Food & Travel...

Before you fill up your cereal bowl, and in light of the recent milk day (January 11,on the Slashfood blog), consider this recent news:

John Harnish, farmer in Pennsylvania , credits the massive growth in milk production from his cows, from 17,000 pounds a year to 27,000 pounds a year over 20 years, to better feed, more milking, better breeding, and injections of synthetic growth hormone. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on December 30, 2007 that the state agriculture department “has forbidden dairies that don’t use the hormone from touting that on milk-bottle labels.” So, instead of knowing what’s in your food, now you can’t even know what’s NOT in your food. After 14 years, the FDA hasn’t confirmed whether milk that’s from cows injected with growth hormone is unsafe—but they haven’t proven that it is safe either. (The PA governor is still “reviewing the decision.”)

The answer, it would seem, is to go for organic milk, which isn’t allowed to use hormones.

But then, on January 9, the AP reported that Whittier Farms dairy, seemingly the ideal dairy farm on its third generation of delivering glass bottles of milk to their customers’ doors, was recently shut down because listeria was found in their milk. Listeria is nothing to mess around with—it’s a bacteria that’s found in manure and can cause illness and death. This time, it caused three deaths and one miscarriage. Whittier Farms did pasteurize their milk, which is supposed to kill the bacteria, but somehow the listeria still made it through.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t drink milk, I added skim to my coffee and poured the white stuff over my Special K this morning, but it begs the question: how do we know our food is safe anymore? Especially food that’s made or that comes from animals. It’s disappointing that even our government may not be helping us—by limiting exactly what we can learn from labels on the food we read (note: this is nothing new, the U.S. hasn’t clearly labeled foods that include genetically modified ingredients for years) and even our smaller farms may pose problems. How do you know your food is safe?

Note: Food Law Blogger has reported that PA has backed down from their previous stance on banning dairies from reporting whether or not their milk came from cows injected with growth hormone. Score one for the consumer.