With food scares cropping up as regularly as harvest time—bad spinach in 2006, pet food in 2007, tainted tomatoes last year and now contaminated peanuts—it’s become clear that the American garden needs to be recultivated.
The message hasn’t been lost on the new administration. “Food safety is something I take seriously not just as your president, but as a parent,” President Barack Obama told the press back in March. “No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch.”
So far, the nation’s new top executive has made food safety an important part of his agenda, even as he works to put out other national fires, from the economic crisis to health-care woes. By his 50th day in office, Obama had appointed former New York City health commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg as agency commissioner to the Food and Drug Administration and named the former Baltimore commissioner of health, Joshua M. Sharfstein, as her deputy—a dual move, many experts agree, that signals his resolve to fix the nation’s contaminated food conundrum.
It certainly pleases Jaydee Hanson, a food policy analyst with the Washington-based Center for Food Safety, a watchdog group that monitors food manufacturers, sounds the alarm when necessary and lobbies for change among lawmakers. “The president’s appointment of Hamburg is a key move,” says Hanson. “I think it’s great. She has a strong science background, a strong public health background and a direct research background. She has worked in all the right places. She’s just the kind of person who can put this agency on an even keel.”
The president also announced in March the creation of a new Food Safety Working Group to address the rise in contaminated food. The panel will not only enforce food safety laws, but also increase the number of food inspectors. Chaired by the secretaries of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture, these advisers will coordinate with other agencies and senior officials to inform Obama on examining, enforcing and upgrading food safety laws.
Still, there is much to be done. “We’ve had some kind of food safety scandal every couple of months over the last five years,” says Hanson. “Just last summer there was a big one—salmonella. But because it didn’t have a good trace-back system, the FDA couldn’t figure out who was responsible for the salmonella, who the bad actor was, and the result was the financial collapse of pretty much the entire U.S. tomato industry.”
Given Washington’s stepped-up efforts to protect Americans from poorly processed food, can we expect a change for the better? Hanson and other American food safety experts believe the government is finally moving in the right direction.
Tony Corbo, legislative representative of the D.C.-based Food and Water Watch, is also pleased by what he sees as a brighter picture for food safety. “I think the FDA has recognized that it needs additional authority to properly regulate food safety in this country, and has actually asked Congress to give it additional authority so that they can do their jobs more effectively,” he explains. “And two of the things they’ve asked for are mandatory recall authority—the power to order things off the shelf—and additional authority to regulate produce. There are various bills now before Congress that would give them that authority.”
The Food Safety Modernization Act is one such bill getting attention these days. It calls for a new Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services. If passed, the bill would also require food establishments and processors to adhere to stricter food safety standards.
The food safety landscape may be changing for the better, but certain facts still keep advocates like Hanson up at night. “We now have more than twice as many establishments that manufacture, process, pack or store food that the FDA is supposed to be regulating,” says Hanson. But, today, if you are one of those establishments, you can expect to see an FDA inspector, or one of its delegated inspectors, about once every five years.”
Dr. Stephen Sundlof, head of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, says of Hanson’s claims, “When managing available resources, FDA targets work based on risk and inspects firms that are higher-risk on a more frequent basis.” Sundlof adds that the FDA is now making requests for the 2009 and 2010 budgets to fund more inspectors and services.
The power of the federal government to order, not just urge, timely reporting and immediate recall is also important, says Hanson. And he believes Hamburg understands this. “She’s been an assistant secretary at Health and Human Services; she’s worked at NIH [National Institutes of Health] … as a scientist, she knows all the issues,” he says.
Nonetheless, if the long-term food safety picture is not yet in focus, what can consumers do on their own to protect their pantries this summer? Hanson says there are several items to watch out for, especially pre-mixed products. That includes anything from tomatoes or peanuts ground up together to hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages, which may have come from multiple animals.
“The problems are with the large growers, so if you’re concerned about having safe tomatoes, go to farmers’ markets and get heritage breeds,” says Hanson. “The more fresh produce you can handle properly, prepare and consume, that’s good. And it’s what people should be doing this summer. What you don’t need to worry about, for the most part, are the things that are processed at high temperatures, like canned soups, for example, that you’re going to cook at high temperatures.”
Echoing Hanson, David Tharp, executive director of the International Association for Food Protection, says, “The food we eat today could come from around the corner, down the road or from someplace around the world. It is the responsibility of all parties in the food chain to ensure a safe product arrives for consumption.”
In a time when food can travel 1,500 to 2,500 miles before reaching the dinner table, Hanson’s overall advice: “Have as much contact with the producers of your food as you can. It won’t keep you from getting sick, but at least you’ll know who made you sick. The more stops there are in the production chain, the more likelihood there is for something to go wrong. I know that the steak I buy from my local butcher has been in his place, the butcher shop or his stand at the farmers market, and my freezer.”
Even better, not only will buying local food protect your pantry, but it’ll also stimulate the local economy by taking money from industrial agriculture and giving it to local farmers. Plus, local food usually costs 30 to 40 percent less because we save on delivery costs associated with grocery-store brands, according to Food and Water Watch.
And don’t think food safety ends with what you eat; it’s what you drink, too. So, we asked, what about beer? “The fermenting process takes care of most of that protection,” Hanson says. “But, frankly, if you’ve got bad beer, you’ll taste it.”