Food Safety

Ninety percent of the corn, canola, soybeans, and sugar beets grown in the United States today have been fiddled with. Genes have been inserted that will help the crops grow better, resist the onslaughts of insects, or not be harmed by slatherings of herbicide intended to kill weeds. These genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are the way farming can provide for the future of the planet, the industry tells us. Since GMOs are now in much of the food we eat, some people want to see that information on a label.

Proposed Health Department regulations on outdoor food handouts in Philadelphia should be the catalyst for more community and church-based volunteer groups to move indoors with their laudable efforts to aid the homeless. The new rules would require permits and kitchen inspections for any group feeding more than a few people in an outdoor setting, such as at the weekly feedings along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Center City. The city's top health official, Deputy Mayor Donald F. Schwarz, insists that his main objective is food safety - and not coming up with just another fee to fatten the city's treasury.

WASHINGTON - Visitors patrolling the aisles of the National Archives' best-attended show in years last week may have felt curiously at home, though the images on display - warnings about toxic candy, putrid tins of Chicago-packed meats, and ketchup bottles blowing their tops - were hardly soothing. This was the Archives' first "scented exhibit," said staffer Miriam Kleiman; subliminal notes of fresh-baked apple pie perfumed the air. The project is called "What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?"

WASHINGTON - Here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress voted on major issues last week: House 2012 farm, food budget. Voting 217-203, the House passed a bill (HR 2112) to appropriate $17.3 billion in discretionary spending for the Department of Agriculture and related agencies in fiscal 2012. The bill would cut spending by nearly 14 percent below 2011 levels to meet targets in the Republicans' 2012 budget plan. The bill would provide $2.2 billion for the Food and Drug Administration, down $284 million from 2011 levels, and $171 million for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, down $32 million.

BEIJING - Toxic bean sprouts, filthy cooking oil, drug-tainted pork: The relentless headlines in Chinese media have churned up queasy feelings for months about the dangers lurking in the nation's dinner bowls. The stories are grim reading but they show that China's usually strict censors are allowing the media more latitude to help it monitor a food industry long riddled with problems. The central government has been cautiously encouraging a sudden burst in food safety muckraking.

Spring for Caleb and Patricia Torrice heralds an annual rush of harried baking and packing as they ready nut rolls, apple cakes, and sticky buns for sale at farmers' markets. This year, though, the Chalfont couple - owners of Tabora Farm & Orchard - are preparing for the weekly market circuit with a few more items on their checklists. You might say they're bringing everything and the kitchen sink. A Pennsylvania law that went into effect in January places new restrictions on farmers' market vendors, mandating licenses and inspections, detailed package labeling, and cleaning equipment including, in some cases, portable sinks.

The practice of eating well locally can pay off for the economy as well as for individuals. That's why the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission sought ways to secure the food system within a 100-mile radius of Philadelphia. The commission put together a team of stakeholders two years ago, bringing together farmers, antihunger advocates, preservationists, and small business owners to articulate the project's core values. And this month, the commission announced grants totaling $480,000 (funded from the William Penn Foundation)

The incredible, edible egg - or at least those coming from two rodent-infested Iowa egg farms - caused 1,937 traceable illnesses from Salmonella enteritidis last year, which means the contaminated eggs probably sickened nearly 60,000 people nationwide. Thankfully, there's no evidence anyone died from the outbreak - unlike other recent outbreaks linked to peanuts and packaged celery, blamed in at least 14 deaths. But there was also no evidence that one of the farms, Wright County Egg, had ever been inspected by the Food and Drug Administration.

Tainted cheese, lettuce and waffles are among the 56 food recalls that have affected Pennsylvania since stronger food-safety legislation stalled in Congress in July 2009, according to a study released this week. The study, conducted by the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group (PennPIRG), the Consumer Federation of America and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, found that 85 recalls occurred in that time period nationwide. "The release of the study is to show the public and [Congress]

News about the massive Iowa egg recall has turned attention to practices at two industrial-size egg producers, and to the question of how salmonella bacteria were spread around the farms and even into chicken feed. It's a good moment to focus on a risk many of us don't like to think about: the possibility of getting very sick from microbes spread via our own food - in this case, from bacteria that inhabit the reproductive tracts of some perfectly healthy hens. Inside unbroken shells, eggs were once considered safe from pathogens.