While food contamination increases, there’s stunning news that more than 40 percent of Canada’s population will suffer from food-borne illnesses this year.
The nation historically has inspected all meat imports and is recently testing all leafy greens after e.coli was found in US imports. There is pressure from citizens to increase inspections because illness linked to foreign food is increasing.
“Produce safety is a relatively new concept and there are still many farms in North America — let alone less-developed countries — that haven’t adopted the systems needed to help prevent problems with food.”
Foreign-grown produce has brought new types of bacteria and food-based illness into Canada in recent years, such as industrial contamination in food from China, a parasite found on soft fruit grown in central South America and salmonella bacteria on bean sprouts and lettuce from the United States.
Under the current system, the primary burden is on food suppliers and retailers to conduct quality and safety tests while the government conducts random checks.
Concern is rising in the US that the food safety system is broken.
Weeks after an already delayed national recall of millions of cans of food, including canned chili sauce contaminated with botulism, the dangerous products have remained on store shelves to sicken a man in Indiana.
The FDA re-issued a press release stating that consumers should notify family members and friends!
The 21st Century food safety challenge is not only in collecting data, where government is excessively focused and unbalanced, but in processing data at speeds that allow people to make decisions and act in every corner of our world.