Wright County Egg Producer Testifies

Austin J. DeCoster testified before a House committee today. His explanation for how his egg company ended up at the heart of more than three decades of salmonella outbreaks: (we) “got big quite a while before we stopped acting like we were small.” That might be true, but the fact that he was allowed to keep operating and selling eggs to the public after repeated citations over the years from government inspectors is really the fault of the government agencies responsible for doing the inspections. If they had been doing their job then this now infamous Wright County egg producer would have been shut down ages ago.

Read all about what Mr. DeCoster had to say during the hearing here.

GM Salmon likely coming to a grocery store near you...

Looks like salmon might be the first biotech animal to be approved by the FDA. Although nothing has been finalized yet, the FDA held public meetings on AquAdvantage Salmon on September 19-21. For meeting information and highlights you can visit the FDA website here. In general, those attending the meetings indicated that their feelings toward GM salmon were positive, thus increasing the likelihood that this fish will enter the food system sometime in the near future. The panel did, however, express a need for further information and analysis before a final decision could be rendered.

To read more about this issue check out articles here , here, and here. Even if GM salmon is determined to be "safe" by FDA standards wouldn't you at least like to KNOW what you're buying? Hopefully the FDA will require product labeling so consumers can decide if GM salmon is something they want to ingest, but if this GM product follows the pattern of others approved by the FDA, you will be on your own to determine the genetic makeup of your salmon. One surefire way to avoid GM salmon, should it be approved, always buy wild fish. That will be effective at least until one of these GM salmon escapes and contaminates wild stocks. Then perhaps you will be smart to avoid salmon all together...unless you want to be a guinea pig for finding out how GM foods impact humans...

Egg Pasteurization

There has been a lot of recent news about the eggs contaminated with salmonella and shipped all over the country. This outbreak has been traced back to one farm that has a history of violations, none of which ever shut the producer down. Now, instead of discussing the reasons so many eggs would have salmonella, chickens living in unsanitary and inhumane conditions, being given feed that was contaminated instead of being allowed to forage on pasture, people have begun discussing requiring pasteurization of eggs before they hit supermarket shelves. Perhaps the FDA is missing the bigger picture, an outbreak like this points to a flaw in our food system, not the need to sterilize the product after the fact. If chickens were allowed to wander outdoors during the day and peck at the ground as nature intended not only would their eggs not require pasteurization to protect the public from bacteria but their eggs would also be more nutritious and tasty. Seriously, buy eggs the next time you are at the farmers' market and compare them to generic, mass-produced supermarket eggs (there really is no comparison, they are practically different products). To read the most recent article from the New York Times about this issue, click here.

Animal Antibiotics

You've seen the label "no antibiotics added" on various meat and poultry products in the grocery store and at your local Greenmarket. Perhaps you seek out these product because human antibiotic resistance has become an important issue for you or because you believe that animal welfare is negatively impacted by the use of therapeutic antibiotics. Perhaps you never seek out these products. Whatever the case may be, the FDA has decided to issue stricter guidelines on this aspect of factory farming. The final guidelines will not be published for several months, but in the meantime you can get yourself up-to-date on this issue here.

If you're interested in getting a better understanding of all those other labels you see on meat and poultry products, you can read the USDA's Food and Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) glossary of meat and poultry labeling terms here.