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Authorize regulatory agencies to recall unsafe foods.

Require food companies to document the traceability of foods and ingredients.

Require labeling of genetically modified foods.

Support international treaties that protect the environment, public health, and food security (including the right to food as well as food safety).

Strengthen international treaties to prevent development of biological weapons; prohibit the use of genetic engineering for that purpose.

Actively develop and support international policies to promote public health, human rights, and food security in all countries.

The Public

Join consumer groups that promote food safety, environmental protection, and broader aspects of food security.

Advocate for domestic and international programs and policies to ensure safe food, protect the environment, support public health, and guarantee rights to food and food security.

Encourage others to join in such actions.

Elect officials committed to such actions.

The government also could do better to ensure safe food and restore trust in the food supply. Congress could help by putting consumer protection first and creating a single food agency with genuine authority over safety in the production and distribution of foods as well as over their effects on environmental and public health. Such an agency could be empowered to promote food security in all of its humanitarian aspects: reliable access, adequate quantity and quality, appropriate cultural relevance, and safety. While thinking about how to develop this agency, Congress could provide greater resources for food inspection, and give existing agencies the authority to enforce regulations, issue recalls, ensure traceability, and protect public health. One measure to reduce political influences on the FDA, for example, would be to transfer its funding decisions from agriculture committees to those devoted to health. Congress also could require genetically modified foods to be labeled—the issue that most inflames public distrust of the food biotechnology industry—and demand that the foods undergo examination of their safety and environmental effects before they are marketed.

On the international level, the government could sign and actively support treaties that promote food safety, environmental protection, and the right to food, as well as agreements to stop producing biological weapons, genetically modified or otherwise. If we are going to protect our country against bioterrorism, our government must become more actively involved in international policies to promote health and food security as human rights for everyone, everywhere.

What can we, as individuals, do to promote such actions? We can join consumer organizations that work for environmental protection, food assistance, public health, and human rights—all of which support food safety as a necessary component of food security. We can advocate for domestic and international programs and policies directed toward those goals, and we can elect officials committed to such purposes. We can explain to our friends and colleagues that the meaning of food safety extends well beyond “cook, chill, clean, separate.” Food safety—and food security—are indicators of the integrity of our democratic institutions. They are worth our political commitment.

EPILOGUE

SINCE 2003, WHEN SAFE FOOD FIRST APPEARED, FOOD SAFETY ISSUES have evolved against a background of ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of China as an economic powerhouse, and deepening international concerns about climate change. Americans experienced revelations of abuses of corporate power, the deflation of the housing bubble, job losses, economic depression, and deep divisions in public opinion about abortion, immigration, and health care. If people now agree about anything, it is that they, as individuals, have little power to affect such events and divisions. In contrast, everyone can do something about food. The food revolution has arrived.

Signs of the food revolution are