Food Safety and The Boston Sunday Globe

Two articles in today’s Boston Sunday Globe made me angry and sad.

On the front page, of the paper was an article about the declining Organic Milk Business and its’ impact on local organic dairies. What saddened me is when economics becomes more important than health. It shouldn’t be surprising that Organic Milk costs more, its’ organic! A food broker once told me that if I was to go Organic, start with milk. Two years later, I did because my husband gave me a short lecture of Organic Milk’s virtues. I almost had sticker shock in Market Basket. $3.79 a half gallon.

We tried it, it TASTES better. It really does. I tried to convince myself that it was worth the cost and for one week, bought my favorite milk, a Market Basket gallon for just under $3.00. This week, I found on our grocery list, a request for Organic Milk with a smiley face. I’ll forget the junk food.

Second. This made me angry. In Parade Magazine, the article, “Why are their More Food Recalls”, Dr. David Acheson, Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) associate commissioner for food safety, If we have a concern about a product, we’re trying to get out in front of it. In the pistachio recall, for instance, the nuts were removed before anyone got sick.”

Is FDA kidding? It took FDA SIX days before the source of the recall was made known to the public. The readers of our blog knew in less than 12 hours. How does US Food Safety know this? Because we called the companies that had the first two recalls. SIX days before FDA named Setton Farms of Terra Bella Inc. as the source of the bad crop of pistachios. The volume of e-mails we received from frightened consumers speaks volumes.

Food recalls are “voluntary” . Food manufacturers and suppliers of potentially recalled products make a “deal” with the government agency before the actual recall. If you are dealing with a multi million dollar company like Setton Farms, the stakes are higher. Setton Farms wasn’t named as the source initially but 6 days later, it was!

http://www.usfoodsafety.com/02af0135.html

What’s a consumer to do? Tens of thousands turned to US Food Safety. FYI,  http://usfoodsafety.com had a GOOD and RECALLED pistachio and peanut list before FDA “borrowed” our idea.

Stay tuned.