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Editorial: Keep an eye on your food supply
By Editorial Board
Wausau Daily Herald
September 21, 2006, "Our View" Page
More than a few of us have been examining our salads more carefully since an outbreak of E. coli last week linked to California spinach.
So far, one person is dead and more than 100 have been sickened. And the federal government said Monday that it warned California farmers almost a year ago to improve safety procedures.
Meanwhile, we're left picking through our salads like miners panning for gold. Is that lettuce or spinach? Did the company that bagged it up and sent it to the grocery store wash it properly? Did it come from California, or Chile, or Florida?
We're told that this is the 20th food poisoning episode since 1995 linked to spinach or lettuce -- an amazing number not for how high it is, but rather for how low it is.
Last week in Pittsburgh, author, critic and Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl told a group of newspaper editors and writers that Americans are getting more and more removed from their food supplies every day.
In the late 1700s when this country was born, about 90 percent of the population were farmers. As recently as 1960, almost one in 10 Americans worked on a farm, the average size of which was about 300 acres.
Today, only 2 percent of us earn our living tending crops or livestock. The average farm is almost 500 acres -- a number that's skewed by enormous factory farms that can occupy tens of thousands of acres.
In Wisconsin, we're still more rural than most places. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/WI.htm, about 8 percent of our population works on farms and the average size is about 200 acres.
But urban dwellers are as remote from their food supplies in Wausau or Merrill as they are in Chicago or New York City.
And that's a danger -- a danger well illustrated by the spinach outbreak.
Much of America's spinach supply comes from one small area of California -- the Salinas Valley. And much of that spinach is produced by one company -- Natural Selection Foods -- and sold under many names.
Some of it turns up in your grocer's produce section. Some makes its way to restaurants. Some is chopped up and bagged with other greens in that phenomenon of modern, convenience-driven society, pre-mixed salads.
And some of it is shipped elsewhere. After the outbreak, Natural Selection Foods recalled its spinach in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Taiwan.
Central Wisconsin consumers, in turn, will go to the grocery store today and buy bananas grown in the Philippines, oranges from Brazil, tomatoes from Chile and peppers from Mexico.
The effect: A century ago, or even a few decades ago, you went to the store and bought food grown in the area surrounding your hometown, Reichl said.
Today, you haven't got a clue where it came from. So a farm worker who slips up half a world away can kill people in Wausau.
And it doesn't end with produce.
Most of our meat now comes from giant factory farms and is processed in mega packing plants, where one disease or contamination -- think mad cow or E. coli in ground beef -- can devastate the nation's food supply, Reichl said.
Before critics start shouting, let's acknowledge the other side of the coin: Modern farms produce food so efficiently that we spend less of our income on food today than at any time in history.
The other good news is that more and more of us are becoming aware of the methods used to produce food and are insisting upon change. The demand for organic food has grown so loud that even Wal-Mart says it now will offer naturally grown food.
In central Wisconsin, we're fortunate to have several farmers markets from which to choose, and Wausau's Downtown Grocery.com sells organic food grown locally.
Take advantage of them. They're a precious resource. And be sure to pay attention to all your food -- what's in it, where it came from and how to handle it safely -- lest you join the tens of thousands of Americans poisoned by their food every year.
Copyright (c) Wausau Daily Herald. All rights reserved.
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