Poll: Americans Wary Of U.S. Food Supply

86 Percent Say Produce Should Be Labeled For Tracking All The Way Back To The Farm

(AP)  Troubled by the tainted tomato scare, nearly half of Americans are concerned they may get sick from eating contaminated food and are avoiding items they normally would buy, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll has found.

Although three in four remain confident about the overall safety of foods, the poll found that consumers overwhelmingly support setting up a tracing system for produce in the wake of the salmonella outbreak first linked to tomatoes and, now, hot peppers.

Eighty-six percent said produce should be labeled so it can be tracked through layers of processors, packers and shippers, all the way back to the farm. The lack of such a system frustrated disease detectives working on the salmonella outbreak. Although federal officials lifted the tomato warning Thursday, the cause of the outbreak remains unknown.

The poll found that 80 percent of Americans said they would support new federal standards for fresh produce. Meat and poultry have long been subject to enforceable federal safeguards, but fruits and vegetables are not, although produce increasingly is being implicated in outbreaks.

Christy Taylor, a first-grade teacher from Sacramento, Calif., said she has all but given up on supermarket produce and is buying most of her fresh fruits and vegetables at the local farmers' market instead.

"I see the same farmers every single week," said Taylor, 30, the mother of 2-year-old twin girls. "You meet the people and you see where the (produce) is coming from."

Her twins love tomatoes, she said, and chomp on them as if they were apples. But until the mystery of the tainted tomatoes is solved, "I feel a little bit more comfortable, a little more safe, doing the local farmers' market," Taylor said.

In addition to the salmonella outbreak, this year has seen the largest ground beef recall in history, raising consumer concerns reflected in the poll.

Forty-six percent said they were worried they might get sick from eating contaminated food and that they have avoided foods because of safety warnings that they normally would have purchased. Twenty-nine percent have thrown out food earlier than usual and 14 percent have returned food to the store.

Such a level of uneasiness among consumers is "very significant," said Michael R. Taylor, a former senior federal food safety official who now teaches at George Washington University.

"When you have almost half the population avoiding certain foods because of safety concerns, that's very significant from the standpoint of economic impact for the people selling the food, and from the standpoint of peace of mind for consumers," said Taylor. Tomato growers say they have lost more than $100 million as a result of the current salmonella outbreak, which has sickened more than 1,200 people in 42 states since April.

The poll also found gender, racial and economic gaps on attitudes about food safety. Women, who do most of the shopping, were more concerned than men. For example, 39 percent of men said they were "very confident" that the food they buy is safe, but only 23 percent of women said they felt that way. However, men and women agreed on the need for better federal oversight.

"We've got to protect our food supply," said Stephan Weiss, 58, of West Linn, Ore., who runs a small engraving and embroidery business. "And if more inspectors are going to prevent people from getting sick and dying, then it's worth it."

People with lower incomes were less confident in food safety, as were minorities. Nearly half of Hispanics had little or no confidence in the safety of the food they buy.

In Congress, a leading advocate of food safety reforms said the industry would do well to listen to consumers on the need for tracing.

"We live in an age of technology where you can bar-code a banana," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "We've got to work this through with the industry and come up with something that's reasonable. The more confidence consumers have, the more goods they will purchase."

While the produce industry agrees that federal standards for preventing contamination are necessary, there is no consensus on a mandatory tracing system. Cost is a concern, especially for smaller companies.

The poll also found that 56 percent of consumers do not believe the government has enough inspectors to scrutinize food imports. If more are needed for imports and domestic produce, 70 percent said the cost should be covered through fees on industry. That echoes a proposal by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The telephone poll of 1,000 adults was conducted July 10-14 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the overall sample.

[alphaa10-2009]

Tracking food shipments is already done on an ad hoc basis by manufacturers, and they are only too glad to have this modestly expensive system in place when something goes wrong.

If a beef producer finds tainted beef, does he (1) deny anything is wrong (2) wait a while until he must make a statement or (3) use the tracking system to localize the faulty meat shipment and pull it out of circulation?

The problem is, so much food comes from such a wide variety of sources, keeping tabs on quality and safety is a constant threat.

There must be national regulation against a national threat. Our chances of encountering salmonella or E.coli are far greater than a terrorist time bomb-- and potentially just as lethal.

Despite his boasts about protecting Americans, Bush has been asleep in his lessez faire regime (aka Law of the Jungle) for the past eight years, most of it under the unwatchful eye of a GOP-led congress.

[l00ker]

All of these heads of these government over sight agencies, should be sliding on their @sses down Pennsylvania Ave, right along side their parasitic bosses in congress, like yesterday. It''s apparent that they don''t care about their jobs, or just plain old don''t know what the heck that they are doing. Either way, they are in just deservance of the steel toe, like goal posts.

[flysky06]

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[beehive21-2009]

We grew are own Tomatoes Squash,Zucchini,peppers, etc,the garden is busting with fresh,why didn''t,you.the American people need to start a Garden in the future,you''ll be glad you did.

[david1737]

More of Deregulations greatest hits:

The Savings and Loan Scandal of the late 80s.

Google it.

