下载You’ve heard all about them, a slew of reports about tainted seafood and pet food from China. The country admitted this week it needs to raise its food safety standards to those of international levels. But as the US imports more and more goods from China, how concerned should we be about our food supply. That discussion now with Michael Doyle, the director of the Centre for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, and Chris Waldrop, the director of Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America. Gentlemen, welcome, it’s a pleasure to have you here. Ah, Chris, let me start with you, we have been talking about this situation for some time now and a number of big American companies admitted this week that they have an awful lot of their food components imported from China. How worried are you about the safety standards there?
Well, the, the China standards as we’ve seen over the past several months are much lower than what the US standards are, so there is a real concern that the foods that they are importing into this country are simply, simply do not meet the safety standards we, as American consumers come to expect for any foods we are buying in the supermarket.
And, um, Michael, do you agree with that and are you worried that as we import more and more, companies are looking for the cheapest source of their ingredients and that frequently leads you outside of the United States.
Oh, I fully agree with what Chris said. Presently, about 50% of our food supplies is imported, and the number is increasing at an incredible rate, doubling about every five years and, and China has come from basically nowhere ten years ago to being the third leading food importer, into the United States. So, we’ve got some real concerns because the way food is produced and processed in China is, in general, not equivalent to the way food is processed and, and prepared here in the US.
So Chris, what do you think needs to be done, I mean this is a time of cost-cutting in most government agencies, um, and who should ultimately be held liable for all of this, is it, is it the FDA for the lack of their ability to inspect all of these goods, is it, is it the companies themselves for going to an outsourcing source or is it China?
Well, I think the blame can be shared in a number of different directions; one of biggest problems that we’ve seen is that the FDA has been woefully under-funded for the past five to seven years. They simply do not have the resources to be able to deal with this huge wave of imports, that’s been coming in as Doctor Doyle said, it’s just increasing on a very regular basis. And the FDA really needs increased resources, increased funding, just to be able to keep up with this.
What about the companies Michael, what share of the responsibility should they shoulder, given the fact you know, they have brands they have to protect and customers that they need to protect?
Food company, food processors are the first line of defense, and it’s incumbent on them to make sure that the ingredients in the foods that bear their label are free of harmful bacteria and, and toxins as well as veterinary drugs and all these other problems we are finding with foods from countries like China. So the food company is first and it’s up to the FDA to verify that the food companies are doing their job of making food safe.
You know one of the issues, Chris, is also on how those companies though will be able to verify, it’s different if the food is grown, you know in your own backyard. When it’s another country, how much, or what type of ability will those companies have to ensure that the ingredients that they are buying are safe and meet their standards? Do they have any power at all?
Well, I think these large international companies that have headquarters all over the world, I think they do have the ability to make sure that what they are sourcing and the foods they are producing are as safe as possible and they really have the power to be able to tell a company that wants to provide ingredients with them that look, unless you do it the safest way and you meet our standards, that we are not just, we are just not gonna heed you.
And Michael, you get the final word on this, what should a consumer do? I mean, you read the label, and it says, it doesn’t say, if it doesn’t say made in China, that doesn’t necessarily mean that some components of that product haven’t come from China. That’s part of the problem in this whole mess.
You asked me why some( what should, what should the consumer do?)
Unfortunately, unless it’s on the label, the consumer doesn’t know what’s in that food, so it’s incumbent on food processors and the FDA to make sure that, that the food is safe, and we, as consumers, all we can do is if it says made in China, avoid it.
Do you think that, Michael, do you think it, or actually Chris, let me put this to you very quickly, should labeling requirements change, so if any component of a serial comes from China that needs to be listed, will that be helpful or not.
It can be (well). It can be, the pro, the problem is going to be that there will be just too much on the label for the, for the average consumers to digest all, that may not be a good solution.
Chris?
No, I would agree, it may be too cumbersome at some point, but it is information that consumers may start demanding and in that case, the companies would have, would have to probably meet those expectations.
Gentlemen, thank you very much, Michael, Chris, we appreciate the time.
It’s a pleasure.
Thank you very much.
