As some one professionally involved with supporting production agriculture in the USA, I see other threats to the quality and safety of our food that are seemingly ignored. Most derive from the 'profit first' agenda of Big Food companies and capitalize on consumer apathy and ignorance.

The National Task Force on Biosecurity represents a wonderful opportunity for certain scientists to elevate their public image and self-importance. However, in all their deliberations and speculations on how our food supply could be at risk to hypothetical 'bioterrorists', they have done little more than speculate on ways to sabotage it and publicize the means to do so. But then, fear-mongering seems to be the best short-cut to publicity and government support these days.

And yet no one has stated the blatantly obvious: there is not yet one single proven example of intentional bioterrorism in modern times. Without a real act of bioterrorism, they are, in the words of Cervantes, merely 'tilting at windmills'. Of course, with Fox News reasoning, this lack of actual bioterrorism could be proof that the task force has been effective...

As far as the risk posed by foreign produce, "Domestic produce had more, or more toxic, pesticides than imported produce in two-thirds of the cases where imports were tested." according to a comprehensive independent study performed some eight years ago. More likely, increased scrutiny on imported produce is supported politically because of its potential to serve as a trade barrier to protect American producers from competition, something that actually elevates the cost of produce to consumers.

It is true that there have recently been some critical sanitation failures in the food supply and that efforts are warranted to identify the causes and prevent re-occurrences. The irony is that a couple of dozen people with intestinal infections get massive MSM coverage while the role of our food supply in contributing to the million of cases of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other largely preventable diseases get relatively short shrift (Yes - many cancers are largely preventable, but that could be another post). And we forget that accidental food contamination of this type is an almost inevitable side effect of the large-scale agriculture on which we have come to depend. When treated sewage water is used to irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres of spinach and lettuce in southern California, can we really act surprised when a (probably) small procedural error results in contaminated produce making its way to a half-dozen different states? Our system of agriculture is vulnerable by its very nature - we have surrendered responsibility for food production to a tiny handful of farmers who are now victimized by the greed of food processors, distributors and retailers who collectively have a virtual choke-hold on access to consumer markets.

The truth is, on a national scale, the safety of food coming off the farm is better now than it has ever been in history. It is only when food leaves the farm that its 'safety' really begins to decline. Any chemical residues from agricultural production are minuscule by comparison to the litany of colorants, preservatives, artificial flavorings and other synthetic compounds purposely added to most of our food products before we get a chance to buy them.

Take hydrogenated fats. This year, the EPA mandating the labeling of packaged foods to reflect trans fat content based on proof of the health risks associated with them. What most people don't know is that the dangers of trans fat were clearly established by scientists in the early 1980's - more than 20 years ago!

From Dr. Mary Enig: "My initial published research in 1978 when I was at the University of Maryland showed that trans fatty acids, which were increasing in the food supply at the time and which had not been catalogued in any of the food data tables, were the very factors that explained the positive statistical relationship between the increase in cancer mortality and vegetable fat consumption in the U.S.... Dr. Ancel Keys had originally claimed that the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils with their trans fatty acids were the culprits in heart disease. This was in 1958, and the edible oils industry was very swift in their squelching of that information; they shifted the emphasis to "saturated" fat and started the phony attack on meat and dairy fats."

What a surprise that an artificial molecule that your body can't properly digest should cause problems in your bloodstream. Apparently it took decades for government agencies to counter the lobbying interests of the food processing companies and fast food conglomerates that fought tooth and nail for the right to continue poisoning American consumers for their own profit and convenience. And we wonder why we have a national health care crisis driven by the soaring incidence of preventable diseases.

As consumers, the majority of us have come to place convenience above quality in the food we eat, and for this we bear a measure of responsibility for the abysmal state of our average diet. The superficial appeal of food convenience has played into the hands of the food processing industry that is constantly seeking ways to increase profits. Without further pushing down production costs (at the expense of farmers), there are only two ways they can accomplish this: by increasing per capita consumption of a product (read larger serving sizes), or by increasing their profit margin on every unit sold by adding some sort of 'value' (e.g. preservatives to increase shelf life). And nowhere are the profits from 'value-added agriculture' (read 'intentional food contamination') more evident than in fast-foods and convenience foods. A box of breakfast cereal that sells for $4 has probably less than 5 cents worth of actual raw ingredients in it. You are paying $3.95 for processing, advertising and convenience and only $0.05 for actual food.

