[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
RE: "FOOD WITHOUT FEAR" [FW]
According to "Food Industry Newsletter," 3/18/02, "according to a survey
conducted by Kansas State University, 60% of respondents claimed they would
be willing to buy beef burgers or ground beef if the products cost the same
as non-irradiated beef. Older consumers, families with children under the
age of 18 living at home and people with at least some college education
were among those stating [that] they would be willing to buy irradiated
meat."
It seems that the irradiated food industry should do what the ATM industry
did years ago: When they first started putting them in, it was "to save
money and time" by not having to use as many tellers. Then they decided they
could not only save money, but make it too, so they started charging for
them, this time saying that it was "due to the cost of installing and
maintaining" the ATMs. So the producers should sell irradiated foods at a
discount, since there's less spoilage (about one-third of the worldwide
harvest is lost due to spoilage), so they save money even after irradiation.
Then after it becomes widely accepted, they can charge more (as the market
adjusts to not compensating for spoilage) to cover the added cost of
irradiation, which by then consumers will demand anyway.
Jack Earley
Radiological Engineer
-----Original Message-----
From: Grimm, Lawrence [mailto:LGrimm@FACNET.UCLA.EDU]
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 1:15 PM
To: Radsafe (E-mail)
Subject: RE: "FOOD WITHOUT FEAR" [FW]
Radsafer's:
Ahhhh! Wonderful! Beautiful! A pro-nuclear article that uses emotional
arguments (see article below). Note hard the following refrains that flow
through the article:
* Being anti-nuclear has dire societal consequences, YOU could get
hurt and die without nuclear.
* Not only is nuclear safe, but it is the right thing to do for YOU.
* Anti-nuclear activists are hurting YOU (Implied: they like E. Coli.
Implied: they like it when E. Coli hurts and kills.)
* Anti-nuclear activists do not want YOU to have a choice.
The beauty of the author's use of these themes is that they are absolutely
true, intuitive to the reader, and require no defense (the anti has no
retort without looking foolish). Her arguments constantly strike an
emotional chord with the reader. There is no defensive posturing in the
article, and it routinely attacks/belittles the anti's. This is an article
well worth emulating if you wish to write a pro-nuclear article, or engage
in oral debate.
There are a lot of intelligent and caring regulators out there, but
unfortunately they too often get out-voted by the "cover my butt"
mentality/type regulators. If articles and arguments, such as the one
below, are constantly put before the public, the anti's will crawl back
under the rock they came from, and then hopefully the regulators will wake
up and listen to reason.
Larry Grimm, Senior HP
UCLA EH&S/ Radiation Safety Division. If this email is not RSD business, the
opinions are mine, not UCLA's.
-----Original Message-----
From: Franta, Jaroslav [mailto:frantaj@AECL.CA]
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 8:52 AM
To: Radsafe (E-mail)
Subject: "FOOD WITHOUT FEAR" [FW]
FOOD WITHOUT FEAR: IRRADIATING FOOD MAKES IT SAFER, SO WHY WON'T OUR
POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS LET US BUY IT?
November 16, 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
Michelle Marcotte of Ottawa, a home economist, food irradiation expert and
consultant who has prepared food irradiation regulatory applications in
Canada, the U.S. and Australia, writes in this op-ed that for a few years
after irradiation was approved for meat and poultry in the United States,
most retailers said they did not want to be the first to sell irradiated
meat. Meanwhile, processors continue to distribute, and retailers continue
to sell, meat and poultry that are commonly contaminated with E. coli,
salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter and other harmful bacteria. Not
coincidentally, thousands of people continue to become sick, and hundreds
die each year, from these preventable food-borne diseases.
Marcotte says that to the cynical businessperson, not selling irradiated
meat was a good business decision: using irradiation would cost more money,
while selling contaminated meat didn't cost as much. Processors also could
justify their decision by pointing to the small number of vocal consumer
activists who threatened them, played media stunts and who claimed consumers
do not want irradiated foods.
