One Brick Short

What is wrong with our food chain?

Is it profit? One peanut processing plant in a backwater Georgia town, a plant where operators ignored tests showing their product was practically poisonous to people, continued to ship off five-gallon jugs of salmonella-infected peanut butter to old folks homes, day care centers, schools and other institutions where the young and the helpless live and learn and eat lunch.

It sold infested product to Kellogg’s and other major food manufacturers for use in crackers, snacks and power bars, not to mention dog food and snacks.
Now The Associated Press tells us today that a peanut processing plant in Texas run by the company, Peanut Corporation of America, operated for years uninspected and unlicensed by government health officials.

Peanut products have poisoned some 550 people in 43 states and one in Canada, and eight were killed. The salmonella out-break was traced to the company’s Blakely, Ga., where inspectors found roaches, mold, a leaking roof and internal records of more than a dozen positive tests for salmonella, according to the AP.

The Centers for Disease Control estimated that 21 percent of the sick were younger than five years old. The median age of the ill is 16. Nearly 22 percent of the sick had to be hospitalized. The government is working on a criminal investigation in the case.

What’s wrong with our food chain?

Is it government integrity? The AP says the Plainview, Texas plant apparently was never inspected until after the company fell under investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to Texas health records accessed by the AP, inspectors found no sign of salmonella, but the fact that it operated under the radar is scary.

According to the AP, Texas, inspector Patrick Moore of the Department of State Health Services was sent to the plant and reported that it was neither licensed nor inspected since it opened in March 2005.

Texas requires food companies to obtain two-year licenses but doesn’t have enough money or inspectors to catch companies that don’t. The FDA relies on Texas inspectors to make sure that federal regulations are met.

Our food chain is making us sick and, in some cases, killing us. In August, peppers and products from Mexico resulted in 1,400-plus people sickened by salmonella in 44 states. One cancer patient became ill and died. From 2006 to 2008, the CDC reported and investigated salmonella poisoning in dog food that sickened dogs and sent eight kids to the hospital, with the median age of 8 months.

In July 2006, nursing homes, hospitals and day care centers in 10 states and Canada were again hit with Salmonella, this time from prepackaged fruit salads.

In July 2008, seven states reported E. coli infected beef, in November 2007 10 states recalled frozen pizza products for E. coli, in 2006 killer spinach soaked in E. coli killed three people and sent more than 30 into dialysis treatments for eating fresh and healthy salads. Remember previous peanut butter scares when brand name containers were yanked from the shelves for salmonella?

Something’s wrong with our food chain. We import, butcher, pack and ship with more concern about cost savings than quality. Every year some company is fined, some plant closed and someone fired as a scapegoat but the movement continues. We buy nationally distributed products produced as cheaply as possible rather than consuming local goods that, admittedly, cost more. We demand fruits and veggies out of season, buying them from Central America or growing them in hydroponic farms.

Our safety mechanisms are not working. Our regulations are a sham. Perhaps the first jobs that need to be put in place in President Obama’s stimulus package are those of plant inspectors. Then, perhaps, we should consider cooking more and consumer mass-produced products less.

It’s becoming a matter of self-defense.