Thanks to Meryn Stol, for pointing me to what could be a world changing enterprise for food sourcing. As reported in World Changing, The Food Map, a project from two graduate students from University of Wisconsin, Madison, aims to shed some light on the U.S. food network. Currently in a very raw form, Food Map is using the example of two brands of mac and cheese to demonstrate how it would work on a larger scale.
It is time the shroud of secrecy surrounding what’s gone on with our food, be lifted. I personally support the idea of a travel log for every single food item that makes it into our grocery stores. Food Map would go a long way towards alleviating my concern regarding this most troubling statistic from the FDA, that only 1% of food imports undergo food safety inspection . . . Short of greater transparency, I have to resort to blanket decisions such as bypassing non US food altogether. And even so, I still leave myself open to risks with processed foods. Currently ingredient sourcing for processed food is not required.
Please support The Food Map project, starting with a visit to the site.
La Marguerite 
“FDA Sets Safety Threshold for Contaminant Melamine”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301258.html
“Responding to concerns about the presence of the contaminant melamine in numerous foods made in China and exported to the United States and elsewhere, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that consuming a very small amount of the chemical poses no serious risk.”
How can an organization that is supposed to protect its citizens declare that melamine is “ok” in small amounts? Did they buckle under pressure? Begs the question, under what other “pressures” is it buckling?
I like the idea of food “transparency.” I believe the above would be covered if all nutrition labels had included a food-footprint calculation number.
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9184296
How nice that Meryn is helping with this! Such a big helper with climate change blog, and now this too!
Marguerite, great resource to point out. I have heard from my British friends that this type of “carbon footprint for food” is shown on some items in the UK.
Many people are focused on resource issues alone – as in # of miles travelled – but you raise the important issues of food safety.
Of course, some people choose to buy food from Europe assuming it is safer than US food. Ie, frozen conventional veggies from France vs. “organic” but of unknown origin or from China?
Looking at it like this, it seems the map doesn’t show how these macaroni and cheese ever got to Annie’s distribution center. That might be a story by itself.
“only 1% of food imports undergo food safety inspection”
I wouldn’t necessarily consider this troubling. How much of domestic produced food undergo safety inspection? Or is that you believe that “process” inspection (factories, farms, etc) will provide enough security? Maybe the countries where the US imports from have good regulations for food production and processing themselves?
Dear GreenOfaKind. Yes, carbon labeling is good, but it does not address the issue of food safety and of traceability, at least not directly. Also, as pointed out by Lynn, it has been tried in the UK, and has turned out as not that easy to execute. I am facing similar hurdles as I am tackling a rather large scale web project for food safety. The reason is, our entire food system is not set up for transparency, and just like with the recent financial scandals, there are too many intermediaries that are involved.
Meryn, what I liked about The Food Map project is the concept, not the execution, at least in its present very embryonic stage.
I disagree with you on “I wouldn’t necessarily consider this troubling”, the reason being that the U.S have at some rather stringent food standards, at least relative to other countries. I am most concerned about Chinese food imports. Since there is no way for the consumer to trace the source of ingredients in most processed foods currently sold in the U.S., this is very very concerning. One only need read the news to see the extent of our risk exposure.
“One only need read the news to see the extent of our risk exposure.”
Depending how you look at it, I’m either blissfully or dangerously ignorant about that. I hope you will educate me – and others – on this issue sometime!
I can understand your concern for Chinese food imports as in South Africa we are importing more and more Chinese food with some disatrous effects. Imported dog food with a contaminant resulted in a few deaths traced to a well known food outlet in South Africa. Melamine has also been found in our imported condensed milk. Our red chilly powders were found to have Sudan Red dye in it to make it look more attractive. I think its safer to go greener and rather buy home grown fruit and veg instead of all these canned and packaged foodstuffs that are less nutritious anyway.
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the dog foods that we use are certified organic as we do not want to use those dog foods contaminated with chemicals*”*