Spit that out

It's true that the delivery box from my community-supported agriculture cooperative typically includes organisms that seem more like specimens from an extraterrestrial expedition than something my befuddled family actually knows how to cook. What I also know to be true - because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells me so - is that last year 76 million Americans were struck by food-borne illnesses, and more than 300,000 were hospitalized. Sadly about 5,000 each year succumb to microbial infections.

Despite such figures, while I patiently outline the rank foolishness of our mass-produced, shelf-shocked food delivery system and marvel over the small organic miracles that arrive in my weekly produce box, my friends persist in mocking my faith in the superiority of organically grown, localized foodstuffs. It's just food, they tell me. To them my finicky predelictions are eccentric, suspicious, anti-capitalist - somehow un-American.

Yet over the course of the last year or so, the following crises have jolted America's food delivery system:

At least 425 people nationwide became ill after eating salmonella-enriched Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter that had become contaminated at a single Georgia processing plant.

Three deaths, including that of a 2-year-old boy, and at least 200 poisonings were reported after consumers ate E. coli-tainted bagged spinach, prompting grocery stores to yank the greens from store shelves across the country.

And the most recent food fiasco: After hundreds of pets were sickened or killed by pet food tainted by melamine, a byproduct of coal mining typically used to manufacture plastic goods, it was eventually determined that the same melamine-laced wheat gluten, a ginormous commodity import from China, had been used in feed for millions of hogs and chickens whose ultimate destination was your family's dinner table. (Melamine chops! Now that's good eatin'!)

While the nation's increasingly centralized and industrialized production system has made the entire food chain uniquely vulnerable to wide-scale contamination, the recent trend to diversify by importing more and more food offers its own worries. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports that its agents are checking less than 1 percent of imported food, even as imports have vastly escalated. American consumers now have to implicitly trust that foreign producers will honor food safety standards that took decades to establish in this country.

All indications are that trust is being misplaced. Recent studies indicate that imported food harbors salmonella at four times the rate of domestic products. Pesticides long outlawed in the United States are regularly, even liberally, used elsewhere, and as the melamine debacle attests, one industry's malevolent byproduct can be another nation's food "filler."

Just as we stood by while good-paying manufacturing jobs were outsourced, threatening our long-term economic health, now we stand by as the United States becomes a net importer of finished food products, opening a door to a long-term threat to our personal well-being.

OK, let me see if I properly understand my family mockingbirds. So, relying blindly on the good graces of our industrialized, transcontinental food system, U.S. consumers end up eating the chemical byproduct of coal mining in China, foods that have been genetically modified to endure herbicide sprays or artificially extend shelf life, or products spiked with industrial-strength, possibly carcinogenic chemicals or trans-fat narcotics. And I am the crazy one for hippie-hugging my organic produce box once a week?

You want to see a crazy person eating, wipe the donut glaze off your glasses and take a look in the mirror. Me, I'm going to crack open my totally organic surprise produce box and see what kind of alien vegetables fall out.

- - -

Kevin Clarke is senior editor at U.S. Catholic and online content manager at Claretian Publications.

Contact

U.S. Catholic
http://www.uscatholic.org ,
Kevin Clarke - ,

Email

Keywords

More Catholic PRWire

Showing 1 - 50 of 4,716

• « Prev
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• Next »

A Recession Antidote
Randy Hain

Monaco & The Vatican: Monaco's Grace Kelly Exhibit to Rome--A Review of Monegasque-Holy See Diplomatic History
Dna. Maria St. Catherine Sharpe, t.o.s.m., T.O.SS.T.

The Why of Jesus' Death: A Pauline Perspective
Jerom Paul

A Royal Betrayal: Catholic Monaco Liberalizes Abortion
Dna. Maria St.Catherine De Grace Sharpe, t.o.s.m., T.O.SS.T.

Embrace every moment as sacred time
Mary Regina Morrell

My Dad
JoMarie Grinkiewicz

Letting go is simple wisdom with divine potential
Mary Regina Morrell

Father Lombardi's Address on Catholic Media
Catholic Online

Pope's Words to Pontifical Latin American College
Catholic Online

Prelate: Genetics Needs a Conscience
Catholic Online

State Aid for Catholic Schools: Help or Hindrance?
Catholic Online

Scorsese Planning Movie on Japanese Martyrs
Catholic Online

2 Nuns Kidnapped in Kenya Set Free
Catholic Online

Holy See-Israel Negotiation Moves Forward
Catholic Online

Franchising to Evangelize
Catholic Online

Catholics Decry Anti-Christianity in Israel
Catholic Online

Pope and Gordon Brown Meet About Development Aid
Catholic Online

Pontiff Backs Latin America's Continental Mission
Catholic Online

Cardinal Warns Against Anti-Catholic Education
Catholic Online

Full Circle
Robert Gieb

Three words to a deeper faith
Paul Sposite

Relections for Lent 2009
chris anthony

Wisdom lies beyond the surface of life
Mary Regina Morrell

World Food Program Director on Lent
Catholic Online

Moral Clarity
DAN SHEA

Pope's Lenten Message for 2009
Catholic Online

A Prayer for Monaco: Remembering the Faith Legacy of Prince Rainier III & Princess Grace and Contemplating the Moral Challenges of Prince Albert II
Dna. Maria St. Catherine Sharpe

Keeping a Lid on Permissiveness
Sally Connolly

Glimpse of Me
Sarah Reinhard

The 3 stages of life
Michele Szekely

Sex and the Married Woman
Cheryl Dickow

A Catholic Woman Returns to the Church
Cheryl Dickow

Modernity & Morality
Dan Shea

Just a Minute
Sarah Reinhard

Catholic identity ... triumphant reemergence!
Hugh McNichol

Edging God Out
Paul Sposite

Burying a St. Joseph Statue
Cheryl Dickow

George Bush Speaks on Papal Visit
Catholic Online

Sometimes moving forward means moving the canoe
Mary Regina Morrell

Action Changes Things: Teaching our Kids about Community Service
Lisa Hendey

Easter... A Way of Life
Paul Spoisite

Papal initiative...peace and harmony!
Hugh McNichol

Proclaim the mysteries of the Resurrection!
Hugh McNichol

Jerusalem Patriarch's Easter Message
Catholic Online

Good Friday Sermon of Father Cantalamessa
Catholic Online

Papal Address at the End of the Way of the Cross
Catholic Online

Cardinal Zen's Meditations for Via Crucis
Catholic Online

Interview With Vatican Aide on Jewish-Catholic Relations
Catholic Online

Pope Benedict XVI On the Easter Triduum
Catholic Online

Holy Saturday...anticipation!
Hugh McNichol

• « Prev
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• Next »