Food Safety = Local Food
Civil Eats had an article last week stating:
“According to a Consumer Reports poll released this week, Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about U.S. food safety, and the overwhelming majority want the government to do more to monitor the American food supply.”
“The American public wants to know more about their food, where it comes from, how safe it is, and will vote with their dollars to support highly meaningful labels,” says Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union. “Consumers want to know that the food they buy meets the standards they expect—our poll shows that right now, that is not the case. Whether that means that ‘organic’ fish eat 100% organic feed without contamination, or that people know which meat and dairy products come from cloned or genetically engineered animals—consumers want the government to ensure safety, quality and meaning in the food marketplace.”
Do we really think we can rely on the government to keep our food system safe? I don’t think so. This is why I shop at farmer’s markets and buy my meat and dairy from a small local farm. I know exactly where my food is coming from and how well it’s being treated (while living and during slaughter). We don’t need more government regulation, we need to speak with our dollars. Shop locally, invest in your local food chain.
What do you think? Do you think government regulation will help the safety of our food system?
That’s a tough one. On some level, you would like govt to intervene and interfere in those cases of animals and worker abuses, those cases of badly handled and contaminated meat/produce. And as someone who has highly allergic children, labeling is a godsend. Knowing the origins of your food is also vastly important, to me. But at the same time, rarely does govt ever make good laws, it seems where big agri-business is concerned. Things like NAIS rear their ugly heads and seem to have more to do with punishing the little guy, rewarding the big guy for bad programs, and using fear to get the general public on board.
So for me, personally, I go the local route as much as possible, try to help others figure this option out for themselves as well….and hold out a bit of hope that someday a decent and rational law would be passed to further our food safety and promote small farmers and local food sytems.
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