And you''ll find out that Neal Bush, Jeb Bush, Bush senior and W were all connected to this, as well as John McCain of Keating 5 fame. (all said and done this led to a massive bail out paid for by the tax payer)

The Enron scandal.

Google this one and you''ll find that Phil Gramm (co-chair on McCain''s campaign and his econ. Guru) and his wife Wendy Gramm set the stage for the Enron debacle which cost California $40 billion.

The Subprime meltdown.

Google this one and again Phil Gramm and the legislation Gramm Leach Bliley Act comes up.

The Gramm Leach ACT gutted the Glass Steagall Act which provided a fire wall between investment and commercial banks.

Google these items and do the research!

[david1737]

Deregulation the theme of the Republican Party.

Deregulation and the gutting of Federal programs such as the FDA, the EPA, and FEMA have led our country into a series of catastrophic failures including:

The almost unending list of food contamination issues we''ve seen in the last seven years.

Does anybody remember the Vioxx scandal?

How about the failure of FEMA''s response to Hurricane Katrina.

Bush quote: "Brownie''s doin'' a heck of a job."

[david1737]

Deregulation the theme of the Republican Party.

Deregulation and the gutting of Federal programs such as the FDA, the EPA, and FEMA have led our country into a series of catastrophic failures including:

The almost unending list of food contamination issues we''ve seen in the last seven years.

Does anybody remember the Vioxx scandal?

Now McSame is pushing for building more nuclear power plants, while campaigning for less regulation.

If there''s one thing that you need where nuclear power is concerned it''s regulation.

[shanev137]

The FDA has been a catastrophic failure under Bush.....but that''s the way everyone likes it and why they voted for him twice.

[libsluv2spit]

"We live in an age of technology where you can bar-code a banana," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "

this is scarey..the more we insist that the govt. to babysit us....then we would need to bar-code humans..

NWO...2012

[hypnotoad72]

the way most americans are OVER-WEIGHT..eating less might do us some good..dont you think?

Posted by libsluv2spit
--------------

Eating the right foods and exercising more. Even the Wii is better than your average gayme console, because of it...

We wash all our fruits and vegetables and we stay away from anything like strawberries that have been sprayed with methol bromide. The only reason that poison is still allowed only in the United States is because of an exemption the Virginia manufacturer received form the Bush Administration as a favor for political donation.
We are waiting on the Obama Express to correct so many things our worst President in 60 years has allowed or done.

[gordon.couger]

There are several very real problems with farm to fork labeling of vegetables and other things in processed foods.

The fist is marking them with an ID code before they an be commingled with other things like them in way that won''t come off. If putting it on the box is OK That not hard to do. but if you want in each tomato it is hard and then there are grapes.

Lasers can burn id''s in the skin and can one day soon be made cheap enough to do it. But the machine to singulate the produce and present it the laser to have the ID put on it is costly to build and not subject to the free falling computer prices.

Then what do we do with things like wheat that is commingled at harvest? Or processed foods with them in them?

Growers have opposed to ID preservation cost for what they see as someone else''s problem. They have a pretty good reason as in the past it has cost money to do and leads to more discounts for quality problems with no reward for higher quality when they deliver it.

The USDA and FDA are careful do thing until they know they will work. Failure will make it a lot harder to get their next process out and prevent the industry that had the failure from having one that works for 30 or 40 years.

And then there the matter of who pays for what. Almost everyone in the process works on profit margins of 2 to 4% or less with losses not an uncommon sight. If you want to foot the bill it would go faster

[hypnotoad72]

What, illegal laborers not washin'' their hands after pickin'' and grinnin''?

It''s reeeeeeeeeeeeevenge for sins of the father, and by proxy too!

That or they just don''t give a ***t, pardon the inverse pun.

[libsluv2spit]

the way most americans are OVER-WEIGHT..eating less might do us some good..dont you think?

[libsluv2spit]

the way most americans are OVER-WEIGHT..eating less might do us some good..dont you think?

[displeased]

As a wealthy person I employ an illegal alien as a food taster.
Posted by GOP_forever

I can see why you need one.

[deacon20081]

Plant a garden now and you can still have a good harvest in the late fall.
Please be sure to send all tainted foods to
GOP_forever...his illegals need thining out

[drinuk]

The population should be worried and wary, chemicals lace almost every product on supermarket shelves. Don''t try telling me they are FDA approved either because they have been stamped for money, bribes, backhanders.

Then we have Monsanto doing a Frankenstein job on our fruit and veg, the jury is still out on GM crops which were going to feed the world ??? So what happened, why the price hike now ? Oh Boy! are we stupid or what ? Time to dig up the lawn and start growin'' your own, just don''t tell Monsanto or they will sue you for infringing their patents, did''nt you know that they own every plant on the Planet, God told ''em so.

[nssherlock1]

Was this poll conducted by the Institute of the Obvious?

[six-six-seis]

The asymmetry of the economies of Mexico, United States and Canada, the three NAFTA signatories, had an important expression with the neglect of agriculture by local farmers, and the migration from the country by 4.5 million Mexicans.



The study said the participation of agriculture in the Mexican Gross Domestic Product went from 6.1 percent in 1993 to 3.7 in the third quarter of 2007.



All this situation shows how weakened the Mexican rural environment is, being typified as the most affected economic area since NAFTA started.