Food Fraud Common in USA Food Supply (drug, companies, politicians)

[kovert]

Originally Posted by lifelongMOgal

The FDA is in the backpocket of industrial farm corporations. If they had their way they would rid cities of "farmers markets" and exhert controls on every small family farmer/homesteader until it forced them out of business or rendered them unable to produce their own food.

Oh my star spangled banner!!

Or you (a seemingly right winger) actually acknowledging and condemning the existence of oligopolies that not only eliminates any potential competition but also is a beneficiary of corporate welfare/socialism?

[tigerlily]

Originally Posted by lifelongMOgal

I know. It is just that this particular thread is focused on the FDA. I try to stick with the topic at hand.

Proud to say I have not purchased a Heinz product since seeing John Kerry's Communist wife braying at his campaign rallies several years ago.

I feel the same about Bush brand beans. With a name like bush, it's got to be bad. LOL. I also refused to buy Hunt catsup. The Hunt Company was viewed as anti-semitic years ago.

[newonecoming]

I eat a lot of food home grown out of my mom's garden.

[lifelongMOgal]

Originally Posted by kovert

Oh my star spangled banner!!

Or you (a seemingly right winger) actually acknowledging and condemning the existence of oligopolies that not only eliminates any potential competition but also is a beneficiary of corporate welfare/socialism?

Always have. I blame the government though, not the corporations. The corporations cannot corrupt government officials unless the government itself is dirty.

[Peggy Anne]

A lot of these crooks were caught, because people with allergies reacted to an ingredient not listed on the label. A little lab work can do wonders. I know that some olive oils are adulterated. They just seem too cheaply priced. Good olive oil is fairly expensive. Some things taste adulterated, and watered down. I am still finding aspartame, and sorbitol in so called "natural" foods. PLEASE...leave out the unnecessary fillers, additives, and crap ! I will pay more for a smaller quantity of better quality. Consumers are becoming wiser, hopefully.

[uggabugga]

Originally Posted by FinkieMcGee

I dunno, good for you I guess. My general rule is if I can't imagine an ingredient and I'm not going to put it in a thing I'm eating, I'm not going to buy food which has that as an ingredient.

I mean I was talking about bread, I looked this up for Sara Lee Whole Wheat Bread:

Soybean Oil
Calcium Phosphate
Water
Calcium Sulfate
Cottonseed Oil
Ammonium Sulfate
Diglycerides
Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate
Calcium Peroxide
Fatty Acids, Vegetable-oil
Sulfiting Agents
Lecithin
Guar Gum
Sucralose
Cornstarch
L-Cysteine
Calcium Propionate
Guide to Sara Lee | Best & Worst Products, Reviews & Ingredients | GoodGuide

I literally have no idea what half of those ingredients even look like. Call it "fear of the unknown" but I'm going to not eat that. You're obviously welcome to though My momma doesn't throw much "calcium phosphate" into my bread, but she isn't running some kind of Frankenstein science experiment. Last I checked bread consisted of: Yeast, Flour, Water, Butter, and Salt. I'm not comfortable with putting drugs into my body I do not understand, I definitely am not going to put food into my body I do not understand.



I tend to get my vitamins by eating fruits and vegetables like a normal person



We've gotten fatter in the last 15 years. I'm not blaming GMO as there are other problems that do not involve nutrition there.

I'm also optimistic that the market will to some degree make some corrections regarding a lot of this. Hopefully corporations go a positive way with it instead of conning people into eating "healthy" food that isnt healthy, as they have done for the past decade or so.

just for fun, you can try plugging those bread ingredients into wikipedia, if you're interested in why they would be used. i agree that they don't sound particularly appetizing, but generally they're present for what someone thought was a valid reason..

for example, i thought calcium peroxide looked a little strange as a bread ingredient. turns out it's used as a bleaching agent of flour.

refusing to consume peonidin-3-galactoside and peonidin-3-glucoside on the basis that they sound scary, means you've just deprived yourself of two of the very healthful antioxidants found in cranberries, among other things.

people get freaked out seeing chemical ingredients actually spelled out, for some reason. if the govt. ever mandates that even natural products have to have chemical ingredients listed, i suspect the number of coffee drinkers will plummet, as there are over 1000 different chemical compounds in coffee beans

About 6,000 chemicals, both synthetic and natural, are deliberately or inadvertently added to foods, whereas hundreds of thousands of chemicals -- perhaps a million -- are naturally present in foods. Coffee aroma alone consists of about 1,000 different chemicals.

if i post a research paper listing some of these many chemical ingredients in coffee, i don't think you're suddenly going to stop drinking the stuff on the basis of your earlier explanation. that is, assuming you drink the stuff in the first place

[Mike from back east]

Here's a GAO report of the FDA's Oversight of Food Safety.

Some of the problems are systemic within the highest ranks of our government, such as:

- USDA inspects meat, poultry and egg product establishments for proper packaging and distribution of those products so as not to cause foodborne illnesses such as salmonellosis, the illness caused by the salmonella bacteria.

- FDA oversees the processing of produce, nuts, milk, seafood and other foodstuffs (the “F” side of FDA), in addition to oversight of drugs, cosmetics, toys, and medical devices (the “D” side).

