Harry, you old coot, I am not criticizing recycling discarded food from markets and restaurants that can't sell it as perfectly fresh. I am talking about baby formulas that didn't meet American standards for American babies being offloaded to unknowing consumers. What does it matter that they are poor? IF the product is defective, it's defective. As you said, tuna sent to England may have been happily consumed there. I recognize that the media and the competing industries certainly add to the confusion and hype, but as you've heard me say before, what you don't know will hurt you. As long as everyone has the knowledge and a choice, then it does become a personal choice. Without full disclosure, it's bad policy and bad commerce.
Alar or not, I wash all fruits and vegetables. After visiting relatives living in S. Korea in the 60s I learned that my Aunt washed eggs and milk cartons before refrigerating them, and they even boiled their water before brushing teeth. When you've lived where water standards and fertilizers are questionable, you begin to think differently about what comes into the kitchen before you prepare to use it. I got my first lesson in the food chain when we moved to Japan and first ate bacon that tasted "fishy". The pigs there are fed fish scraps. I also learned about "night fertilizer". However, they also super-pasteurize their milk. Today, for e.coli and salmonella reasons, I wash bagged salad mix, and wash if not peel most fruits. Yes, the consumer has the final vote, so I don't buy ground beef any longer. If the finicky Japanese meat market can be hit by Mad Cow, anybody can. I think the deaths and experience of those harmed by the slow reporting and reluctant largest recall of beef this year in the Midwest should indicate it is 'consumer beware', you can not trust the agency or the company. I've found that ground turkey substitutes quite well for most ground beef recipes, except hamburgers and meatloaf. Tacos, meatballs, sausage-type casseroles work. We love chicken, turkey and salmon, so think we eat well. Helps to have a family of good cooks. I understand before 9/11 and the anthrax scares, the national labs were petrified that epidemic food contamination would be nearly impossible to prevent here. There is a major national lab set up either on Ellis Island or nearby and the top guy there has the authority to shut our entire import markets at ports of entry. I heard a NPR story about this early 2001, but I would expect labs are better prepared now, or at least hope so. I applaud your skepticism, but it's not like we are debating the existence of UFOs here. There is probably some similarity between street science and actual science on the subject of food safety, just as there was in the early days of the AIDS scare in the US. Remember Ryan White? And classic economics or not, after a year of learning about corporate scandals, cooked books, fixed or maybe fake energy crises, hiding profits offshore and buying oil from public enemy #1 through third parties, I am not sure I agree that free markets are by definition fair markets. Harry, I think that I am beginning to discern between your teasing sarcasm and teacher's habit of prodding. Is that a fair description? - Karen Karen wrote: I agree with Chris on this. There is no moral excuse for exporting to others what one won't consume on the domestic market. Harry wrote: What we won't consume is often perfectly fine. I remember when we refused to eat tuna because of mercury contamination, it was all shipped to England where it was no doubt consumed with glee. I should mention that 99.999% of ocean mercury is natural. (Also, if we dropped all our nuclear waste in the deep ocean trenches, 99.999% of ocean radioactivity would be natural). Americans are a funny lot. I can't remember the details, but again something we would refuse might be elixir to poor people in South America. A friend of mine lives out of the dumpsters at the back of Supermarkets. My wife used to stop him putting the stuff in our refrigerator when he stopped by. The dumped food is actually perfectly all right. Eggs with something spilled on the container. Vegetables which look a little tacky, but are otherwise perfectly edible (strip off the outside leaves) . Bottles and jars of stuff that isn't touched by the poor condition of its container. Dented cans (never buy a dented can) the contents of which are fine. All thrown out because Americans wouldn't accept them. I should add that he is probably close to being a millionaire. Food we wouldn't accept is more than adequate for most other peoples. There is a constituency that is against providing poor people overseas with canned baby food. Maybe that was an issue. I remember the NRDC boasting it only cost them $10,000 to flood TV and radio stations across the country with propaganda about Alar. It nearly ruined the apple producers and was completely unfounded. But people get scared - perhaps because of lack of education. Although I recall after Mad Cow became an issue in England, many people stopped buying meat. Sainsburys put their meat on sale for half price. Their shelves emptied. KC: Walk the talk, eat your own food. Either practice free (and fair) markets, >or admit it's fixed. HP: Free markets are by definition fair markets. The person in charge is the consumer - which is every one of us. A "fair" market usually is bad for consumers, bad for overseas suppliers who are trying to make a living - very good for homegrown corporations who can jack up prices. Higher prices allow the corporation to pay a useful bribe to our favorite neighborhood politicians. KC: However, it will be increasingly difficult or impossible to distinguish between GM crops and others due to cross-pollination in the wind, as the story I posted mentioned, or the mixing of the two crops in the same grain silos before shipping to market. HP: Perhaps we will be able to distinguish between them by the increased fatalities and illnesses. I've been through this several times in which political pressure is much more important than science. KC: No wonder Farmer's Markets are thriving again. HP: A little expensive, but generally very nice stuff. Be glad that the free market is still able to function in some instances. What the free market does is offer the consumer choice. It makes the cake bigger, as do machines, inventions, new techniques, and suchlike. The free market does not distribute the wealth that is produced. That is accomplished by other means. It's why we have poor and homeless people. But that's another story. Harry
