Sunny side up: why eggs are safer in Europe
The following is a guest post by Bonnie Azab Powell, co-founder of the food-politics blog The Ethicurean who started the Bay Area’s first Community-Supported Agriculture program for meat, BAMCSA, in 2006. She now manages the CSA programs for Clark Summit and Soul Food farms. She eats two runny eggs nearly every day. The opinions expressed are her own.
Reading about the recall of 550 million possibly salmonella-tainted U.S. eggs, laid and packed in just a handful of massive Iowa factories made me think about the egg aisle of a Sainsbury’s supermarket I visited in England, near Brighton, two years ago.
I was so struck by the store signage, which read not only “Organic” and “Free Range” — familiar terms — but also “Barn” and “Caged,” that I took several pictures with my iPhone. My English host practically had to drag me away from reading all the explanatory text included on the cartons: barn eggs are “laid by hens free to nest, perch, and roam in spacious barns,” while “Woodland organic free-range” eggs are “from hens free to roam in a natural environment with trees.”
Not only are the cartons informatively labeled, each egg is stamped with a simple code that tells what kind of system produced it.
It sounded so … pleasant. I didn’t see how anyone with a heart could pass over these visions of happy nesting, perching, tree-scratching chickens – despite being more expensive — for the grim “from caged hens.” And yet as I watched, plenty of shoppers opted to save the pound or more per dozen.
In Europe, the philosophy is “Buyer Be Aware.” But in the U.S., it’s “Buyer Beware.” American food labels have loads of nutritional information, but little that you can trust to tell you how it was produced.
Looking out for the little chicks
Sickness and death are no way to regulate food
– Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. The views expressed are her own. —
The discovery of the salmonella-tainted peanut butter produced and sold by the Peanut Corporation of America at one of its plants, at Blakely, GA, raises a vital question for all Americans. Does the Food and Drug Administration have the resources to ensure the safety of America’s domestic and imported food supply?
The Agriculture Department does a good job of inspecting animal-based products such as meat, poultry, and dairy, but the remaining part of the food supply that falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA is a different kettle of fish. The FDA is failing to oversee adequately its share of food and cannot guarantee the safety of foreign food imports.
Former FDA Deputy Commissioner William Hubbard, now of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA, testified before the Senate Committee on Agriculture earlier this month that the FDA’s responsibilities have grown as its resources have diminished. In the 1970s the FDA performed 35,000 inspections a year, with 70,000 food processing plants subject to regulation. Today, the FDA conducts only 7,000 inspections a year, yet the number of plants has grown to 150,000.
Inspection of imported food is worse. The FDA inspects only a fraction of one percent of the 216,000 foreign facilities exporting food into America.
What can be done? The FDA could persuade Congress to give it more authority to mandate, money and staff. Congress has not even granted the FDA permission to block entry of food from foreign firms that refuse to allow overseas inspection by FDA officials. Nor has it allowed the FDA to mandate preventive controls to hinder terrorists, such as locks on tankers carrying juice or trucks parked at rest stops.
If another $500 million were allocated to inspections, then spending on food would once more equal half the FDA’s budget, the same as it was in the 1970s. American taxpayers and consumers would gain by avoiding illness, thereby increasing productivity at work, school, and home.
Excellent opinion piece. Unfortunately, last week Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told a group of rice growers that the only reason to work on food safety issues in the US is because it will “preserve markets” and “income opportunities.”
http://tinyurl.com/auto78
This is an a-moral position, and frankly terrifying for all Americans.
Using ionizing radiation to preserve certain food stuffs are permitted in both EU and the US. In both EU and US radiated food has to be labeled.
Radiation of food in the EU may only be authorized if:
there is a reasonable technological need;
it presents no health hazard;
it is of benefit to the consumers;
it is not used as a substitute for hygiene and health practices or for good manufacturing or agricultural practice;
Any food irradiated as such or containing irradiated food ingredients has to be labelled
A favourable opinion of the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) is needed to place a specific food item on the EU-wide list of products authorised for irradiation.
To claim that EU rely on radiation for preservation of food is exaggerated.