Death By TV Dinner

There's a great article from the NY Times (via MSNBC) about the perils of processed foods. Not just the trans fat or the chemical preservatives or the high fructose corn syrup - it's the salmonella and the E. coli that'll kill ya.

The story focuses on a salmonella outbreak about two years ago from a specific brand of pot pie that sickened some 15,000 people, using it as an example to point out much larger issues in the food industry.

In this case, ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. Other companies do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes and other potential dangers, interviews and documents show.

Yet the supply chain for ingredients in processed foods — from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables — is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede.

In addition to ConAgra, other food giants like General Mills, Nestlé and the Blackstone Group, a New York firm that acquired the Swanson and Hungry-Man brands two years ago, concede that they cannot ensure the safety of items — from frozen vegetables to pizzas — and that they are shifting the burden to the consumer. General Mills, which recalled about five million frozen pizzas in 2007 after an E. coli outbreak, now advises consumers to avoid microwaves and cook only with conventional ovens. ConAgra has also added food safety instructions to its other frozen meals, including the Healthy Choice brand.

Remember the salmonella in the peanuts last year that was traced back to that sleezy company in Georgia that was supplying dozens of companies making hundreds of products? Remember the tainted salsa fiasco where they thought it was the tomatoes at first, and then maybe the peppers, or perhaps the onions - and meanwhile millions of tomatoes rotted in the fields?

It's a HUGE problem, but no one is doing anything about it because (you guessed it) it's too expensive.

Ensuring the safety of ingredients has been further complicated as food companies subcontract processing work to save money: smaller companies prepare flavor mixes and dough that a big manufacturer then assembles. “There is talk of having passports for ingredients,” said Jamie Rice, the marketing director of RTS Resource, a research firm based in England. “At each stage they are signed off on for quality and safety. That would help companies, if there is a scare, in tracing back.”

But government efforts to impose tougher trace-back requirements for ingredients have met with resistance from food industry groups including the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which complained to the Food and Drug Administration: “This information is not reasonably needed and it is often not practical or possible to provide it.”

I wonder - does all this make food safety an externality, even if they're externalizing the costs and risks to their own customers?

The article came with this entertaining video showing two people trying desperately to follow the four-part cooking instructions on a microwavable pot pie, but still failing to bring the thing up to sterile temperature.

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My recommendation: LEARN TO COOK REAL FOOD!!

Worst. Headline. Ever.

There's article today in the New Brunswick Times & Transcript talking about a Green Shift Road Show meeting between Liberal MPs and representatives of New Brunswick's agricultural community.

Here's how it went:

Yesterday's discussion was certainly lively, as the Liberals' plan was met with its share of criticism by the gathered agricultural community.

"What farmers are facing as a result of the Green Shift is a considerable increase in input costs, whether it's a result of fuel that farmers use or even as a result of how much their input costs may go up as a result of this carbon tax," says Bob Friesen, CFA president. "What we're basically saying is look, agriculture already provides a lot of carbon sequestration, farmers have done all kinds of things to create more carbon sinks... We're saying, look, there's got to be some calculations here that agriculture provides this -- they're the solution providers, so why tax them?"

Easter says a carbon tax exemption isn't likely to happen.

"I was on a series of meetings in the farm community last week and had farmers say to me if there's an exemption made for us we would be looked down on by the rest of society," Easter says. "Let's find the way of recognizing the cost impact on the farm community of this program and ensure that on the benefit impact at the end of the day there's economic opportunities for farmers and they receive their just due."

Easter says the platform will include other incentives for alternatives such as carbon sinks, biofuels, anaerobic digesters and wind power.

Despite his concerns, Friesen says he was still pleased the Liberal MPs came to speak with the industry.

"I think it was a positive thing that they came here and are prepared to listen to the farm leaders across Canada and they are prepared to go back and to analyze where they could improve (the plan) for agriculture," he says.

And here's the headline:

Agriculture industry opposes Green Shift

Groan. Honestly, did anyone even read the article before coming up with that one? Or maybe someone was just trying to put their own spin on things.

The effect of a carbon tax on farmers concerns me as well, but the fact is, modern agriculture just isn't as 'green' as people like to think. Large industrial farms go through a huge amount of oil and gas for both equipment and fertilizer, not to mention the negative environmental effects of excessive irrigation and pesticide use, soil depletion, etc., etc. Smaller farms are better, but are still frequently at the mercy of hybrid seed suppliers pushing sterile seeds that require massive amounts of water, fertilizer and pesticides just to survive.

(Yes, I confess - I'm in the middle of reading "The End of Food". Shut up.)

But really, the industry needs to find a better way. It needs to go smaller, with more diversification. It needs to get off this obsession with "yield" and recognize the true costs of the Monsanto school of farming. The cost of carbon, the cost of fertilizer and pesticide, the cost to the land, and the cost to the actual nutritional value of these so-called "high yield" crops, which is making them bigger but almost completely devoid of nutrients.

Putting a price on carbon is a start, but there needs to be a far more comprehensive plan to transform agriculture in this country and wean it away from the current unsustainable system. Not necessarily promoting full-on "organic" farming per se, but certainly a program of incentives towards the more traditional family farm would be in order, and would ultimately be financially beneficial to the farmers themselves.

That would be a real "Green Shift".