What’s gone wrong with America’s food supply? From Harvard Men’s Health Watch

Many factors contribute to the renewed concern about food safety. Agriculture and food processing have grown enormously in scale, and foods are shipped great distances. Contamination in one place can produce distant illnesses, making it difficult to recognize an outbreak quickly and track down its source.

In the United States each year, there are 76 million food-borne infections. Of these, 350,000 are serious enough to require hospitalization, and 5,000 are deadly. Prevention is, of course, the best way to fight back. The Harvard Men’s Health Watch article, the first in a two-part series, emphasizes two types of prevention efforts:

Food safety reform. The USDA is responsible for the safety of meat, poultry, and processed eggs, while the FDA supervises most other foods. But these agencies, as well as others in the mix, are severely underfunded and ill-equipped for the globalization of our food supply. Although we now import 15% of our food (including 60% of our fruits and vegetables and 75% of our seafood), just 1% of these imports are inspected. Reform is needed on the federal, state, and local levels, along with full cooperation of the private sector, including importers, farmers, ranchers, and the food processing industry.

Food irradiation. Irradiation uses energy from ionizing radiation to kill the microbes in food; the food that emerges is not radioactive, and it retains its flavor, appearance, and nutritional value. Food irradiation is approved in more than 40 countries, including the United States, but it is rarely used in America. Decades-long experience with animals and people (including astronauts) who have eaten irradiated food has not revealed any increased risk. Consumers will always have the freedom to choose, since all irradiated foods are labeled as such, but a shift in mindset could save lives: the CDC estimates that irradiating just half of the meat and poultry consumed in the United States would eliminate 900,000 cases of food-borne illnesses and prevent 352 deaths in a year.