Page 54 - Fall2011
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All Thumbs Book Reviews








                                    Making Supper Safe:                        food. That beef commingled meat from animals
                                    One Man’s Quest to Learn the Truth         from three U.S. states and one South American
                                    about Food Safety                          country. It also contained a cost-saving—to
                                    By Ben Hewitt                              Cargill, of course—beef by-product of rendered,
                                    Rodale Books 2011                          centrifuged and ammoniated carcass remnants
                                                                               identified as “fine lean textured beef.” Cargill
                                        Ben Hewitt sets out to examine the public  produced millions of pounds of this processed
                                    health disasters caused by our industrialized,  beef product weekly from just two facilities
                                    centralized food and agriculture behemoth as  and sold it as “American Chef’s Selection Beef
                                    it lurches and stumbles in its death throes. This  Patties.” Nine hundred and forty people were
                                    ugly, violent phase shows no signs of ending  sickened by this contaminated meat, including
                                    quickly, and the monster crushes and maims  one woman left permanently paralyzed.
                                    randomly as it falls to its knees again and again.     FDA and USDA, whose purported jobs are
                                    Alas, after each catastrophe, others strain to prop  to protect the public from mass poisoning, fall
                                    it upright once more, to continue its merciless  down on the job—at least as far as policing of
                                    and deadly stumble for another day and another  the monolithic food industry is concerned—from

                 Although we        dollar.                                    the perspective of a naïve and trusting public.

                                        My evil-giant characterization of the prob-
                                                                               Processing facilities are inspected by FDA on
                     may have       lem of food safety, straight out of a modern-day  average once in seven years, and even in the case
                       become       tale from the brothers Grimm, is close to what  of outright documented contamination, FDA can
                almost inured       Hewitt comes to himself in the course of his  only issue toothless “suggestions for correction.”
                                    survey of the most recent food contamination  Meanwhile, the wheels of the industry never stop;
                     to regular     disasters in this country. How and why do these  company heads never stand trial for poisoning
                news of food        disasters continue? A toxic mix of near total  or killing people. The industry may pay hefty
                    recalls and     consolidation of agribusiness, an out-of-sight  fines for violations, but this financial liability
                                    food processing mega-industry, and government  has already been factored into its operating ex-
                   poisonings,      regulatory agencies largely in collusion with both  penses, and anyway the consumer pays for it in

                   the scale of     has left the unaware U.S. citizen—the hapless,  the final product cost. FDA staff members are
                 the numbers        clueless consumer—vulnerable to injury and  frequently recycled employees and advisers from
                                    even death.
                                                                               the very same food and biotech industries the
                       involved         Although  we may  have become almost  agency is supposed to oversee. They insure that
                       remains      inured to regular news of food recalls and  the infamous “revolving door” between industry
                          mind-     poisonings, the scale of the numbers involved  and government oversight is well oiled for this
                                    remains mind-boggling: millions of pounds  corrupt fraternity of “business as usual.”
                      boggling:     of meat or billions of eggs, for example. Most     State and federal regulatory agencies come
                    millions of     Americans are completely ignorant of the ways  truly alive with military zeal only when they
                    pounds of       these products arrive on supermarket shelves,  learn of citizens who have decided to circumvent
                                    and to the fact that in most cases there are only  this rotten system by forging direct relation-
                       meat or      two or three gigantic processing plants that  ships with small farmers to provide them with
                     billions of    supply—or potentially poison—the entire na-  wholesome food. In numerous examples, all well
                       eggs, for    tion. Hewitt uses the 2007 incident of Cargill’s  known to Wise Traditions readers, Hewitt docu-
                                    bacteria-contaminated ground beef to illustrate  ments the appalling thuggery these agencies and
                      example.      how dimly we understand what is really in our  their henchmen wage against small farmers and

               54                                         Wise Traditions                                    FALL 2011                   FALL 2011                                  Wise Traditions





         82725_WAPF_Txt.indd   54                                                                                    9/15/11   2:01 PM
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