food

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on the unfortunate story of a 22 year-old woman who became paralyzed due to a reaction to E.coli that she contracted from a hamburger.  Even though preventable food-borne illnesses like this one continue to occur, not enough is being done to ensure safe food for consumers.

In 2008, USDA tested ground beef at processing facilities it regulates and found deadly E. coli contamination 54 times.  USDA already found it 31 times this year. But what happened after that? You might assume that the agency tried to find all the product in those batches that were tested so that it could be removed from store shelves before it could harm the public. That’s where you’d be wrong.

We don’t know exactly what happens because USDA refuses to explain it to the public and has blocked our attempts to use the Freedom of Information Act to determine it by looking at their records.  Just last week, USDA officials reneged on their promise for a 2009 meeting to explain exactly what actions the government takes when it finds the deadly E. coli  O157:H7 pathogen in products that have left meat plants. 

What we do know is that most testing is done at the smallest plants, so positive tests often reveal only the tips of the iceberg of how much product might be involved, especially because these small plants often buy scraps of beef from other larger companies to process into ground beef.  After government health departments link illnesses to particular product, all efforts are made to identify the rest of the “iceberg” and recall as much contaminated product as possible.  But, until someone gets sick, even confirmed E. coli 0157:H7 tests in ground beef, lead to a much milder response by USDA. If there are no illnesses and USDA has only a test showing contamination, it will check company paperwork at the slaughterhouses that supplied the beef to the processor and will likely collect one or more samples of current production to see if it is contaminated.  This will indicate nothing about the specific production lot from which the positive test came and will do nothing to alert consumers to the potentially deadly beef that is still in the market, if not already in their freezers.

How many more lives have to be sacrificed before changes are made in the food safety system?  Real action must be taken to prevent more senseless tragedies like this one from occurring. USDA needs to update their E. coli testing and response policies. 

– Felicia Nestor

When we embarked on this road trip several days ago, we expected to meet great people along the way. However, we had no idea what was in store. On every corner and sidewalk, while petitioning and asking folks to call their Senators, we continually meet fantastic people. Each time we stop into a restaurant, hotel, and B&B, we encounter friendly faces.

Over the last two days, we have been aided and inspired by our coalition partners. Karen Hansen from the Ohio Conference on Fair Trade was a lifesaver at the North Market Food and Wine Festival. We met over a cup of coffee, and before we could say “Healthy School Milk or Bust,” she was up and running, asking the folks at the next table to sign a postcard.

Then today she joined us again for a meeting with Senator Brown’s staff, along with Ellen Mee and Joe Logan from the Ohio Environmental Council. It was phenomenal to have Ellen and Joe in the meeting, as they’ve worked on rBGH and agricultural issues in the state for years.

The meeting was a great success, and we were thrilled to have media cover the event. Prior to entering Senator Brown’s office, local NPR affiliate WOSU interviewed Alex and Joe. Check the clip out here.

Tomorrow, we head north to Ann Arbor. There, we look forward to spreading the word on school milk. You know what they say, “what’s good for the goose, is good for the Michigander.”

- Becca, Meredith, and Alex

Those of us who grew up in the 1950’s fondly remember the Nestle’s television and radio commercials featuring the wooden puppets Danny O’Day and his trusty basset hound sidekick Farfel extolling the virtues of the company’s cocoa powder for milk.  For those who were not yet born to experience such great culture, Danny O’Day would sing: “N-E-S-T-L-E-S. Nestle’s makes the very best”… and Farfel would chime in “Cha-a-aw-klit.” (If you want to see what I am talking about, there are various renditions of the commercial on the Internet). Back then, Nestle’s had a wholesome image among U.S. consumers.

Fast-forward to 2009. Nestle’s now finds itself in an epidemiological investigation involving its Toll-House raw cookie dough that may be contaminated with E.coli 0157:H7 which has sickened at least 71 consumers in 30 states according to the Centers for Disease Control. The company has also recalled various products made with the cookie dough. The focus of the investigation has been the Nestle’s plant in Danville, Virginia.

