Assignment 17- Garrett Uebelhor

                    Garrett Uebelhor

Today in America we face a growing problem in our food industry. Every year the food conditions degrade as growers decide to do whatever they can to produce more. Yet some people refuse to admit to the seriousness of the situation, and still adhere to false hopes that the government will make sure whatever they are eating is danger-free.  It has become more important than ever for people to know about their food industry and to realize the great need for change and reform within it. If we, the consumers, do not start demonstrating that we want the change, the change will not happen. 

          Every year over 100,000 people in the US are hospitalized as a result of contaminated food.  Today the FDA, who is supposed to be protecting us from unsafe food, fails to do so a lot of the time.  Why is this? Well in his article in The Huffington Post, FDA Food Inspections Fail to Catch Vast Majority of Pathogens Joe Satran explains that the FDAs inspections are often useless.  He explains in one circumstance “Six audits gave sterling marks to a cantaloupe farm, an egg producer, a peanut processor and a ground-turkey plant -- either before or right after they supplied toxic food.” And it gets even worse. Apparently the FDA on average is only inspecting 2.7% of imported food, which means that 97.3% of the imported food you eat has not been checked for pathogens and other contaminants. Clearly we need to demand higher standards for the FDA. However this is still only a single facet of the problem.

          Another major issue with our food industry is the use of pesticides in agriculture.  The Environmental Protection Agency website in an article Pesticides and Food: Health Problems Pesticides May Pose states “laboratory studies show that pesticides can cause health problems, such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer, and other effects that might occur over a long period of time.” It is hard to believe, but eating pesticide contaminated food could be just as bad for you in the long run as smoking or other cancer causing activities would be.  The EPA however suggests that the government regulates pesticides and keeps them under the dangerous levels, yet we have seen how ineffective government regulation agencies like the FDA can be.

          The last major problem faced in our agricultural/food system is agricultural and waste runoff from farms and animal farms.  Often times fertilizers will leave nitrates sitting on the top of the soil which when it rains get soaked up by water and emptied into our water aquifers. The same thing occurs with big time animal farms, the feces from the animals is usually left on the ground and contaminates the water table in much the same way the fertilizers do.  Katherine Harmon’s article in Scientific American, Mooo-ve that manure: Agricultural runoff a spreading public health issue illustrates the detrimental effects of nitrates. She says that in agricultural areas” runoff “can be enough to cause persistent health problems, including diarrhea and other infections”. Again this is another case of dangerous conditions caused as a large result of the large food industry farms.

          In conclusion our growing food system is creating an abundance of problems.  If people don’t start demanding agricultural produce to be pathogen and pesticide free, as well as demanding prevention of nitrate runoff these problems will just continue to grow. If we continue to consume these contaminated goods, America every year will just keep suffering from the same type of food borne illnesses. So next time you are eating , think about what that food is really composed of and whether you want to make the choice to add to the severe problems in today’s agricultural and meat industry.