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Food & Water Watch

Mangos for Motorcycles, or Not

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food
imports

Has the Office of the United States Trade Representative got a deal for you. If you eat irradiated mangos from India . . . well, that’s it, really.

Mr. Johanns Eats a Mango at an Event Announcing Irradiated Imports For the past 18 years, the United States has refused to import mangos from India because they might carry the mango seed weevil, which could damage Florida mangos or other crops. But, for the past several months, the USTR has been negotiating a deal where we accept irradiated mangos from India and India accepts Harley Davidson motorcycles (which apparently involves changing Indian air pollution standards).

While it seems that the motorcycle deal has fallen through, we still get the mangos. Unfortunately between delays in country of origin labeling regulations and plans to eliminated the irradiated label, you may not even know if the mango you are considering in the grocery store is an irradiated one from India.

You could, of course, tell the FDA and USDA that you won’t stand for that kind of treatment. Just because Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns (pictured) eats irradiated mangos doesn’t mean you should have to.

Added 5-22-2007: See our irradiation campaign page for more about this expensive, impractical, ineffective and potentially dangerous technology.

Big Deal about irradiation

Posted by Dean at May 22, 2007, 10:43 AM

What's the problem with irradiation? I'm looking forward to eating Indian mangos, which I've heard are light-years ahead of others in flavor. Put a "grown in India" label on it and I'll buy it.

Irradiation is expensive, impractical, ineffective, and may be dangerous

Posted by Food Team at May 22, 2007, 12:34 PM

Because it can extend shelf life and allow food to be shipped long distances around the world, irradiation is a tool of the globalized food industry. In the case of mangoes, irradiation is supposed to kill fruit flies that could travel with the fruit and harm American agriculture. But we have concerns about how well the technology will work for pests and if that puts our domestic producers at risk of imported fruit flies. And on a more personal level, since irradiation also destroys vitamins, protein, essential fatty acids and other nutrients in food, we don't think it is worth the risk.

The problem we are highlighting in this blog post is that between USDA never implementing country of origin labeling regulations and FDA considering weaker irradiation labeling rules, consumers may not even know if their mangos are imported or irradiated. The FDA and USDA links in the post above will take you to pages where you can comment to the agencies.

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