But as the U.S. Department of Agriculture tightened its enforcement measures
against harmful bacteria in food, recalls of contaminated meat became a
monthly, and now weekly, occurrence. Millions of pounds of meat were wasted,
and lawyers began winning huge lawsuits against the companies that processed
the meat and poultry that made people sick. Suddenly, it wasn't a good
business decision to avoid a technology that makes food safer.
U.S. retailers began tripping over each other with announcements of the
acceptance of irradiated meat in their stores. Huisken Meat Company of
Minnesota began marketing frozen irradiated patties in May 2000. From their
initial distribution in 84 stores, irradiated meat is now distributed to
thousands of stores in more than 30 states. Schwans and Omaha Meats rolled
out irradiated ground beef in their home delivery operations. Many U.S.
supermarket chains are selling irradiated meat. And fast-food giant Dairy
Queen tested irradiated ground beef patties in two stores in February 2001,
rolled them out to 60 stores in July and now makes irradiated beef burgers
available to all its U.S. outlets.
Sure enough, if you give people a choice, many will buy irradiated foods,
silly consumer activist pranks notwithstanding.
Marcotte says that in Canada, however, processors and retailers cannot make
the sensible business decision to offer irradiated meats, poultry or
anything else except spices. Consumers cannot look at the products, examine
the label and decide whether or not to buy. The reason is the same old
refrain: government foot-dragging.
Health Canada has been presented with several applications to allow the
irradiation of meat, poultry, shrimp and several fruits and vegetables (to
kill insects instead of using pesticides and the ozone-depleting fumigant
methyl bromide). The Canadian Cattlemen's Association has prepared a
petition for the irradiation of red meat, and Kanata-based MDS Nordion has
prepared petitions for shrimp, poultry and several fruits and vegetables.
Unlike their U.S. government counterparts who have to respond to regulatory
petitions within a reasonable time frame -- say, a year or two -- Health
Canada apparently does not. Applications to approve irradiated foods have
languished at the department for five or 10 years, and in some cases even
longer.
In response to inquiries about their progress over the years, Health Canada
officials would only say the applications were being "reviewed." This is
patently nonsense, since even a Health Canada official, when given so much
time, can manage to read the science summaries and research papers required
in the application process.
For the past two years, however, Health Canada scientists have been off the
hook. At least some of their scientific reviews have been completed, with
new regulations written and kicked upstairs to the minister's office. On two
occasions, the reviews have gone to the cabinet council that must approve
all new regulations before they are published in the Canada Gazette for
comment. And there they continue to sit. It's not as if our government was
so busy promulgating new legislation that it didn't have time to get around
to approving the irradiation regulations.
Perhaps you're wondering whether our government is merely looking out for
our welfare in not approving a new food processing technology. Maybe, you
tell yourself, those activists who say irradiated foods are unsafe are
right.
Marcotte says that anyone is free to believe that someone working for a
consumer activist lobbying organization might be more knowledgeable than the
host of chemists, nutritionists, toxicologists, food technologists,
biologists and medical doctors who've spent decades reviewing the safety of
food irradiation. So you can believe the activists -- who make their living
by selling fear, by telling you that if it weren't for them, your food
wouldn't be safe, although they've never tried processing food themselves --
or you can believe in the scientific reviews conducted by such bodies as the
World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the
American Medical Association and the other public-health organizations that
really do know what they're talking about.
If consumer activists really believed that you will not buy irradiated
foods, they would not work so hard to prevent you from being allowed to make
your own choices.
If the federal government would approve food irradiation, it would take a
positive step toward improving food safety in Canada. Canadian food
processors could begin to make smart business decisions, conduct test
markets and inform Canadians about food safety risks with a real option for
avoiding harmful bacteria in food.
Irradiated foods are labelled. Consumers should have the right to make their
own food-buying choices.
Michelle Marcotte
Marcotte Consulting Inc.
31 Shadetree Cr.
Ottawa Canada K2E7R3
phone 613-727-1469
FAX 613-727-8541
marcotteconsulting@sympatico.ca
www.marcotte-consulting.com
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,
send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the text "unsubscribe
radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.
You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,
send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the text "unsubscribe
radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.
You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/