It is now 50 years since the publication of 'Silent Spring' and consumers are probably more aware than ever before of the risks posed by agrochemicals, especially pesticides. However, they are far less likely to be aware of the hazards of materials intentionally added to our food, and the fact that over-refinement of everything has left most of us with a diet completely depauperate of critical micronutrients and carcinoprotectants, the vast majority of which have yet to be identified by medical science, even though we know they are abundant in raw fruits and vegetables. And yet our attention is diverted to the potential risks of residues on imported produce, despite no real examples of consumers being poisoned by pesticides on imported produce in recent history. Rather, these concerns are stirred up by protectionist politicians who are far more concerned with corporate health than with consumer health. Any protectionist trade barriers that they can legislate against competitive imports in the name of food safety will serve to protect the interests of their influential constituents in American Agribusiness more than those of any consumer.

The federal government has become an increasingly poor steward of our food supply and would now like nothing better than to divert the public's attention to these purported risks to 'biosafety' and 'biosecurity' when the biggest risks to our food supply are corporate and systemic, largely because the highest officials in the FDA and the USDA are essentially on the payroll of Big Food.

A scandalous accusation you say? Why, then, is milk the only food product to receive public funding to promote its consumption? And this despite having devolved over the past two decades into one of the most intentionally contaminated of basic foods in the country, with residual levels of antibiotics and hormones now permitted that are more than 10x what was once considered acceptable. Why has this been permitted? Because former dairy board representatives and populate the upper ranks of FDA as unofficial lobbyists for the dairy industry, where they undoubtedly still have substantial financial interests that they put before the interest of the public health. The same goes for authorizations granted to the beef industry for use of growth hormones and antibiotics that reduce production costs at the expense of consumer health.

And why, then, are food processing companies allowed to contaminate our food supply with a litany of chemicals that have never been proven safe for human consumption in long term experiments, all for sake of increasing shelf-life and profits at the expense of human health?

Why are we forced to pay double the price for 'Smart Chicken' that lacks the contaminants of standard processing and the 'enhancement' of a 14 % of a salt solution? (and what does that make the rest of the chicken they are selling - 'stupid chicken' - or merely chicken for stupid people?) Why is the discerning consumer now forced to pay extra to have their food 'de-decontaminated'? And why are producers allowed to sell salt solution by weight as if it were meat in the first place, let alone the fact that any discerning consumer has no desire for additional sodium phosphate in their diet?

With the growing dominance of a single retailer in many rural markets (I don't even need to name them), the consumer is literally left with no choice of any meat that lacks this needless contamination. The only legal stipulation (according to the USDA where I personally lodged a complaint) is that the consumer be notified on the label - but apparently the font size is not specified, so bring a magnifying glass! And how many consumers even read labels these days, or are literate enough to make sense of them? Big Food is being allowed to profit from consumer apathy and ignorance at the expense of public health.

Certainly, food safety is an issue, but the emphasis of food safety is being sorely misplaced because our regulatory agencies have become little more than shills for Big Food corporations. The burden of evidence currently falls on the disgruntled consumer to prove a compound is unsafe, rather than on the industry that would profit from its use to prove that it is safe before being allowed to feed it to us. Government priorities are completely backwards and industry is once again favored at the expense of consumer health and safety.

The bottom line is that if you really want safe food, you should probably start growing your own again, or at very least start cooking it from scratch again. Short of that, don't buy anything that no longer resembles food. That goes for anything pre-prepared or processed or packaged in any way as 'ready-to-eat'. Anything that has a marketing strategy associated with it is probably not even food anymore, but some 'food product' - some combination of refined flour, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated fat, and salt. All the least nutritious crap we have in excess supply. The tasteless orange factory wax that has somehow come to pass for cheese is a good example. The 'toxic torus' that we know as a donut is another.

Food safety is a serious issue, but public attention is being distracted from real chronic risks that are systemic within our food supply and affect vast numbers of people and transposed instead onto acute and dramatic risks that affect very small numbers of people. It's just more politically convenient.