Last weekend, a couple of news reports surfaced that revealed that inspectors for both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Commonwealth of Virginia (that was contracted by FDA to do inspections) were denied access to Nestle’s production records at the Danville plant going back to at least 2004. Nestle’s did not do anything illegal since under current law a company does not have to turn over its records to FDA unless there is a public health emergency, such as a food recall.  Nestle’s is claiming that it is co-operating with the FDA in the current investigation, but if the company were so confident of its food safety procedures in the past, why did it not simply turn over its production records when asked by inspectors? Had they had access to those records, the inspectors might have spotted something that could have exposed a weakness in the production process and they could have advised the company to take remedial action to correct those deficiencies BEFORE the company put adulterated product into commerce and people got sick.

The press revelations prove that that the FDA needs new statutory authority to prevent food borne illness outbreaks from occurring. They also show that FDA needs a strong and robust inspection program to make sure that the spirit and the letter of the law are being followed.

It would ruin my childhood memories if I saw an updated version of the Nestle’s commercial from the 1950’s that went something like this:
“N-E-S-T-L-E-S.  Nestle’s tries its very best...to hide."

– Tony Corbo

It seems like year after year the same ol’ battle wages on about whether or not the U.S. should keep a ban on importing chicken from China.  And the same players are behind the effort this year (who else but Big Ag?), working hard to pressure the Obama administration and Congress to lift the ban.

While visiting Chinese facilities a few years ago, U.S. inspectors found defective equipment, lack of employee hygiene, unsanitary conditions, and an absence of regulations requiring pre-shipment testing for Salmonella, E. coli and other contaminants. And don’t forget about the hundreds of other products from China, ranging from seafood to cosmetics, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration blocked at the border in recent years because they contained dangerous substances or violated other rules. 

At least we have U.S. chicken to fall back on, right?  But there’s still work to be done in this country to make sure we have safe chicken to eat.   A new report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention cites poultry as the most commonly identified source of food poisoning in the U.S. in 2006. And that’s with a food safety net.

So, why would we bring in product from somewhere like China, where food safety problems are widespread and even the government admits it doesn’t have control?  The truth behind the push to “ban the ban” is coming from the meat industry because they want to get China to open its markets to U.S. beef and pork.  

Later this week, the House appropriations committee will decide whether or not to keep a provision in the USDA budget that prohibits the agency from allowing processed poultry products from China to enter the United States. 

We’ll keep you posted on what they decide. But in the meantime, what do you think? Should we keep the ban on Chinese chicken or “ban the ban”?

I’ve never been much of a milk drinker. Born with extremely picky taste buds, I would only pour it into my cereal or use it in some pancake mix. Taste wasn’t too much of an issue for me, so frankly, the amount of fat was all I considered when purchasing milk. Of course everything is way more complicated than that, and growing up I learned about organic milk, but I’ve found even that discussion has its problems. As a new Food & Water Watch (FWW) intern, I’ve learned that there are a large number of factors to bear in mind when buying milk. It’s not only about personal health but also treatment of cattle and environmental impact.

So what are my options? It can get incredibly confusing for consumers, as seen in a recent Baltimore Sun article that quotes our very own FWW assistant director, Patty Lovera. Patty was kind enough to break it down for me. So here’s a list of “milk hierarchy” you can use when trying to decide what to put in your fridge:

1) Buy from a local organic farmer. The more local the milk and the smaller the farm, the better! This enables transparency so you know the source and that the farmer has organically-produced milk, not to mention happier cows that are grazing in fields rather than vying for room to breathe in large-scale factories. To find local markets and farms near you, go to eatwellguide.org.

2) If you must rely on labels at the supermarket, look for the green and white USDA organic label. That says a lot by itself. Organic milk implies that the dairy cows were not given hormones, antibiotics, or feed that wasn’t organically raised. This label does not, however, reveal the living environment of the cattle. Claims of "access to pasture" remain vaguely defined. For more information on organic milk, check out The Milk Tip.

