The Sunlight Foundation blog is becoming a daily newspaper for
transparency...
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How Transparent is Your Turkey?
<http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/11/25/how-transparent-is-your-turkey/>
November 25, 2009 at 9:49 am
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When youre standing in the aisle of the supermarket, trying to decide
between this and that brand of fried onions for your famous green bean
casserole for the Thanksgiving feast, wouldnt you like to knowwithout a
lot of botherall that the government knows about it? Such as whether that
brand has been subject to recalls because of bacterial infections, or
whether the claims the company makes on the label are trustworthy? The
government collects terabytes of data on foodfrom safety to marketing to
subsidiesfunded by taxpayers and consumers. But that does not mean this
crucial information is available to you on-line and in real time so you can
actually do something about it.
*Turkey. *What are the results of the latest federal safety inspection of
the plant where your turkey met its end? The U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) knows, but its hard for ordinary consumers to get their hands on
that information. While the agency posts results of bacterial sampling for
different type of meat and poultry, its not
available<http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Science/Microbiology/index.asp>in a
format that consumers could use to compare brands or products.
*Cranberry sauce. *If you serve the canned kind (my husband always insists
on it)can you believe the claims on the label? The Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) issues warning letters to companies that violate
labeling laws for offenses such as false health claims (This oatmeal can
cure memory loss!) or if it fails to list information about a chemical
preservative. On the FDAs
website<http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/default.htm>,
you can search them by company, date, download them, all good stuff. Except
that last year the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)
criticized<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08597.pdf>the agency because
it had neglected to post at least 220 warning letters and
had also posted some duplicates. We dont know what the FDA doesnt tell us.
*Stuffing. *Was there ever a recall on the brand of stuffing mix you are
thinking of buying? While you can sign up to receive alerts on recalls of
contaminated products, whether meat (USDA) or not (FDA), theres no central
searchable database where you can look up a particular brand name and
research any history of safety problems associated with it. After the scare
last year involving salmonella poisoning, the FDA set up such a
database<http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/peanutbutterrecall/index.cfm>;
however, its restricted to products containing peanut butter (and later one
for pistachios). Its great to have that specific information, but while my
five-year-old son thrives on a diet primarily based on peanut butter, most
of us like to vary our diets.
*Sweet potatoes. *Heres a fresh breath of transparency: in September the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced that it was moving
forward with a
plan<http://epa.gov/oppfead1/cb/csb_page/updates/2009/disclose-inerts.html>to
disclose all the inert ingredients in pesticides. These are the
chemicals contained in a pesticide that are not designed to kill the insect
or mold or other pest in question. Instead, they make it easier to spray, or
keep the chemicals evenly distributed, or some other function. But until
now, the government did not require that labeling include this information,
even though many of these chemicals are hazardous and the agency evaluates
them along with the active ingredients in pesticides. That said, at least
for now, its tough to know exactly whats been sprayed on your sweet
potato.
*The whole farm. * As every preschooler knows, food comes from farms. But
the sticker price on food doesnt reflect the entire cost of what we spend
on it. As part of the massive economic plan, Congress has provided $28
billion<http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/%21ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2009/03/0051.xml>for
U.S. agriculture as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
of 2009. This includes funding for a wide range of programs, from direct
loans to farmers to wastewater projects to funding for food banks. But while
the Obama Administration has pledged to make stimulus spending transparent,
much of the information provided has proven inaccurate, conflicting, or has
been given to
contractors<http://realtime.sunlightprojects.org/2009/11/24/stimulus-grantees-cited-for-poor-oversight-of-federal-funds/>cited
for management problems. Last June, the investigative site ProPublica
reported<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/propublica/stimulus-transparency-who_b_261545.html>that
according to Recovery.gov, the USDA had allocated just $610 million,
but had paid out $1.68 billion. Then in another place, the site claimed the
department had provided funding notifications of $362 million, which was
less than a quarter of what Recovery.gov reported had been paid out.
*Hat tip to Sarah Klein, staff attorney at Center for Science in the Public
Interest, who provided valuable insights for this post.*