Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety

406 Pages·2010·4.803 MB·English

by  Nestle, Marion

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION OF MARION NESTLE’S
FOOD POLITICS: HOW THE FOOD INDUSTRY
INFLUENCES NUTRITION AND HEALTH
“Anyone who cares about what they put in their body ought to read [Food
Politics]carefully and think long and hard about the choices. Your life just
might depend on it.” —Newsday
“‘Voting with [our] forks’ for a healthier society, Nestle shows us, is within
ourpower.” —Los Angeles Times
“Educating the public is a start, and Food Politics is an excellent introduc-
tionto how decisions are made in Washington—and their effects on
consumers. Let’s hope people take more notice of it than they do of the
dietaryguidelines.” —The Nation
“Nestle has written a provocative and highly readable book arguing that
America’s agribusiness lobby has stifled the government’s regulatory power,
helped create a seasonless and regionless diet, and hampered the government’s
ability to offer sound, scientific nutritional advice.” —The Economist
“What a book this is! Of course we have always suspected and known some of
the truth, but never in such bold detail! In this fascinating book we learn how
powerful, intrusive, influential, and invasive big industry is and how alert we
must constantly be to prevent it from influencing not only our personal choices,
but those of our government agencies. Marion Nestle has presented us with a
courageous and masterful exposé.” —Julia Child
“Food politics underlie all politics in the United States. There is no industry
more important to Americans, more fundamentally linked to our well-being
and the future well-being of our children. Nestle reveals how corporate
control of the nation’s food system limits our choices and threatens our
health.Ifyou eat, you should read this book.” —Eric Schlosser, author
ofFast Food Nation
“Nestle is in a unique position to have seen firsthand how food purveyors,
government and academicians end up as bedfellows when it comes to
suggesting to people what and how much to eat.” —Eating Well
“Food Politics . . . has nudged [Nestle’s] argument into the mainstream of
consideration—not quite fodder for an installment of Oprah,but no longer
the heady stuff of National Public Radio, either. And that has some restaurant-
industry officials more than a little upset.” —Restaurant Business
“Nestle tells us a series of engaging and surprising stories and gives us a
livelypresentation of the politics, as she perceives them, of advice on diet
andhealth during the past century . . . This book is thought-provoking, and
Irecommend it.” —The New England Journal of Medicine
“Some of Nestle’s shocking revelations about the behavior of Big Food will
shock only those who are easily shocked; others will be welcomed less as
news than as occasions for those so inclined to make public displays of
moraloutrage.” —London Review of Books
“Food Politics is written to interest and be accessible to a wide range of
readers, whether they have training in nutrition or not. The book has
achievedthis objective by keeping jargon to a minimum, explaining terms
asneeded, and being written in a lively, engaging style.” —Journal of
Nutrition Education
“A real page turner, this book will give you metaphoric indigestion—unless, of
course, you believe that McDonald’s offers ‘a nutritious addition to a balanced
diet’ (as one U.S. Senator declared in 1977).” —Natural Health
“Regardless of who is to blame for the obesity epidemic, Nestle has laid down a
challenge that won’t easily go away. It will be interesting to see how the food
industry responds.” —Food Chemical News
“The case examples are remarkable and the value here is in Nestle’s clear,
thorough documentation, which provides missing pieces in the puzzle of
poornutrition in a country where food is all too abundant.” —The Lancet
“This superbly documented book encourages readers to think about what they
eat and to ask, who profits?” —Gambero Rosso
“Food Politicsis an academically scrupulous account of how the food industry
in the United States controls government nutrition policies. It’s important and
eye-opening reading for anyone looking to make intelligent and informed food
choices.” —EarthSave Magazine
“Food Politics is a carefully considered, calmly stated, devastating criticism of
the nation’s food industry and its efforts to get people to eat excessive amounts
of unhealthy food.” —Social Policy
SAFE
food
CALIFORNIA STUDIES IN FOOD AND CULTURE
Darra Goldstein, Editor
MARION NESTLE
S A F E
food
THE POLITICS OF
FOOD SAFETY
Updated and Expanded
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press, one of the most dis-
tinguished university presses in the United States,
enriches lives around the world by advancing scholar-
ship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural
sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press
Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from
individuals and institutions. For more information,
visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2003, 2010 by The Regents of the University
of California
isbn978-0-520-26606-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier
edition of this book as follows:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nestle, Marion.
Safe food : bacteria, biotechnology, and bioterrorism /
Marion Nestle.
p. cm.—(California studies in food and culture ; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn978-0-520-23292-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Food—Safety measures. 2. Food—Biotechnology.
3. Bioterrorism. I. Title. 2. Series.
RA601.N465 2003
363.19'26—dc21 2002027172
Manufactured in the United States of America
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on Natures Book, which contains
50% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum
requirements of ANSI/NISOz39.48–1992 (r1997)
(Permanence of Paper).
CONTENTS
Preface to the 2010 Edition vii
Preface to the First Edition xi
Acknowledgments xvii
List of Abbreviations xix
Introduction:
Food Safety Is Political 1
PART ONE
RESISTING FOOD SAFETY 27
1. The Politics of Foodborne Illness: Issues and Origins 33
2. Resisting Meat and Poultry Regulation, 1974–1994 62
3. Attempting Control of Food Pathogens, 1994–2002 86
4. Achieving Safe Food: Alternatives 113
PART TWO
SAFETY AS A SURROGATE:
THE IRONIC POLITICS OF FOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY 139
5. Peddling Dreams: Promises versus Reality 145
6. Risks and Benefits: Who Decides? 167
7. The Politics of Government Oversight 194
8. The Politics of Consumer Concern: Distrust, Dread, and Outrage 220
Conclusion: The Future of Food Safety:
Public Health versus Bioterrorism 249
Epilogue 277
Appendix:The Science of Plant Biotechnology 299
Notes 305
List of Tables 355
List of Figures 357
Index 359
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PREFACE TO THE 2010 EDITION
When Safe Food first appeared in 2003, food safety hardly
appeared on the public agenda. American food safety advocates strug-
gled to be heard but generated little public interest or congressional action.
I wrote Safe Foodto explain the political history of our fragmented and
ineffective food safety system and how politics gets in the way of efforts
to improve the system. Having no illusions that the book would do what
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungleaccomplished in 1906, I hoped that it would
at least generate some creative thinking about food safety problems and
their solutions.
I spent the next few years dealing with invitations to speak about the
health implications of food marketing discussed in my earlier book, Food
Politics. I also wrote What to Eat, a book that uses supermarket aisles
as an organizing device for thinking about food issues, safety among them.
By the time that book came out in 2006, I thought I was done with food
safety. I had nothing more to say about it.
Then came September 14, 2006. On that day, one that California veg-
etable growers still refer to as 9/14, the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) announced the recall of spinach contaminated with E. coli
O157:H7, the pathogen introduced in chapter 1 and discussed through-
out this book. This incident brought the inadequacies of our food safety
system to public attention as never before and renewed calls for manda-
tory regulation. As always, these calls were ignored. The result was an
astonishing series of national outbreaks and food recalls, one right after
another.
To my surprise, I began to receive invitations to write and speak about
vii