Food Industry Holds Consumer Responsible For Safety

The food industry is getting serious about food safety, and by serious I mean they are asking consumers to take on the responsibility of ensuring their food won't make them sick.  In other words, you only have yourself to blame if you get sick, not the mismanaged, under-regulated, and sprawling mess of an industrial food system.  Feel reassured?  In response to the recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, including salmonella and E. coli, manufacturers have conceded that they are unable to guarantee that their long list of ingredients won't bring lurking pathogen into your home.  So, now you are expected to test, thermometer in hand, to see if their frozen dinners have been microwaved enough to sufficiently destroy harmful bacteria.  Rather than re-evaluate and improve their safety standards or look at the potentially unsafe conditions at points along their ever-growing supply chain, they have thrown up their hands and say "enjoy...but be careful!"

There has got to be a better way of shoring up the risks posed by this system than simply slapping cartoon safety diagrams on frozen dinner boxes.  We, the consumers, need to demand more accountability from food manufacturers as well as increased oversight and enforcement from the likes of the FDA and USDA.  And an even better way to know what's in your food is to learn where it comes from, and the most efficient way to do so is by shopping locally, getting to know the farmers and producers, and learn first-hand what they do to ensure the safety of their food.  The closer someone is to the product they sell, the more seriously they are likely to take the safety and quality of what they are passing on to you.

Photo: chronos-tachyon's flickr photostream (creative commons)