More Food Follies
& Just What Do They Mean by “Cold?”

Several news items this week continue to raise questions about the safety and wisdom of a corporate-dominated farming and food processing system. The environmental group Friends of the Earth this week asked Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to block the sale of biotech corn produced by the Garst Seed Company, until tests can be conducted to determine if the corn contains a toxic mold that could potentially cause pigs and cows to become sterile. Also this week, the USDA announced the recall of 300,000 pounds of deli meats in the wake of a listeria outbreak. This news follows on the heels of the widening of an Emmpack Foods (a subsidiary of Cargill) recall of 2.8 million pounds of ground beef potentially contaminated with E coli 017:57. In other , possibly related news, the Food and Drug Administration issued guidelines this week that will allow irradiated food to carry euphemistic labels such as “cold pasteurized.” Irradiation is permitted in the U.S. for treating raw poultry, beef, spices and dried seasonings, and was recently declared to be safe by the World Health Organization. However, a new report by public Citizen and the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment casts doubt on the WHO’s position.