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Step away from the spatula
Freshly-laid eggs being collected for delivery to the local packing plant.
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TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: And now, sadly, some bad news for all the cake-batter lickers among you, present company included. Put down the spatula. More than 220 million eggs have been recalled after a salmonella outbreak. And even after the e.coli scares of a couple of years ago, there are more foods to worry about out there than you might think.
Marketplace's Adriene Hill reports.
Adriene Hill: If eggs had faces, there'd be yolk all over them. But they are far from the only food showing cracks in the food safety system.
Dr. Michael Hansen: There are recalls of food at least once a week.
That's Dr. Michael Hansen, a scientist at Consumer Reports. Here are just a few of the recent food recalls listed on the USDA site: Frozen ground beef products, canned meatball products, chicken nugget products, Firehouse Jerky Beef Jerky products. Dr. Hansen says the food safety system is broken.
Hansen: If we look, the number, for example, of inspections and inspectors have gone down drastically since the early 70s. And the number and amount of food that's being imported and circulated has only increased.
The Centers for Disease Control has found 76 million cases of foodborne illness every year. The CDC's Dr. Christopher Braden says the government's go to do more.
Christopher Braden: Inspecting and testing will get you part of the way there, but there have to be whole systems of food safety that have multiple approaches to making food safe.
A lot of those come from food handling. But many come from the food production process. The foods more likely to get you sick: Poultry, meat and leafy vegetables. Another surprise: Salsa and guacamole. The dip accounts for one in every 25 foodborne illnesses from eating out. Sorry if I spoiled your supper plans.
I'm Adriene Hill for Marketplace.
Food production is big business. And like any other big business is driven by profit. If cleaning the factory as often as the processors SAY they will, slows down production and decreases profits, its a sure bet the cleaning schedule will get altered, and a few stray bugs will find their way into our food.
Sadly, we've seen this many times before. Corporate profits-whether from selling raw chicken parts, pharmaceuticals, or crude oil- always seem to win out over ethics and safety. It's probably why greed is considered one of the seven deadly sins.
Eaters are taking back control over the foods that they eat by re-localizing their food system: either by buying from local, trusted sources(farmers markets, CSAs, co-ops), or by growing / raising the food themselves. Farm Aid's www.HOMEGROWN.org is an online community of such people. I would recommend dropping by to get a sense of these folks' commitment and passion for good food.
Re Story AND comments by Mr. Milan:
There IS private oversight of the food industry that directly and indirectly benefits Americans. It's done by primarily Orthodox Rabbis and, to a lesser extent, by the enforcers of Hallal standards. (Marketplace covered a Kosher meat processor in Iowas recently.) As I recall, something on the order of 60% of packaged groceries in an average supermarket are certified kosher. I shudder to think about the safety of our food supply without those fusty old Rabbis. As a left of center type, their politics are anathema to me, but without them...the (food)abyss.
*Why* does it have to be the *government* that does more to ensure food safety? There are at least two independent nonprofit agencies that act as watchdogs to ensure the safety of a lot of other products (Underwriters Labs and Consumers Union); why not let the private sector look into food safety as well?
(I suspect it's notable that you didn't compare the food-safety *budget* from the '70s to today, even adjusted for inflation. I predict it has actually increased.)