3) If you can’t afford to go all-organic, the next level down is rBGH-free milk. It doesn’t have the organic label (which automatically means it’s rBGH-free), but there might be a rBGH-free or rBST-free label on the container. Unfortunately, due to some shenanigans by agribusiness, some companies that are actually rBGH-free are hesitant to label their products as such. Read an earlier press statement and blog post that can shed more light on this ongoing battle. Please also check out our Artificial Hormone-free Dairy Guide to see what rBGH-free dairy products are sold in your area.

Beyond these two labels, you’re kind of on your own. Some other milk comes from non-organic factory farms, where cows are lined up side-by-side and pumped with hormones to produce more milk. Other milk might come from family farms that are doing it right but don’t have a way to differentiate themselves in the market because their milk is pooled with other farms. All milk is labeled in some manner but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything significant. Decoding Food Labels can help you sort through the information you see in the meat and dairy cases.

Learning so much about milk after not being much of a fan has changed my perspective completely. I can feel my palate expanding already, and it’s ironic how I’ve now become the milk expert for my friends and family. When you know how your food reaches your lips, your appreciation can grow immensely. I recommend learning where your food comes from and getting involved to improve our milk options!

“The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000.”
…Narrates Michael Pollan at the beginning of a new movie entitled Food, Inc., hitting select theaters this Friday.

Joining the ranks of food documentaries – there are so many recently, there should be a new genre of film, foodiementaries anyone?  - Food, Inc. goes behind the scenes of our nation’s supermarkets and behind the machines of agribusiness. Many of the issues they tackle are right up our alley, including the numerous problems that put consumer safety, the livelihood of the American farmers, and the health of our environment at risk.

Food, Inc. also mentions one of our key issues, rBGH aka recombinant bovine growth hormone. There’s just one part in the script, however, that needs some clarification. The film states that Wal-Mart’s decision to go rBGH-free “put the nail in the coffin of rBGH.”  Too bad this is wishful thinking. While Wal-Mart did begin to sell rBGH-free milk for its generic brand, it does not label the product as such. Why? During the last past two years, state-by-state labeling battles popped up around the country that threatened to limit hormone-free milk labels. For example, Ohio’s labeling rule requires the prohibitive use of a misleading disclaimer that states "no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows”, and bans accurate claims such as “rBGH-free” and “artificial growth hormone-free.” Wal-Mart decided not to label their milk pending the outcome of the state-by-state battles.

While we're glad that big retailers like Wal-Mart are bowing to consumer pressure and turning away from artificial hormones, we know that Big Ag will continue to look for new markets for rBGH milk.  That's why we're working to have Congress allow schools to purchase milk produced without artificial hormones. You can sign our School Milk Campaign petition and even see a nifty web application on Food, Inc.’s website that mentions our campaign ---Just click on the milk carton!
And, make sure you make your way to the theater this weekend to see Food, Inc. and snack on some rBGH-free candy.

Are you really passionate about food and water issues? Are you already active online? You can combine your interests and existing online habits by contributing to Food & Water Watch campaign outreach.

There are many ways you can help:

• comment on blogs about our issues

• write about FWW issues on your own blog
  

• share our alerts, reports, and news on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

If you are interested, please join our Special Blog Outreach Unit!

– Food & Water Watch

Swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, has dominated every major news outlet for the past couple of weeks – and justly so. It has sickened over a thousand people, killed almost thirty, and created widespread panic that has crippled the travel industry and damaged the already floundering world economy.

Much of the chatter revolving around swine flu is whether or not it was a result of the conditions at a factory farm in Mexico owned in part by Smithfield. While there has been no definitive link established to the factory farm, this flu strain did have its genetic root in flu strains present on hog farms in the 1990s, according to virologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

If anything positive has come out of this mess, it’s that some long-overdue attention is being paid to the potential public health impacts of industrialized livestock production. Before swine flu became a household word communities all over this country, and increasingly around the world, have been burdened with health problems caused by these polluting facilities. 

