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Another good reason to grow your own food

17 years ago

[Not intended to be a political rant but just a warning about the dangers involved in a lack of inspection and controls over our commercial food processing and public consumption]

Local, State Agencies Lack Resources to Ensure Food Safety:

Local and state health officials trying to prevent food illness outbreaks are stymied by scarce resources, weak leadership from the federal government and bureaucratic barriers, according to a new study public health experts released yesterday.

While much of the current debate about improving food safety has focused on federal agencies -- the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- the bulk of food safety work is performed by about 3,000 local and state agencies, which handle everything from inspections of restaurants, food processing plants and grocery stores to detecting outbreaks and removing unsafe products from stores.

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I suppose these same agencies are also responsible for the safety of products from meat, chicken, dairy, and fish industries, too.

Sigh.

Comments (7)

  • 17 years ago

    u r exactly right.

  • 17 years ago

    Lets be serious.

    You are much more likely to get sick from eating vegetables grown in your own yard then you are from store bought vegetables.

    The same bacterias and pathogens are in your yard, however here are two main differences between what is grown in your yard and what is bought at the store:

    1) There is absolutely no testing on what is grown in your back yard

    2) People eat vegetables from their yards with no washing - straight from the vine.

    There are many reasons for growing vegetables, but food safety is definitely not one of them.

  • 17 years ago

    "You are much more likely to get sick from eating vegetables grown in your own yard then you are from store bought vegetables."

    What a thoroughly ridiculous statement!!!

  • 17 years ago

    I have never gotten sick from produce I have grown. More than once I have from purchased produce.

    Besides, do you really think there is testing done on the produce at the markets until people are already getting sick. I doubt it.

    We also know the imported produce for out of season crops is grown using known unsafe practices. Human manure, etc.

  • 17 years ago

    Next to taste, food safety is high on the list as a reason to grow your own food. I've never heard of anyone getting food poisoning from their own homegrown lettuce, their own homegrown spinach, or their own homegrown peanuts and peanut butter.

    Then in addition to the industry-wide recall of peanut products, there's the FDA recall of pistachios, anchovies, pimentos (with glass in them), salad sprouts, white & black pepper, walnuts, mayonnaise, cheese, oysters, bird seed, fish dip, "Gulsha" fish, dog biscuits, sun dried tomatoes, pancake mix, dried yellow potatoes, canned tuna, herring, and whole wheat flour.

    These are just recalls publicized in the last three months by the FDA.

    A Google search will reveal many more sites citing food recalls during other time periods.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Google -- food recalls

  • 17 years ago

    I remember, when we lived in Mexico, coming across people washing commercially produced onions, for market, in canals full of black & grey water. Those canals had plenty of typhoid, and later, cholera, in them. Frankly, I can hardly imagine eating commercially grown produce without washing and disinfecting it. I ASSUME it is tainted.

    George
    Tahlequah, OK

  • 17 years ago

    One reason commercial produce is more likely to give people food poisoning than home-grown is that storage time and conditions can allow for bacterial growth. Bacteria were also the cause of the latest problem with peanuts.

    But mold which produces Aflatoxin (dangerous to the liver, etc.) is a potential problem both with commercial and home-grown peanuts (and some other crops). At least in the U.S., testing for Aflatoxin is routine for big commercial peanut butter processing outfits. It's hard to do at home.

    Be sure to discard any peanuts, other legumes, grains, etc. with any sign of mold growth.