http://www.care2.com/greenliving/imported-produce-bad-for-us.html
Imported Produce Bad for Us?
Americans are consuming more imported fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen and canned produce, and fruit juice than ever before. An examination of U.S. consumption of produce that is commonly eaten as well as grown in America found that over the past 15 years Americans’ consumption of imported fresh fruits and vegetables doubled, but border inspection has not kept pace with rising imports, and less than one percent of the imported produce is inspected by the federal government.
Food & Water Watch studied fifty common fruit and vegetable products like fresh apples, frozen broccoli, fresh tomatoes, orange juice and frozen potatoes. They found that:
- Imports made up one out of ten fresh fruits and one out of nine fresh vegetables Americans ate in 1993 (10.1 and 11.7 percent, respectively) but by 2007 the import consumption share doubled to more than one out of five fresh fruits and fresh vegetables (22.3 percent of fresh fruit and 23.9 percent of fresh vegetables).
- The share of imported processed (canned or frozen) produce tripled, from 5.2 percent of frozen packages or cans in 1993 to 15.9 percent in 2007.
- The share of imported fruit juice (orange, apple and grape) grew by 61 percent, from about a third of American consumption (30.8 percent) in 1993 to about half of consumption (49.5 percent) in 2007.
- On average, each American consumed 20 pounds of imported fresh fruit, 31 pounds of imported fresh vegetables and 24 pounds of imported processed produce and drank three gallons of imported juice in 2007.
- Imports of fresh fruits (except bananas), fresh vegetables and processed produce essentially tripled, rising from 10 billion pounds in 1990 to 30 billion pounds in 2007.
- Imported produce was more than three times more likely to contain the illness-causing bacteria Salmonella and Shigella than domestic produce, according to the latest FDA survey of imported and domestic produce.
- Imported fruit is four times more likely to have illegal levels of pesticides and imported vegetables are twice as likely to have illegal levels of pesticide residues as domestic fruits and vegetables.
- Less than one percent of imported fresh produce shipments were inspected at the border in recent years.
- The hidden dangers on imported fruits and vegetables can enter U.S. supermarkets because the FDA inspects only the tiniest fraction of imported produce.
In 2007, the FDA performed only 11,000 border inspections on 33 billion pounds of imported fresh produce. Only 3 percent of FDA’s food safety funding and only 4 percent of its food safety manpower were used to monitor domestic and imported fresh produce. Other findings include:
International trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization and a raft of regional and bilateral trade pacts have facilitated the surging imports of fruit and vegetable products. Although imported produce once consisted primarily of tropical fruits and fresh vegetables during the winter months, now Americans are eating more imported fruits and vegetables year round. Crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and melons, which can be grown in the United States, are being replaced on store shelves by imports � during the U.S. growing season.
While imports have skyrocketed, U.S. fruit and vegetable product exports have seen minimal growth over the past fifteen years. In 2007 the United States imported more fresh fruit than it exported for the first time; processed produce imports exceeded exports for the first time in 2002; and the gap between imports and exports of fresh vegetables and fruit juice has steadily grown for the past fifteen years.
The new requirement of country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, which went into effect in October 2008, will help consumers choose fresh fruits and vegetables that are grown in America. But exemptions in the COOL regulations exclude large amounts of produce items from labeling requirements.
The federal government must act swiftly to protect consumers from unsafe imported produce and stop expanding a failed trade model. The FDA needs to drastically improve and increase its inspection of imported produce above the appallingly low level of one out of every 134 shipments of imported produce. Consumers need all imported produce–whether fresh, canned, frozen or otherwise processed–to be labeled with its country of origin. Finally, it is time for Congress to enact a moratorium on new free trade pacts that threaten consumers and undermine American farmers!
Food & Water Watch is an organization dedicated to the belief that the public should be able to count on our government to oversee and protect the quality and safety of food and water. For more information, go to www.foodandwaterwatch.org.
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15 comments
add your comment »Catherine Turley - I'd just like to point out that those shipments would have to be 1500 tons each for that to assumption to work. 15 HUNDRED TONS. Each. So, if you had a shipment of, say, apples in 3 pound bags (a common item in grocery stores), a 1500 ton shipment would contain a million bags of apples.