Recently, an antibiotic-resistant strain of staphylococcus aureus  - more commonly known as MRSA – was found in U.S. pigs. This strain was originally only seen in the Netherlands – where it already proved itself capable of transferring from pigs to humans. Being resistant to antibiotics makes infections caused by these bacteria much more difficult to treat – and is the result of pumping antibiotics into animal feed, a common factory farm practice.

Factory farms have gone unchecked for far too long, with potentially disastrous consequences. Hopefully swine flu is the wake up call that lawmakers need to rein in this dangerous practice. To learn more about factory farms, please check out our website.

- Sofía Baliño

Last week, Food & Water Watch launched a new online interactive tool for you to learn more about where your produce is coming from. The tool is called the "Global Grocer," and it was inspired by a recent Food & Water Watch report entitled The Poisoned Fruit of American Trade Policy.

Why is it so important to know where your produce is coming from? It’s because, as discussed in the report, Americans are now buying more imported produce than ever before. The concern with that comes from some countries not having equivalent food safety standards, combined with the Food & Drug Administration inspecting less than one percent of food shipments coming into the country. In addition, country-of-origin labeling rules have enough loopholes in them that much of this produce goes unlabeled.

So what exactly is the "Global Grocer"? It is a virtual supermarket, in which you can fill your shopping cart with a variety of fruits and vegetables, and then learn the probabilities of those products being imported and where from. In other words – it is a fun and informative way to learn about food safety, and find out which are the smart decisions to make while shopping for produce.

To give the "Global Grocer" a test drive, you can check it out here. We would also like to thank Poccuo, a local Washington, DC company, for helping us put this project together. Enjoy! 

- Food & Water Watch

H.R. 875, Representative Rosa DeLauro's bill for reforming the Food and Drug Administration – also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act – has been the victim of misguided accusations and allegations over the past several weeks. The bill is designed to improve our food safety system, which has proven itself to be full of holes – especially in recent months, with salmonella recalls and melamine scares becoming the rule rather than the exception. 

A lot of the concern revolving around the bill involves its potential implications for organic agriculture, home gardens, and farmers markets. We have created this game show widget, so those concerned can learn more about the bill, and clear up any misconceptions that have been dominating the food safety conversation. We hope you enjoy it– and feel free to share it with your friends!

 - Food & Water Watch

It's that time of year again! Wednesday April 22nd is Earth Day, with this year marking the event’s 39th anniversary. In this spirit, Food & Water Watch is attending a series of events throughout the country for current and new activists, and we would love to see you there!

Even if you can't make it to an event, there are a variety of ways to get involved. You could take action on any number of issues, such as fish farming, strengthening our food safety laws, improving our water infrastructure, fighting bottled water, and more. You can also host a film screening in your area – just contact us to find out how! 

Thanks for all of the great work, and have a happy Earth Day!

- Food & Water Watch

With a title like Righteous Porkchop, Nicolette Hahn Niman’s recently released book is hard to miss. Which is a good thing too, considering how it takes a somewhat difficult topic like factory farms and makes it accessible to a wide audience.

The relevance of this book is painfully clear, in an era where factory farms have become the norm. Hahn Niman does more than just profile the megafarms that are causing pollution, as can be seen on our Factory Farms map, but she also tours traditional farms and notes how they run their practices and what makes them both an efficient and safer alternative to factory farms. She focuses much of her work on the U.S. hog market, which – as you can see in our report The Trouble With Smithfield – is a disaster of enormous proportions. Rather than just griping about the problem, however, she also provides recommendations for what to look for when grocery shopping, so consumers know the right questions to ask and what labels to look for.

The evils of factory farms are almost too many to count – though Hahn Niman does an excellent job of breaking them down properly. In an era where climate change is an increasing threat, the fact that over twenty percent of the fossil fuel used in the United States goes towards food production is definitely cause for concern. Meanwhile, the amount of carbon dioxide released, as noted by a 2005 Environmental Protection Agency report, is equal to the amount that 141 million cars release per year.

