Yes, we’d all like to know what is in our food. At the moment, we do not have a way to track our meals from the animal it came from to its packaging at the supermarket, and we’ll likely have to wait decades before we see any improvement on that front. However, with the elections coming up later this year, now would be a perfect time to address what the government is doing to make sure we all eat pathogen-free meals.
Who is on our side?
The debate on what we should put in our food is one that has been occurring since before many of us were even born. Humans have been eating for… well, just about as long as we’ve been around, and the argument over what we should and can eat cannot be traced back to a single source.
For just as long as we’ve been discussing our food, the question of who holds power, not only related to what we eat, but to our lives in general has been discussed. Long ago we created organized government in order to help us answer these important questions. Nowadays, we wonder if the government we helped create is really on our side in choosing what we should eat. Our government needs to take further steps to convince us that they are concerned with our health.
We are the scientists who conduct research on various foods. We are the article writers who report the findings of our own kind. One could even argue that we are the people that choose what we should and shouldn’t eat. There is one problem in this debate, though. We’ve segregated ourselves into different groups lobbying for the abolition of different foods others of us may have enjoyed. This tear in our society has blurred the lines of who “we” are. Who is looking out for our best interests? Who is in the food business for selfish reasons? This new school of debate is relatively new compared to what we’ve been used to.
The food dispute
Since the dawn of the food debate, it has been a fairly black/white argument against the major food corporations. Companies like McDonald’s have been feeding us unhealthy food since its inception in 1940. Critics argue that McDonald’s does not care for our health, and is only in the market to make money. In the 2008 American documentary Food Inc., major corporations like Monsanto Company, Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, and Perdue Farms are asked to be interviewed on what methods they use to manufacture our food. Every single one of them declined an interview.
While people on the other side of this debate agree that these companies are nowhere near innocent, they retort that it is up to us as individuals what we want to feed us and our children. This disagreement has led to the debate on organic vs. non-organic means of production. Thousands of people have argued, with experts like Blake Hurst and Food Inc.‘s own Michael Pollan leading each side of the debate.
People like Pollan and Hurst have been arguing on the use of antibiotics and different chemicals in our food for the better part of a decade now. In their article You Are What They Eat, Consumer Reports offers a viewpoint on the argument. They raise the question “If all animals were raised organically – on feed lacking pesticides, animal byproducts, and antibiotics – would our food supply be safer?” responding “Yes, in some ways. There would be less risk of mad cow disease, little or no arsenic in chicken, and fewer bacteria able to resist antibiotics. But there’s no guarantee that organic feed is free of garden-variety bacteria, including salmonella.” Consumer Reports takes a mildly impartial stance on the issue, at least compared to experts Blake Hurst and Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Marion Nestle.
Hurst, one of the most vocal supporters of the non-organic side of the argument has made his point very clear over the past 10 years. 4 years ago he published an article named Organic Illusions to reiterate his conclusions. He believes that “Plants and animals aren’t the least bit interested in the story the farmer has to tell. They don’t care about his sense of social justice, the size of his farm, or the business model that he has chosen…That means that when organic and/or conventional farmers provide the environment necessary for growth, plants and animals respond. It would be a shock if this did not occur, and it shouldn’t really be a story at all.”
A very controversial opinion to hold, indeed. Hurst’s ideals are met with opposition from many people like Nestle, who believe that “The use of antibiotics in animal agriculture affects food-borne illness in ways that are especially troubling. Growers treat infected animals with antibiotics, of course, but they sometimes give antibiotics to whole herds or flocks as a preventative measure.” Nestle argues that giving antibiotics to entire herds can make bacteria like salmonella grow resistant, and survive the cleaning process of the meat. The problem is that there are simply too many variables that can influence bacteria in our food. In many cases of breakouts of illness, the point at which the food became infected is almost never known. This debate will therefore continue into the foreseeable future, perhaps for long after we are gone. Therefore, this article is not written to address the issue of what we should put into our food, but who we can trust to make sure we do not fall ill.
The Government and our Food
Although the experts mentioned disagree adamantly on how we should process our food, they all agree on one point: our government may not have our best interests in their warm hearts. We can all agree that we must put a certain amount of trust into our government. Hurst mentions that “It is the position of the critics that you just can’t trust the government on these issues, which may indeed be the case. But the question arises: How can you trust the same government to enforce organic rules or guarantee the safety or organic pesticides? Or to approve the pharmaceuticals you rely upon to cure your illnesses?” The short answer? We can’t. Well, not to the extent that we do.
According to Consumer Reports many investigations “[Raise] concerns that the federal government isn’t doing enough to protect the feed supply and that as a result, the food we eat may not be as safe as it could be.” Nestle shares the opinion, stating that “We will see that food-borne illness is more than a biological problem; it is strongly affected by the interests of stakeholders in the food system – the food industry, government (agencies, Congress, and the White House), and consumers.”
Roberto A. Ferdman of The Washington Post also addresses issues of FDA and USDA oversight in interview with Bill Marler, a lawyer specializing in food-borne illness. When asked to speak about his “few major frustrations with food safety in the United States,” Marler solemnly explains that “On the FDA’s side, which is 80 percent of our other food supplies and imports, there’s a skeleton crew of inspectors,” and that “Most of the food-borne illness outbreaks that [Marler has] been involved in over the past 20 or 30 years, most of the manufacturing facilities have never had an FDA inspector in them.”
So, everyone is in agreement that the government is not doing as much as they can to monitor the safety of the food we are eating and feeding to our children. Instances have occurred in the past decade where organic and non-organic foods alike have cause food-borne illnesses in people. Why not address the oversight of both foods instead of uselessly discussing which food we should eat? It seems concerning that not only are members of the government not regulating the food we eat properly, but also are making money from these big name companies. The candidates running for office cannot answer questions on steps they will take to ensure that our food is safe if they are not asked. It is up to us, the people eating these meals to bring it up. After all, when is the last time you heard of a government official suffering from the effects of E. coli?