Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [1]
“Food Politics is a carefully considered, calmly stated, devastating criticism of the nation’s food industry and its efforts to get people to eat excessive amounts of unhealthy food.” —Social Policy
CALIFORNIA STUDIES IN FOOD AND CULTURE
Darra Goldstein, Editor
MARION NESTLE
Updated and Expanded
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2003, 2010 by The Regents of the University of California
ISBN 978-0-520-26606-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition of this book as follows:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nestle, Marion.
Safe food: bacteria, biotechnology, and bioterrorism / Marion Nestle.
p. cm.—(California studies in food and culture; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-23292-1 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Food—Safety measures. 2. Food—Biotechnology. 3. Bioterrorism. I. Title. 2. Series.
RA601.N465 2003
363.19′26—dc21 2002027172
Manufactured in the United States of America
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on Natures Book, which contains 50% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).
CONTENTS
Preface to the 2010 Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction:
Food Safety Is Political
PART ONE
RESISTING FOOD SAFETY
1. The Politics of Foodborne Illness: Issues and Origins
2. Resisting Meat and Poultry Regulation, 1974–1994
3. Attempting Control of Food Pathogens, 1994–2002
4. Achieving Safe Food: Alternatives
PART TWO
SAFETY AS A SURROGATE:
THE IRONIC POLITICS OF FOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY
5. Peddling Dreams: Promises versus Reality
6. Risks and Benefits: Who Decides?
7. The Politics of Government Oversight
8. The Politics of Consumer Concern: Distrust, Dread, and Outrage
Conclusion: The Future of Food Safety:
Public Health versus Bioterrorism
Epilogue
Appendix: The Science of Plant Biotechnology
Notes
List of Tables
List of Figures
Index
PREFACE TO THE 2010 EDITION
WHEN SAFE FOOD FIRST APPEARED IN 2003, FOOD SAFETY HARDLY appeared on the public agenda. American food safety advocates struggled to be heard but generated little public interest or congressional action. I wrote Safe Food to explain the political history of our fragmented and ineffective food safety system and how politics gets in the way of efforts to improve the system. Having no illusions that the book would do what Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle accomplished in 1906, I hoped that it would at least generate some creative thinking about food safety problems and their solutions.
I spent the next few years dealing with invitations to speak about the health implications of food marketing discussed in my earlier book, Food Politics. I also wrote What to Eat, a book that uses supermarket aisles as an organizing device for thinking about food issues, safety among them. By the time that book came out in 2006, I thought I was done with food safety. I had nothing more to say about it.
Then came September 14, 2006. On that day, one that California vegetable growers still refer to as 9/14, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the recall of spinach contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, the pathogen introduced in chapter 1 and discussed throughout this book. This incident brought the inadequacies of our food safety system to public attention as never before and renewed calls for mandatory regulation.