The problem goes far beyond pollution, however. The animals are kept in unsanitary and cramped conditions, the farms emit toxic chemicals that cause substantial air pollution affecting surrounding communities, and the farm workers themselves experience a range of negative physical effects from working in such atrocious conditions. Consumers themselves are also affected, thanks to the widespread use of antibiotics and artificial hormones in factory farms. Along these lines Hahn Niman’s book provides some startling figures regarding salmonella found in sample packages of ground meat, which further reinforces the point that human health is being unnecessarily put at risk for the sake of big agribusiness.

The book’s closing paragraph cites a quote from our very own Brother Dave Andrews, Food & Water Watch’s senior representative, in which he reminds us that “Eating is a moral act.” With positive reviews from The San Francisco Chronicle, The Globe and Mail, and many others, it is clear that Righteous Porkchop has succeeded in making that important point. 

- Sofia Baliño

The last thing you want to think about when shopping for this season’s Easter candy is whether or not it’s safe to eat. It is entirely possible that those candy treats you love, along with a variety of foods and beverages, could be using sugar from genetically modified (GM) sugar beets – beets that have been genetically engineered to withstand herbicide.  How can you find out if your favorite candy is made with GM sugar? Unfortunately, you can’t since the Food and Drug Administration does not require products that use GM crops to be labeled. Now, however, there is an online resource available for consumers to find out which companies have committed not to use this sugar.

Known as the Non-GM Beet Sugar Registry, the registry is sponsored by twelve organizations, including Food & Water Watch, with the purpose of creating both a resource for consumers, as well as an incentive for producers to join the registry and abandon the practice of using GM beet sugar.

So what’s the problem with GM crops? Simple – it’s because, like food irradiation and rBGH-milk, the potential dangers of these crops are unclear. For one, GM crops have yet to be proven safe for consumers, with no long-term studies of GM food’s effects on human health having ever been conducted by a government agency, such as our ever-sloppy FDA. Seems typical of FDA’s notoriously poor handling of the food industry.

The potential environmental effects are also cause for concern. GM crops increase herbicide use; in addition, the possibility of cross-pollination with related crops could also risk the economic future of other farmers. These issues themselves should be enough to cause sugar beet farmers to have second thoughts. Hershey's has already made public assurances to Brazil that they will not be using GM sugar in the products that Brazilians receive.

While over 70 organizations have already signed on to the Non-GM Beet Sugar Registry, two major organizations that promised back in 2001 to not use GM beet sugar have yet to fulfill their promise and sign the registry – specifically, Hershey’s and Mars. It’s both disappointing and alarming to see these companies’ lack of concern with regards to their consumers. Consumers need to take this opportunity and urge these companies to make the same commitment that the other registry members have made and assure the public of their dedication to the environment and food safety. Now that Monsanto’s Roundup Ready ® GM sugar beets (a type of beet resistant to the Roundup Ready ® herbicide) are already in their first season of planting in the U.S. and have achieved widespread popularity among some farmers, it’s time to stop the problem before it has a chance to really take root. 

-Sofía Baliño

PB&J anyone? At this particular moment, you might hesitate to consume a snack of this sort. And who could blame you?  No, the blame is definitely well-deserved somewhere else.

Considering peanut butter's staple-status in most American households and its highly popular use in packaged foods, the latest salmonella outbreak is especially concerning.  Since January 10th and until today, the peanut related recalls just keep on coming... From cookies to health bars to dog treats, and from vending machines to supermarkets to natural food stores, the tainted peanut butter has spread indiscriminately to hundreds of products throughout the country.

Just as disturbing as the invasive bacteria itself is the fact that it keeps coming back. This is actually the second major peanut butter outbreak in less than two years. Peter Pan peanut butter contaminated with salmonella in late 2006 and early 2007 sickened at least 628 people in 47 states.  It would be reasonable to assume that some lessons could have been learned along the way, lessons that could have lead to proactive prevention of another salmonella outbreak.  Well, apparently not – because here we go again. The current outbreak involving products from the Peanut Corporation of America has caused almost 500 cases of illness and possibly 6 deaths so far.

