Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Why I won't be eating Good Humor ice cream

You have to be so vigilant as a consumer these days. It's not as if our government is doing what it's supposed to, and keeping food and consumer products safe; the Bush administration and ones previous (Reagan was particularly bad, eliminating many food inspection jobs, for instance) have been busy loosening food safety rules, product regulations, and packing oversight boards with industry reps.

Keep in mind that the agriculture lobby is so strong that the federal government has no authority to recall meat or produce. I'm not making this up. Finally these asshole produce companies are actually asking to be regulated due to business loss during the recent e.coli contamination scare. Might cost them money, after all, if they sell products that can make people sick, or die.

Sickening. But then, so is fish blood in ice cream. (Yeah, I know - I've always been a picky eater.) But seriously:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_3637.cfm

Think this doesn't affect you? Think again. It's still legal to label a product "organic" even if it isn't; and even USDA-certified organic products only have to be 95 percent organic.

Why can't we be more like the European Union, and actually have a government that gives a flying fuck about things that can harm us, as opposed to having a government so far into the pockets of industry that we have to worry about lies on food packaging?

It's the same mentality from the same industry that doesn't want food labeled vegetarian or non-vegetarian, because what they call "natural flavor" is sometimes, for instance, "bugs". I'm not making this up. Look up "carmine" and see how much you want that Dannon strawberry yogurt. Bugs give it the pink coloring.

Likewise, Good Humor and other manufacturers refer to the fish blood as "ice structuring protein." And they wonder why 14 million of us vegetarians here in the U.S. want the fucking packages labeled!

On the bright side, Democrats have promised to introduce a bill that would beef up (no pun intended) inspections of food processing facilities.

Let your rep know you care about this. Make some noise. The agriculture and food industries won't do it for you.

1 comment:

Darth Weasel said...

where is Upton Sinclair when you need him? as we all know....it's a jungle out there.