To remedy the shortfalls in our food safety processes, I recommend:

- USDA should give up its inspection work to the FDA. The USDA is way too involved in promotion of farming matters, production levels, subsidies, trade agreements, etc. By letting the USDA oversee the industry they seek to promote sets up an inherent conflict of interest. Congressional committees that oversee the USDA kowtow to big Ag firms like ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, etc. Food safety takes a distant back seat in this realm.

- The FDA should be the sole arbiter of the safety of food, drugs and supplements. The FDA should NOT be overseen by the same congressional committees that oversee the USDA. Not sure the FDA oversees the safety of toys, seems like a job for the CPSC.

- Have separate congressional oversight for USDA and FDA to establish what is widely known as "two party accountability" for critical functions. Two party accountability is the norm in most security functions; such "checks and balances" are largely missing now.


What are the rest of you thinking?

[DontH8Me]

Originally Posted by NewportBarry

Monsanto

Bingo.

"Former Monsanto employees currently hold positions in US government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA) and the Supreme Court. These include Clarence Thomas, Michael Taylor, Ann Veneman, Linda Fisher, Michael Friedman, William D. Ruckelshaus, and Mickey Kantor.[20] Linda Fisher has been back and forth between positions at Monsanto and the EPA[citation needed]."

Monsanto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Small wonder then, that 'the government' is allowing agri-business to get away with murder.

[FinkieMcGee]

Originally Posted by uggabugga

just for fun, you can try plugging those bread ingredients into wikipedia, if you're interested in why they would be used. i agree that they don't sound particularly appetizing, but generally they're present for what someone thought was a valid reason..

for example, i thought calcium peroxide looked a little strange as a bread ingredient. turns out it's used as a bleaching agent of flour.

refusing to consume peonidin-3-galactoside and peonidin-3-glucoside on the basis that they sound scary, means you've just deprived yourself of two of the very healthful antioxidants found in cranberries, among other things.

See here is the thing. Why should I bother with some bizarre extract that went through a process when I can just eat the cranberry? A cranberry has more benefits than those 2 antioxidants.

Actually, here is another bit that I think has gotten bad due to marketing.

Why do I even want antioxidants en mass in my food? Per your suggestion I wikipedia-ed antioxidant (as this is something I've accepted as a good thing):

Antioxidants are widely used as ingredients in dietary supplements in the hope of maintaining health and preventing diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease. Although initial studies suggested that antioxidant supplements might promote health, later large clinical trials did not detect any benefit and suggested instead that excess supplementation may be harmful.[2] In addition to these uses of natural antioxidants in medicine, these compounds have many industrial uses, such as preservatives in food and cosmetics and preventing the degradation of rubber and gasoline.

I dunno, the health claim is rather dubious.

I mean, you don't view it as problematic that I need to actually go into Wikipedia to see what I'm putting into my body on a daily basis?

The other issue is, I don't trust these companies, I don't really see why I should. Plenty of groups have done things for good reasons, but they were wrong. Trans fats replaced saturated fats due to some studies; that was apparently a bad move. Hell, why does bread even need a bleaching agent? How does "making the food look whiter" make me any healthier, and why would I want to take that in?

people get freaked out seeing chemical ingredients actually spelled out, for some reason. if the govt. ever mandates that even natural products have to have chemical ingredients listed, i suspect the number of coffee drinkers will plummet, as there are over 1000 different chemical compounds in coffee beans

if i post a research paper listing some of these many chemical ingredients in coffee, i don't think you're suddenly going to stop drinking the stuff on the basis of your earlier explanation. that is, assuming you drink the stuff in the first place

I drink coffee a couple times a week, I'm not an addict :P

I mean, I'm pretty clearly the minority here, everyone else is eating that crap, I'd just rather not put it in my body. I would say PEOPLE don't get freaked out, but I do. If people got freaked out supermarkets would go under

[bellalunatic]

Originally Posted by FinkieMcGee

Yeah, hopefully in time the FDA will actually have some teeth and enforce some level of standards. They've been watered down by business interests for decades (despite people dying from e coli poisoning, etc.)

I generally buy my food from the local farmer's market now, or a local grocery store that gets a lot of their stuff from surrounding farms. I tend to avoid packaged foods and if I see an ingredient on the label that I don't know (wtf is Xanthum Gum???) I don't eat it.

This is actually really difficult (surprisingly). Something simple like bread should have maybe 5 ingredients. I look on packages and I see 40 ingredients on the label. What are you guys throwing in there?!

I don't know where things went wrong really, as it's been like this since I've been around. We've stopped eating food like people and we've started eating like robots.

Xantham Gum is disgusting.....

from WiseGeek:


Seriously, xanthan gum derives its name from the strain of bacteria used during the fermentation process, Xanthomonas campestris. Xanthomonas campestris is the same bacteria responsible for causing black rot to form on broccoli, cauliflower and other leafy vegetables. The bacteria form a slimy substance which acts as a natural stabilizer or thickener. The United States Department of Agriculture ran a number of experiments involving bacteria and various sugars to develop a new thickening agent similar to corn starch or guar gum. When Xanthomonas campestris was combined with corn sugar, the result was a colorless slime called xanthan gum.


and Michael Pollan is kind enough to just consider it yet another corn derivative product.

If we all eat processed foods in this country than we are all basically made of corn at this point..