Despite their frequency, these outbreaks aren't merely inconvenient incidents that we should learn to get used to. They reveal unacceptable negligence by food safety authorities and the inability to do their job of protecting consumers.

This specific instance of salmonella most likely originated in the production plant, which logically leads to questions about the rate of inspection in the facilities involved.  The Peanut Corporation of America was last inspected by the state of Georgia in July of 2008 but even though they are public records, the inspection results have not been released.* The Food and Drug Administration didn't even know there was a problem until people got sick. In fact, FDA didn't issue a recall notice until 4 days after King Nut announced a recall of its peanut butter, knowingly putting consumers at risk.

Although one of the main pillars of FDA's Food Protection Plan is preventing food borne illness, it is more obvious than ever that the agency has a long way to go before coming close to that goal. In order to get there, regulatory controls put directly in the production process and increased inspections are necessary. We can't afford to gamble with the safety of our food. Consumer health must be the first priority of FDA – after all, isn't that precisely the reason it exists?

- Elissar Khalek

See the complete list of recalled products.

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*Inspection results were released on February 5th.

As the Bush administration draws to a close, the old adage, “out with the old, in with the new” is one way to describe the flurry of activity that comes with a presidential transition.  Food & Water Watch has been asking the incoming Obama administration to translate their campaign promises of change into action. One way to do that is for the new administration to bring a new determination for the food safety agencies that we look to for protection to actually do what is required of them.

One key change that we are encouraging the new administration to make is the creation of a separate food safety administration within the Department of Health and Human Services. FDA is both underfunded and understaffed – and the results have been glaringly evident, with their belated and inadequate import alert on Chinese dairy products being just one of many examples.
 
The FDA just does not have enough people to get the job done, and yet they have no problem giving themselves a pat on the back for what little they accomplish. What they should be focusing on, rather than writing self-congratulatory reports, is creating an inspection workforce that is appropriate, size-wise, with the range and quantity of products that they cover – another request that Food & Water Watch has made of the Obama administration. The fact that FDA is opening three inspection offices in China is a clear example of a Band-Aid solution that doesn’t actually fix the problem – considering how few inspectors that they are sending relative to the billions of dollars of Chinese products that are imported into the United States.

That same inspector shortage problem has been plaguing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which is responsible for inspecting meat and poultry, a system that is constantly under attack. To give you an example, a survey of USDA’s meat inspectors showed that a majority of inspectors stationed in slaughter plants recorded less than half of the regulatory violations they witnessed. Why? Because there are not enough of them to complete all their inspection tasks and necessary paperwork. Food & Water Watch has urged the new administration to adequately fund the meat and poultry inspection program and make sure that chronic inspector vacancies are finally filled. 

- Sofía Baliño

Towards the end of 2008, the Food and Drug Administration felt it appropriate to give themselves a “passing grade”, despite a series of failures throughout the year, ranging from massive recalls to large-scale outbreaks of food borne illnesses. And now, in another attempt to make FDA feel better about its own work – or rather, feel a sense of accomplishment despite the poor quality of their work – they have contracted a consultant for $1.5 million, purely for the sake of “morale-boosting.” Sounds like an awfully large sum of money for an organization that has itself complained about staffing shortages, no?

I suppose it’s somewhat understandable that FDA needs some consoling. After all, with their poor showing with the regards to the melamine scandal, or the recall of cheese tainted with Listeria -  not to mention to the salmonella outbreak that was mistakenly traced to tomatoes – they have a lot of explaining to do. However, it seems far more logical for them to spend money fixing their myriad of problems, rather than to just give that money to a consultant whose job is to make the people at FDA feel better about themselves.