I just wanted to put those numbers into some perspective
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My biggest concern -- right now -- is buying organic, pesticide-free produce. I would LOVE to buy local for everything as I try super hard to do what's best for the environment, but the farmer's market in my area doesn't provide any pesticide-free produce -- I've asked as I understand many can't boast the "organic" label due to the costs but are still pesticide-free.
I just don't feel right using pesticide-laden produce, even if it is local. Anyone else run into this problem? I feel ridiculously guilty buying items from across the world, but I'm just not willing to compromise my health. . .
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You can call it rational consumerism, or smart shopping, or any other euphemism you like, but it is still economic and personal suicide.
Walmartism has gripped the thought of consumers, due to the hard economic times, but localism eating and shopping is not just a good way to keep your city and state government alive, but your local economy as well.
By keeping the money flow local, you protect both the local economy and the local state and city tax base, but it also means that the farmer's market where you buy organic goods will sell you products that are not exposed to foreign germs and soil microbes, and are not costing a fortune to transport.
You get what you pay for, and cheap food can be toxic food. If you do not want to spend so much on your fresh fruits and vegetables, then consider the cost you will pay in health bills, and the impact you will feel from a bad economy and fewer government services.
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The more this goes on, the more of a carbon imprint we are making and the more the global warming crises gets worse. Get to your local farm market. Most are there for 8 or 9 out of 12 months. Get what is fresh and local and freeze it. Be creative.
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Emma N. - buying produce from cheaper countries may be economical in the short term, but in the long run you are cutting your own throat. Because the less people working here, the less they can afford to buy, which means that other people get thrown out of work too because nobody is selling anything. Less people working means more drain on public resources that the rest of us pay for until we can't pay for those either.
by the way, American food costs more because usually it is inspected better... or at least was until the Bush administration did its best to drive Americans out of jobs and out of the global markets by pandering to whichever country made their executive elites more money.
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If the produce doesn't come from the US (unless it's something that can't be grown here, like bananas and pineapple), I don't buy it. If I'm going to support the livelihoods of farmers and producer pickers, it's going to be ones on American soil, contributing to our economy. I don't care what ethnicity the farmers and pickers are, as long as they are growing produce here, working here, and paying taxes here.
A new trick has been supermarkets that advertise tomatoes from the US, Canada and Mexico all in the same bin. So I ask them to show me which ones are the US ones. If a store can, because some stores have each tomato tagged, I buy it. If it can't, I make sure the store knows I'm not buying from them.
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Emma N -- one of the reasons production costs are so high is salaries have to come with health benefits in this country as opposed to other countries with national health care. Solve the health care issue with universal health care, it takes the burden from employers and then they will be able to compete better in global markets.
Union workers aren't a problem since most union workers aren't living high off the hog... they are lucky if they own a modest home and a decently running car and can afford to send their kids to school... Not like the execs who have yachts, more than one car, vacation homes, internation vacations, fancy homes, etc.
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Linda S - sign up for the FDA recall list and you'll find plenty of imported things recalled. And of course, there is the one huge case that changed me from a casual reader of ingredients (meaning caloric content for weight) to scrutinizing every ingredient and sending emails to companies to ask where ingredients come from -- the importing of wheat gluten from China containing melanin which killed hundreds of our cats and dogs.
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Well, America is one country with a very high cost of production relative to the rest of the world, and especially from South America and parts of eastern Europe where the produce is imported from. As the economy gets harsher, consumer patriotism goes down while rational purchasing goes up. In hardship, consumers who have a need for veggies and fruits go for them irrespective of their countries of origin, assuming that their taxes are going a long way to fund FDA inspection of imported produce.
In order to protect the American producer, the government, needs to regulate workers' union to ensure that wages are determined by the respective markets. This way, American products can once again compete against those of the rest of the world.
I believe the government can drop its laissez faire attitude and take control over its markets to protect its people. I don't believe in 100% democracy in management, there has to be a part that the government plays to protect the american producers and consumers.
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This is from the National Pesticide Information Center. "DDT can still legally be manufactured in the U.S., but it can
only be sold to, or used by, foreign countries. In the U.S., the
only exceptions for DDT use are for public health emergencies
involving insect diseases."
So, my question is, how much DDT are we still manufacturing and how much is exported and how much of this exported DDT is being used on produce that is imported back into the US for consumption?
We banned it for use here because it is a carcinogen and if insects had not built up a resistance to it would we have banned it at all?
Do you really know what you are eating? This is just one pesitcide . . .
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