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DEL.ICIO.USScared to eat your vegetables?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Do you think the government should be doing more to make sure veggies are safe to eat?
Produce industry officials say that sales of lettuce and spinach are down 20 percent in the wake of several E. coli outbreaks last fall. According to a survey by the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers University, about 60 percent of those surveyed said they have not resumed eating spinach since September’s recall. With those fears ..it’s not easy being green! We’re supposed to be eating more servings of fruits and vegetables than advised ever before. Used to be Five-a-Day was the goal. Now the Produce for Better Health Foundation along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising we eat even more. So what’s a spinach salad lover to do? Help is on the way as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said its calling for a stricter system for monitoring fresh fruit and vegetable safety, but it’s voluntary NOT mandatory. What would like government food safety officials to require?
Comments
By Leah
March 13, 2007 5:31 PM | Link to this
That surprises me that so many people still aren’t eating spinach. I actually figured that it was safer now than ever, what with the heightened media attention from the last scare. There were certainly a lot of processing plants in California that got a top to bottom inspection and cleaning as part of the whole ordeal.
I don’t know that more government guidelines, especially if they are voluntary, would help to make fresh produce safer. If people are concerned about how their food is grown and handled, they should consider joining a local CSA and going to visit the farm and meet the farmers who grow their produce.
By MrLiberty
March 16, 2007 12:14 PM | Link to this
To begin with, the only thing that is making eating vegetables unsafe is the continued presence of the animal product industry. Ecoli and salmonella do not grow, live, infect, or otherwise go after fruits or vegetables. They only get on these items because manure is put on the fields they are grown in either improperly or illegally.
The animal product industry - animals raised for meat, etc. and the dairy industry, create an unbelievable amount of waste products. These dangerous organisms live in this waste. Producers of this waste have been known to illegally dump this waste on farm land or even vacant lots in neighborhoods adjacent to their farms. Local farmers are under constant pressure to take this waste off the hands of animal producers. If the waste has not been properly composed to kill the organisms the results for the vegetable or fruit crops can be serious (well for anyone eating them).
Government should do its job and protect property rights. These waste materials are running off feed lots during heavy rains and contaminating fields and underground water sources. Nitrates is what shows up on the water analysis, but feces is the real ingredient.
But don’t look to the government to care about the fruits and vegetables. The USDA is beholden to the meat and dairy industry. If you don’t believe me, just look at what the food pyramid used to look like.
The only way we can all be sure of being safe is to wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly and cut WAY back on our meat and dairy consumption so tha the industry will have far less manure to properly and safely dispose of.
Animal farmers may not care, but meat eaters only encourage them with their purchases.