have a system that is working for them to hopefully be making a profit of sorts. Some of those businesses are operating in a way that you or I may completely agree with and some may not - we can agree on that. However, where we may disagree is on which practices are "right" and which are "wrong."

This bill is trying not to determine what is "right" or "wrong," but instead what is safe, but they have to find a way to regulate it. The real problem is uniform measurement/regulation/assessment. I see this problem in education all the time: someone has to decide what to asses, how to asses it and then determine what the consequences are. It is an impossible task to get all parties to agree on what is fair. The food industry is as diverse as the United States' student population and every group has their advocates. I understand this disagreement, but isn't it obvious that our current assessment is failing us?


I think I am leaning toward the "yays", hoping that those farmers in my Farmers Market can make it through, especially those who have bakeries on their premises. However, I will be watching this debate... perhaps amidst the furious comments, name calling and dismissal of opposing opinions a diamond in the rough, a person with the perfect solution will emerge!

Some Further Reading About S. 510 (make sure to check out the comments to feel the full fervor of the debate!):

• Food Politics blog on S. 510 by Marion Nestle
• NYTimes Op-Ed by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser
• S. 510 Hissing in the Grass on the Food Freedom blog & Update: Senate must vote on S 510 in the next 60 days
• S. 510: A Study in How Much You Trust the Government on Food Safety News and also S 510 Opinion: No Free Passes
• S 510 Food Safety Update by Slow Food USA
• and below, if you love legalese, is a widget to take you to OpenCongress, where you can actually read the whole bill!

Are you interested in taking action when it comes to your food? If so, here is some further reading for you!

• the fight against genetically modified salmon 
• safe food organizations and resources
• my favorite places on the web for food activism

UPDATE: Food Safety Bill Passes Senate