Supporting food safety

There are days when I wonder if anything is safe to eat.  (Like yesterday when the prepackaged garden salad I got from the school cafeteria looked as if it hadn’t even been washed.  The lettuce had weird dusty black ick all over it.  And it wasn’t dirt.  And it didn’t stick like mold.  I don’t know what it was, but it was disgusting.  And dirty.  And don’t mock me; you wouldn’t have eaten it either.) 

On an increasingly common basis I think about ways I can become more closely connected to the source of my food.  I want to KNOW the conditions in which it was grown; how it was altered chemically, genetically, or environmentally; and frankly whether it’s safe for me to eat.  In many ways, it’s a hard balance.  Living in a very urban space on a below-the-poverty-line income, I have limited options.  (BUT, I do have options, AND I have the cultural capital to know about those options and how to access them, so really I’m not in the same bad situation as many, many others.)  But, in the process of feeling safe about the source of my food, I have rarely felt that the government had my best interests (aka – my health and well-being) at heart. 

Slow Food USA has created a video and a petition they hope will help change that.  They're asking Congress to better regulate the food industry and thus help ensure the health of all Americans.  So we're talking about making corporations accountable for actions (or the lack of actions) that produce/protect a healthy food supply; demanding that the USDA and FDA communicate better with one another; and supporting legislation that simplifies food safety regulation.

Sounds good to me.  Here's the video:


And, if you're interested, you can look at and/or sign the petition.