Today in class we had a presentation about how food is grow in other countries and is imported in to the U.S. Only 1.3 % of food that comes in the U.S. is inspected which means that ONLY 850 container with food were tested for E.coli, Salmonella, Hepatitis A, Shigella and Norovirus. 90% of the Strawberries, cherries, and Apples that are inspected are contaminated with one or more of the Big 5 food borne illness causers. And these are the ones that are actually inspected. Can you just imagine that 90% food that we eat everyday is potentially contaminated, because it is not inspected? This makes me not want to eat anything that is imported.
Our teacher today asked the class how we prevent this food coming in to our homes and on to our plates. This has a simple answer do not buy anything that is imported right. Well this is harder than you might think. I went to the local super market to get dinner for myself. I decided to make Spaghetti and meatballs. As I was looking around for the ingredients I need I decided that I would try to get only food from the U.S. I’m very picky on what I eat anyways. So I picked up my favorite sauce, Prego with mushrooms and looked at the back to see where it was made or where the ingredients came from and all it said was packaged in NJ, but it does not state anything else on where the origination came from. You ask why does it not state where the ingredients came from? This is because processed food does not have to state the origin of where the ingredients to make the product come from, it just has to state where it was packaged. Then I picked out the hamburger, it stated about it that the ground beef comes from U.S.A, Canada and Mexico. So I decided would ask where the meat that I was buy came from. I asked the butcher and they stated that is comes in on mix containers from their shipping company and you cannot tell whether the beef came from U.S, Canada or Mexico. So did I buy tainted meat one can only wonder? Then I was looking at the spaghetti and I looked at all of the brands and found one that state Product of the U.S.A, made and processed, here in the U.S. So that was one out of the three products that I got came from the U.S.
Of course I didn’t look for a different sauce because I was not in the mood to make dinner come to find out that I didn’t like the sauce, and not have the spaghetti for dinner. On another note I love shrimp. Today in class we also found out that the U.S imported $376 million dollars of shrimp last year. They also showed us that Thailand has not updated their pesticide regulations, so this means that problem all of the shrimp that I consumed last year was full of pesticides, that can cause cancers and birth defects in children. The moral of this stories is that we should all care where are food comes from and what harmful things that are in them. But we cant all just stop eating we need to let the public know what’s at stake when they eat tainted food and have them choose for themselves.
