Burns Best Farm

The Future of Food: Bonus Material

Nancy Carter hit a lick at the world of industrial agriculture yesterday when she posted a Front Porch link to The Future of Food.  I posted a couple of comments myself; we rented the documentary last summer and spent some time over the course of a few days watching it.

One of the most compelling parts of the DVD was in the "Bonus Material".  There was an interview with Andrew Kimbrall, who detailed the process by which the FDA, USDA, and the corporate seed and food companies "test" the edible food products that make it onto our store shelves for purchase.  (Note:  I don't own the DVD, but at the price the Kansas Milkmaid is selling it for, I will buy it in January.)

My recollection of Kimbrall's interview is this:  the FDA depends on the seed/food companies to conduct their own research and the present those findings to the FDA.  The companies that will be making major profit off the products are allowed to self-police the methods, the tests, and therefore the results of the tests.  But that "open book test taking" is not even the worst of it.

The FDA allows these same companies to completely bypass any testing if they can show that the ingredients in the food product have successfully passed previous tests.   

So a chemically created, "artifically flavored", secret spice blended ingredient is paired up for the first time with a newly available corn or soybean variety, maybe genetically modified for disease resistence.  These two or three ingredients are combined for the first time ever together.  You would think that under those conditions, FDA testing would be required and the results of those tests would determine whether or not the food product was safe to market and purchase.  You would be wrong.

As long as any one of those independent, artifical chemicals or gene modified grains had passed a test at any point in the past stating they were safe to consume, the food company would merely have to note that test, related to the ingredient label, and the FDA would approve it for sale and consumption.

I was reminded of this interview and the jaw-dropping unbelievableness of it all when I read the Kansas Milkmaid's post for today about fake food.  You will get a kick and a jolt out of it, too, so click on over and read through it. 

Since I do not own the DVD, I could not this morning queue it up and refresh my memory on the interview with Mr. Kimbrall.  But I do have a fresh memory of the disbelief that processed food could be slowly killing the people I love most.