America's Food Supply

In 1906, Americans were first awakened to the appalling reality of the meat packing industry’s abusive practices with Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. This book became an instant best-seller and acted as a catalyst for change. President Theodore Roosevelt and the American public demanded action to correct this deplorable situation, and just four months after the publication of The Jungle, Congress passed both the Food & Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These “Acts,” as they are commonly referred to, provided major reforms and are still the core legislative pieces for food and drug safety protection in this country.

Over the past 100 years, the way our food is grown, processed and sold has undergone tremendous change. Our food production system has shifted from family-run farms to large agricultural corporations, and our population has seen a three-fold increase from 85 million people in 1906 to 300 million people today. Livestock is frequently raised on commercial farms and then sent to a centralized plant for slaughter. These slaughter facilities and the down-line processing plants have the capacity to handle thousands of animals in a single day. The resulting product is then distributed throughout the country through large retail chains. The meat from a single cow could literally be distributed to all four corners of the United States.

Not surprisingly, these changes in our food production system have created new problems that did not exist in 1906. During the past thirty years, highly toxic and multi-drug resistant pathogens have emerged. Coupled to this, the food market has become global and consumer expectations and behaviors with regard to food have changed drastically. Combined, these factors have given rise to a host of new food safety concerns. Yet, the framework of our food safety network is still largely based on the “Acts of 1906.”

America’s current array of food protections are not adequate to meet the new challenges created by a centralized, industrialized and global food supply. Instead, our fragmented food system is capable of delivering lethal and long-term health problems to large segments of America’s population, particularly its children, elderly and individuals with compromised immune systems.

In January 2007, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report to Congress added the federal oversight of food safety as a high risk area because of the public health and economic risks posed by foodborne diseases. While many stakeholders in food production and food safety are working diligently to resolve the gaps that exist in our current food protection system, it is important that all stakeholders in the food safety network understand the dynamics of food safety issues, identify the gaps in our current food safety system and work together to find solutions that will prevent foodborne disease in the 21st Century.