A not very appetizing post: On Foods

[rumpel]

folks, this is about all food types..


REPORT ON THE INQUIRY INTO THE PRODUCTION AND MARKETING OF FOODSTUFFS
Report No. 4 in the 37th Parliament 2006 (release date, March 30, 2006)
Prepared by the
(AUSTRALIAN) ECONOMICS AND INDUSTRY STANDING COMMITTEE

(excluded here, the Chinese part - but a must read - also)

snip

The report also released some damning findings regarding the United States:

(a) Physical contaminants
Physical contaminants include such things as plastic, glass, faecal pellets, insects and rodents, some of which may cause physical harm and others which do not pose a health risk, but are nonetheless considered unacceptable. Food Standards Australia New Zealand has a zero tolerance policy toward most physical hazards in food, either on the basis of safety (eg glass, wire) or suitability (insect fragments). For a number of primary products, some physical contamination is tolerated, provided that further processing, through sieving or the use of flotation tanks for example, will remove offending material.

The United States has a different approach to some physical contaminants in food, having devised a Food Defect Action Levels list, which sets standards for ‘natural or unavoidable’ defects in food that present no health hazard. These defects include insect fragments and larvae, rodent hairs and mammalian excreta. The FDA set these action levels because it considered that “it is economically impractical to grow, harvest or process raw products that are totally free of nonhazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects.” The following provides a representative example of the limits at which the FDA will regard the food product “adulterated” and take action:

US FDA/CFSAN Defect Action Level Handbook

Product: Ground thyme
Insect filth: Average of 925 or more insect fragments per 10 grams
Rodent filth: Average of 2 or more rodent hairs per 10 grams

This caveat aside, it is of some concern to the Committee that one of our major food import partners has adopted a practice of tolerating certain levels of insect and rodent particles in foods..

Finding 29
Between 1997 and 2000, the United States manufactured and exported almost 30 million tons of banned or severely restricted pesticides, more than half of which was sent to developing countries.

and so it continues

http://www.howl911.com/petfoodrecall_china.htm

[KT2000]

1. Good info

thanks for posting this!