In theory they should feel a sense of satisfaction if they did their jobs well – but since they clearly don’t, FDA instead chooses to hire someone to give them that positive feeling through motivational slideshows and unnecessary management conferences that do nothing more than waste time and resources. Let’s not forget how they also spend millions on employee parties – such as the almost $2.2 million over the last eight years on employee award services, just to give an example. 

Within the very own FDA, some of its scientists are fighting back against the managers, having sent today to Obama’s transition team a letter asking them to fix what they consider a “broken agency.” The letter alleges that scientists are coerced by their supervisors to manipulate the data in their findings illegally. They sent a similar letter in October to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, concerned about threats of disciplinary action against scientists who disagreed with the management. If these allegations hold true, its just another sign that the Obama administration needs to take immediate action to restructure FDA from the ground up, or better yet create a new agency within the Department of Health and Human Services – as Food & Water Watch urged the transition team in a recent memo – that actually fulfills its desired function.

- Sofía Baliño

Since it’s that time of year to spread the holiday cheer,
What better way than to reproach FDA for having food safety regs disappear.
From melamine to mercury, consumers are kept on their toes,
About what next food will be contaminated with what? Who knows?!
Now is the time to give FDA a gift to remind them of what they let pass,
Through to the market, to grocery shelves, and onto consumers’ plates, alas!
-----------------
After a year of what could be described as one of the worst in terms of food safety debacles, we felt inspired to not only rhyme, but also think about what we would give to FDA as a holiday gift – if we could. A food gift basket would be appropriate, especially because of all the “goodies” we could choose from this year alone.  Cookies contaminated with melamine? Check. Jalapeños and peppers from Mexico? Check. And thanks to the latest news about fish with mercury, how about some canned tuna? Check!
Come to think of it, we could put together an entire holiday meal from all of the treats we could put in our basket. Now there’s a thought! Let’s take it from the top…

First off, we need hors d’ouevres. Listeria-style cheese and crackers should be a good way to kick off a meal. Once that’s been digested, then of course it’ll be time for a good salad… made with irradiated iceberg lettuce.
Now, on to the entrées! We could include in the basket some ground beef made from cloned cows, so that FDA can grill some burgers in their backyard. They could even sprinkle on some bacteriophages, just to spice things up a bit.

Make sure that beef has been treated with carbon monoxide! Otherwise people might actually begin to suspect that the meat is really twelve weeks old. If the burger seems a little bare, you can always include in the basket a jar of salmonella-laced jalapeños, for good measure.

For the seafood lovers out there, we can prepare a mercury-spiked tuna casserole from the canned tuna we mentioned earlier. And for anyone who’s still hungry after all that, then maybe we could add in some ready-made pork chops made from pigs treated with cephalosporin. After all, FDA seems to have forgotten that they themselves deemed such antibiotics a “public health risk” last July.

For dessert? Some melamine-enriched cookies should be easy to find – after all, they did find some on New York shelves just last week. And for the kids? Well, there are always bottles of baby formula, tainted with BPA. Voila! FDA, your meal is served. 

The list of FDA failings unfortunately goes on…
If you could add to our gift basket, what would you send?

- Erin Greenfield and Sofía Baliño

As you might have seen in our November 19 blog post, Food & Water Watch will be releasing our new recipe booklet, Fish & Tips, just in time for the New Year! And, as part of our lead-up to the book’s release, we’ve just posted on YouTube a video of our Octoberfish “Get Cookin’!” recipe contest.

The video features tips from our partner chef Joseph “Rocky” Barnette and from Food & Water Watch Fish Campaign Director Marianne Cufone. Learn about what makes a good recipe, what questions to ask when buying seafood, and more! And watch members of the Food & Water Watch team as we put some of these amazing recipes into practice, with excellent results. The video highlights some of our favorite submissions from cooks all over the country, including some of those chosen for publication in the booklet. Other sustainable seafood recipes included in Fish & Tips were shared with Food & Water Watch by some of our allied fishermen and chefs. To learn more about where to look for safe and sustainable seafood, please check out our Seafood Buying Guide.

