Comments on: Protection of Food Supply Faces Problems
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- What about the effects of the genetically modified organism so prevalent in the US diet?
You can't have a discussion about food in America without bringing up the monopoly that Monsanto has in the growing of food.
Is CBS going to do any investigation into this area?
I have travelled for decades and lived in many countries and have found the US diet to be the worst on the planet. Its the stalest foods around. You eat in a foreign land and the food is FRESH.
The American diet truly is SAD(Standard American Diet).
Add to that the laziness of the masses and what do you expect.
A bonanza for Big Pharma.
Feed them garbage and then attempt to treat them with toxic drugs.
And you wonder why the health(death) care system is for crap.
What about prevention? - Reply to this comment
- Just give the following a little thought. I grew up on a farm. I played in the barnyard at times. This means I was covered with various types of animal manure at times. I drank raw unpasturized milk until I was 18. In general I think we raise our children, and ourselves in too much of a sanitized world. Many times my hands were dirty and in my mouth yet I had no problems.
Raw animal manure was spread on the vegetable garden. We didn't get sick. It was standard practice to load up a manure spreader full and spread it on the garden before it was tilled in the spring 50 years ago.
We had lead in our paint and the pipes coming into many of the homes was lead. Yet folks lived full and productive lives.
Kids ran through the smoke for DDT as it was sprayed for mosquitoes in cities.
Gasoline is much more poisonous and injures many more folks each year than pesticides do. Yet we continue to use gasoline widely.
Many more folks are killed from: traffic accidents related to alcohol, being overweight, smoking, and unhealthful eating than are hurt by contaminated food. Why not put the money and effort into the worst things first. We will have the greatest results.
The sanitation practices we now are supposed to follow make our bodies more susceptible to various fungi, bacteria, and viruses. Given time and a slow initiation we have a remarkable ability to develop resistance.
Perhaps it is time to back off a little on this sanitation - Reply to this comment
- If more people got off their butts and quit saying it's someone else's job to supply safe food; if more people took responsibility for ensuring that their town food supply is safe; if more people got proactive instead of reactive, this could stop being a problem. The fact is, Americans want what they want when they want it (strawberries in December), but they don't want to have to pay much for it and they want it to be safe. Hmmmmmm...
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- As to the safety of food:
I looked into growing a couple of acres and selling what was left over. I would have to sell my vegetables at the local farmers market and would be subject to having my farm inspected, the farmers market would determine at what price I could sell my food (so much for free market) and of course I would have to pay taxes. I asked my neighbor about people I see on the side of the road selling food. He stated they move all over the county as they are "illegally" selling - kind of like selling drugs.
As to the illegals:
I looked into buying a convenience store, my banker told me I would have to do a business plan etc, and in the end I would be turned down. As he explained, a foreigner coming to this country would get a govt. guaranteed zero interset loan. That explains why so many own business in this country.
As to the politicians:
All of them will sell us out to line their own pockets.
My history:
I just left a large computer company as they wanted me to teach people in a foreign country to do my job. Let the managers figure it out and teach others. - Reply to this comment
- This story made me mad. Don't we all deserve to be able to sit down at the dinner table without worrying that the food is going to make us or our kids sick? Congress is way overdue in fixing that 70 year-old food safety law! Check out www.MakeOurFoodSafe.org
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- And I find it even more rude when I see my voting ballots printed in Spanish and English. Should be in English only!
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- "Every year 33 percent of Canadians get sick from what they eat. In the U.S., it's 25 percent."
I'm thinking that it must be the other way around. Sure we have the odd cases of food poisoning, but nothing compared to what I hear happening in the U.S. Over the last couple of years it's been spinch, tomatoes, peanuts, lettuce...?
If people are getting sick, maybe it's because they are eating the fruits and vegetables coming from the U.S.? : ) I always buy local and have never had a problem. - Reply to this comment
- What is so sad about this is we have republicans adverse to any type of regulation either hamstringing or completely doing away with inspection programs.
Food companies are like banks. Quality control and inspection takes time and money. They will do as little as they can get away with. - Reply to this comment
- Watch the documentary "Food, Inc." The website is at http://www.foodincmovie.com/
It's very eye-opening. - Reply to this comment
- "But in England it's only 2 percent and in France just 1 percent. In both places food is grown more locally and on a smaller scale than in North America."
This is an incredibly important piece of information. Countries that support local, small-scale farming and food production have safer food! Yet neither CBS nor the nonprofits nor the legislators pay any attention to this fact when they get to the section on how to improve food safety in the U.S.
FDA has an important role to fill when it comes to imported foods or foods that are shipped to multiple states. All of the well-publicized food outbreaks have come from these large, multi-state or international sources. But FDA should NOT be regulating small, local food sources. Not only is it not necessary, but FDA's track record shows that it will impose unfair and potentially crushing burdens on small producers who are providing a safe, healthy alternative for consumers. Leave local foods to the local authorities.
Several organizations are working to exempt small-scale, local producers from the upcoming food safety bill. Please call your Senators and urge them to support such exemptions!
For more information, check out:
http://www.worc.org/local-foods/
http://farmandranchfreedom.org/content//food_safety_bills_09 - Reply to this comment
