Chickens and pigs and fish--oh my!
So the FDA has found that feed spiked with melamine--the same chemical that is suspected of causing the illness and death of pets via their pet food--was fed to animals intended for human consumption. According to news reports,
about 20 million chickens were quarantined over the weekend and then given the OK and released back into the human food supply chain. It is believed that millions more were fed the tainted feed earlier this spring and were already sold and consumed by humans. The piggies too. Now the news comes today that farm-raised fish got the same stuff (way to go USDA, FDA, and every other federal agency that supposed to be watching these things!). In all instances, FDA officials are saying that the contamination levels were likely to be so low as to be insignificant on human health.
Ok, sure, but of course they've got to say that in that whole CYA respect, and so not to inspire a mass panic that we're all going to croak from a bad pork chop. But really, how safe is our food supply? And how much should we really know about our food and how it gets to our plates? There's been a country-of-origin-labeling (COOL) initiative sitting on the back burner in food and grocery circles for several years now that would require agricultural products like fresh meats to be labeled with stickers that would tell the consumer from whence it came. Judging by the crazy regulations (or rather lack thereof) in China, which is where the melamine mixing was done intentionally, if COOL ever makes it to the meat counter I think it'd be wise to stay away from Chinese meat supplies, even if the USDA/FDA assures us otherwise. Because they're doing a *fabulous* job of keeping tabs on all this, and mad cow, and peanut butter, and spinach....Now, we all fall prey to media hype and I'm no exception. Maybe all these instances wouldn't have merited the level of fear-spreading they got if it wasn't for the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle. But still, the "USDA inspected" stamp used to mean something right? Or were we all just used to living in that 'ignorance is bliss' mode?
Anyway, okay, back to marketing. So marketers--what is going to be done to wipe off (or paint over) yet another black mark on the food safety record? After all, you all got me to buy bagged spinach again.