Fish & Tips will be “served” this coming January 7th! 

- Sofía Baliño

The Food and Drug Administration has finally decided to come to terms with the fact that melamine is something of a problem. As of last week, all dairy products have been banned from China unless an importer can prove the products are free of melamine contamination. While being a step in the right direction, this is clearly another example of too little, too late. The ban should have been imposed ages ago – and it does not cover all of the products that have been shown to be contaminated with melamine, such as the eggs found in Hong Kong. Nor does it address the possibility that meat, pork, and chicken may soon be added to that list due to livestock being fed contaminated feed.

FDA claims that it has been aware of the contaminated milk-related illnesses in China back in September 2008 – which was two months after the first cases were reported and receiving international attention. Instead of instituting a ban in September, however, they imposed some arbitrary standard for a safe level of melamine – which allowed unsafe products to still make it onto U.S. grocery shelves. Only now have they begun to do something – and yet it still is not enough, and only barely begins to address the problem. Which begs the question – how much more melamine will it take for the FDA to actually do its job?

This week FDA announced that it was opening three offices in China – which would be their first ever foreign offices.  However, this appears to be more of a business/public relations move than a food safety one, one which will garner much media attention but actually accomplish little – especially considering how we import $4 billion in food products from China every year, and are only sending a limited amount of staff.

All this goes to show is that the further we delve into this melamine scandal, the more there appears to be no end in sight, and all because the international community chose to look the other way. With all the negative attention that China is receiving for this melamine scandal, China has now decided to strike back and call out other countries for their own food safety failings. Specifically, Chinese authorities have begun to call out imports from Australia, the U.S., the U.K., and Argentina, for not meeting food quality standards – in most cases reporting findings of bacteria levels that are higher than the approved standard. Yet these countries have not received nearly the same level of backlash from the international community. Clearly China is not the only country that needs to push the envelope further and ensure the safety and quality of the products they export – and import.

- Sofía Baliño

Imagine a farm in the ocean that produces fish containing PCBs and other toxins, and dumps chemical-laden waste directly into surrounding waters. Does that sound organic to you? According to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) – a commission of the U.S. Department of Agriculture – fish from these “factory farms of the sea” should be able to carry the USDA Organic label. In fact, this week the board is meeting in Washington, DC to recommend allowing fish from open water aquaculture operations to be certified as organic.

But organizations within the organic, ocean conservation, consumer and food safety communities oppose this proposed decision because the principles and practices behind open water aquaculture –growing tens of thousands of fish in cages anchored to the seafloor - are simply incompatible with basic organic standards.

What exactly are these organic standards? Ecological balance and conserving biodiversity. So now let’s take a look at aquaculture and see if it meets these guidelines. While some day certain carefully controlled aquaculture practices may fit this description, currently, open water aquaculture does not. The farming of carnivorous finfish – like salmon, cobia, Atlantic cod and halibut - in open net pens using wild fish in feed threatens wild fish populations and the marine environment.

In addition to dumping pollution and producing contaminated fish, these ocean fish farms release genetically inferior fish that might mate with wild fish and use massive amounts of fishmeal made from depleted wild fish stocks. In this system, inputs, outputs, health and animal welfare cannot be monitored and controlled, completely contradicting organic principles such as promoting biodiversity and minimizing environmental impact.

Food & Water Watch is making sure these problems are taken seriously. Today we hosted an event where Consumers Union, Center for Food Safety and Alaska Trollers Association spoke out against NOSB’s plan. You can even listen to the speeches from the groups’ representatives here.  

And just to make sure we drove the point home, we served fresh, wild-caught Alaskan salmon  - which will NOT be considered organic according to NOSB’s plan - and “swam” up the street in a “salmon run” in protest to the board’s meeting to deliver over 15,000 public comments. Just take a look at these great papier-mache salmon heads!

NOSB will be making its decision about organic fish as early as Wednesday, November 19th, so make sure to check back within the next few days about this important decision!

- Erin Greenfield
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