By: Timi Gustafson RD
Publication: Seattlepi
May 30, 2012
Link: http://blog.seattlepi.com/timigustafsonrd/2012/05/30/americans-are-more-insecure-about-their-food/
Summary: According to a survey by the International Food Information Council, Americans currently have much less confidence in the quality and safety of their foods than they have had in many years. Some causes of this may be from recent shocking reports in the news such as mad-cow disease, and slime and glue meat. Other causes vary from production of the food supply, to its transportation on the market. In the survey, more than 50% worried about meat, 25% about seafood, and about 23% worried about produce. As a result of this insecurity, Americans started to pay better attention to their food choices when it came to knowing where their food was produced, how it was produced, its safety, overall healthiness, and finally, its cost. Although eating habits of our nation have yet to change, price consciousness has increased along with the insecurity of purchasing food to put on your family's plate.
The image above illustrates the increase in food insecurity in our country.
Opinion: In my opinion, I do not find any of this shocking. Very often we don't know where our food is from or how it got here but most of the time we just don't care. After reading this article I might start thinking more about the safety of my food and what I'm about to put into my body.
Questions:
1.) How safe do you think the foods you usually eat are?
2.) What can be done to make foods safer and lower insecurity?
3.) Give an example of a food and how it is produced, where it is produced, its safety, over all healthiness, and its price.
Opinion: I have heard of this before and this article reinforced this horrible report that I heard of. I think this is so wrong. These food industries should practice more morals. I think that people should also look at the label. I liked this article. I think the main problem is that people do not know what they are eating.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2.) One thing that could be done is have the companies create clearer labels. This would allow people to actually know what they are consuming. I think that also if laws were passed to make this filler illegal then no one would have to deal with it. I think if these companies focus more on quality than quantity then there would be less of this problem. I think that companies don't actually care about what they make; they only care about the money they receive through people buying this.
I personally never really thought about where my food has been i just ate. I will probably now start to think more about it. It might be something worth checking into but we should be able to have confidence in where our food is coming from.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2: Regulations could be made to make foods safer and keep people calm.
This article really opened my eyes to where my food comes from and how I should be concerned about it. I always just assumed that the food I ate was safe and that I have nothing to worry about. I guess if this many people are insecure about their food quality I should look into it too. Also, I wish this article went into more specifics about which foods to look out for and better alternatives. After reading this I will definitely be more cautious when buying food and pay more attention to where it came from.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2: I think that first to fix this problem, America should be educated about the risks of eating poor quality food, even if the price is lower. Also, I think that the FDA needs to have stricter requirements for food companies. I know that many people are against factory farms, but in my opinion we wouldn't e able to sustain out population without them, but I'm sure that many meat problems stem from their poor conditions. So factory farms should be closely inspected for cleanliness, food quality, processses, and disease treatment. If the FDA cracks down on the big name food producers for the quality of their food they will set the precident for the rest of the food industry