The recent e coli outbreaks involving spinach and Taco Bell, following other such food poisoning incidents, tell us that our food supply is getting less and less safe. I'm not sure blaming chains such as Chi Chi's and Taco Bell for all of this is just. Yes, they are partly to blame. In fact, the franchising of America is partly to blame.
Americans are addicted to being able to get the exact same meal wherever they go. A taco or burrito in Boston is supposed to be the same as ones in Salt Lake City. This homogenization of our food puts pressure on the chains to mass produce identical food all across the country. It seems that may not be good policy.
I've been an advocate for patronizing local restaurants. Buying your food locally is also a good idea. Too much of our food supply is being concentrated in large feeding and growing operations. Your local farmer and farm market is more likely to provide you with better, healthier, safer food. A New York Times article from this week highlights some of the problems inherent in our current food supply system and illustrates how Bush Administration cuts and corruption have contributed to the problem.
As is usual for this government, George W. Bush has replaced experienced regulators with political cronies, industry lobbyists, and business executives to regulate their own industries. This has resulted in an appalling lack of regulation and oversight. This has occured all through this government and is indicative of its politicization. This happened to the Food and Drug Administration as well as the EPA.
When you combine the two forces: lack of regulation and concentration of suppliers, you get more frequent outbreaks from contaminated food. Just as Bush's refusal to regulate coal mining companies resulted in more miners getting killed, just as his refusal to enforce environmental laws have resulted in increased contamination of our soil, air and water, the lack of food inspection and regulation has resulted in people getting sick and dying. The buck on this stops in the Oval Office.
As the Times points out:
"Over the past 40 years, the industrialization and centralization of our food system has greatly magnified the potential for big outbreaks. Today only 13 slaughterhouses process the majority of the beef consumed by 300 million Americans. "
"Since 2000, the fast-food and meatpacking industries have given about four-fifths of their political donations to Republican candidates for national office. In return, these industries have effectively been given control of the agencies created to regulate them."
"The current chief of staff at the Agriculture Department used to be the beef industry’s chief lobbyist. The person who headed the Food and Drug Administration until recently used to be an executive at the National Food Processors Association."
"Cutbacks in staff and budgets have reduced the number of food-safety inspections conducted by the F.D.A. to about 3,400 a year — from 35,000 in the 1970s. The number of inspectors at the Agriculture Department has declined to 7,500 from 9,000."
The result of all this policy failure is e coli everywhere. You don't know where is safe to eat any longer. I stopped buying that prepackaged ground beef when the hamburger patties kept getting contaminated. We still don't even know what in Taco Bell's food caused all these people to get sick. Two of the restaurants affected by this are local to me. Lucky for me I don't do much fast food and I try to avoid chains. That doesn't mean I'm not at risk however, just at lesser risk.
There are real repercussions to voting Republican. Their pattern is to drastically cut regulation of business and to appoint business executives and lobbyists to regulate their own industries. It's the same as no regulation. When you appoint a mining executive to regulate coal mining companies you get dead coal miners. When you appoint lobbyists for timber companies regulating that industry you get increased logging and unsafe conditions. When you appoint polluters to run the EPA you get unchecked pollution and global warming. There's a definite connection. There are real consequences to your votes and they shouldn't be cast lightly.
Comments