Dealing With Food Distribution System Failure
(Factory Food • )
OK, it’s official. Manufacturers can put any putrid ingredients they want to into their simulated food products, but if it turns out they’re contaminated with salmonella or E. coli and you eat them and get sick or die – it’s your fault:
In this case, ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. Other companies do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes and other potential dangers, interviews and documents show.Yet the supply chain for ingredients in processed foods — from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables — is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede.
In addition to ConAgra, other food giants like Nestlé and the Blackstone Group, a New York firm that acquired the Swanson and Hungry-Man brands two years ago, concede that they cannot ensure the safety of items — from frozen vegetables to pizzas — and that they are shifting the burden to the consumer.
Given the economic climate and the government’s past history of putting the interests of giant ag companies ahead of U.S. citizens, does anyone truly believe processed foods will become less toxic over the next 10 years, the current administration’s acknowledgement of food safety importance notwithstanding?
Not me, pal.
This is why we are filling our freezer with our own excess fruit and vegetable crops, buying eggs from a woman a few miles away in whose farming abilities we have great confidence, and looking to her, other local farmers and ranchers and the deer lease to meet our carnivore needs, the better to avoid bacteria-infested feedlots.
It’s a lot harder and more expensive than just popping in at Kroger’s or H.E.B. and rolling the salmonella dice on ConAgra’s finest, but meals prepared from foods grown or raised by people you trust taste astronomically better and don’t contain ungodly amounts of salt, mystery chemicals or the ever-popular liver-lard enhancer known as High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Cheap, easy-to-prepare food always ready to be purchased when you need it? Sure. But, with government complicity, the “food” processors can feed us contaminated goo and bear no responsibility for it. (“Did you heat the pot pie and test it to make sure it reached 184 degrees in several spots for at least three minutes, as explicitly stated in the preparation instructions clearly printed on the side of the box?” “I don’t recall the temperature.” “Well there you have it, Your Honor. The defense rests.”)
Why are we still putting up with this shit?
A lot of people aren’t. Efforts are taking root across the country to create a better food distribution future that borrows many elements from the past.
Stay tuned as those efforts bear fruit closer to home.
→ B.Dunn, May 15, 2009, 05 42 am
