That formaldehyde aftertaste

Because of my recent work related break from the blog I’ve found it to be a bit tough to get the rhythm going again in terms of writing posts. It’s been weeks since I had a roundup of news articles about the melamine contamination scandal so I thought a new one is in order. There has actually been some new and troubling developments.

Just this morning we have learned that the Chinese government has closed 180 food plants in China for their use of toxins in their food. Among the toxic substances found to have been used were formaldehyde, banned dyes and industrial wax. Some of the food processors were also found to have been using recycled or expired food in their plants. I wonder what “recycled” food is exactly? I have to assume it is analogous to the method of making pig feed from the excess or waste feed which we learned about several months ago as this scandal first gained momentum.

An ominous statement regarding this which was made by a director in the Chinese quality control administration, as quoted in the article linked above, “These are not isolated cases.” I take that to mean that what we have seen so far are examples of a general culture and accepted practice within the Chinese food industry as a whole. Of course, since we are shamelessly capitalistic here in the States, big business concerns grow fatter off the response by increasing sales of their products and services.

Now, don’t get me wrong on my last statement. I do believe that a person (Corporate entity in this case, which is really a legal person) deserves the profits of their labor when they devise a method or system or device which provides a legitimate and needed service to humanity. But it continues to irk me that for the last 6 years we have seen one business concern after another making huge profits in response to problems that are intentionally created by men, which doesn’t address the root problem.

The root problem in this case isn’t a natural byproduct of human activity, such as methane release in coal mining as an example, it’s a problem related to food processors intentionally adding toxic substances to their food products. It’s a safety issue that is man-made, not a naturally occurring problem. The companies that make a living by selling products that monitor methane in coal mines provide a necessary and noble product that ensures the safety of miners and the corporate assets of the business they work for. That is what I am referring to.

This series of problems is a result of big business and government holding each other’s hands and looking the other way thus allowing a problem to fester by ignoring their primary responsibilities. Once the cat is out of the bag and the problem makes them look bad, a problem that they created, they spring into inaction. Bureaucracy and cost are always the reasons given why they can’t do something. Next tune, please.

Atlanta on the verge of a healthcare meltdown

Nothing like a good case of coincidence to turn your head, is there? Here in Atlanta we are beginning to see the true early stages of what will probably turn out to be a major failure of our healthcare system and this is hot on the heels of the new Michael Moore film that will be released this week. For years we have been learning about the financial crisis at one of the major hospitals in Atlanta, Grady Health Care System, and the crisis is finally at a tipping point 7 years after the hemorrhaging began.

Grady Hospital plays a vital and central role in the health care system for the metropolitan Atlanta area, for those not from Atlanta or familiar with our health care system. It is the only level 1 trauma unit in the area and its location in downtown Atlanta puts it in a busy and special location. Indigents and the uninsured also use Grady, as it is the only source of medical care they have and in a metropolitan area of more than 4 million people, you can imagine its level of use simply for those two aspects.

We are now hearing that the financial situation is so dire at Grady that we Atlantans need to consider and prepare for it’s possible closure. If this happens the patients that would normally use the Grady Healthcare System will be redirected to the remaining hospitals and clinics in the metro area. In other words, an already overwhelmed health care system for the metropolitan Atlanta area will have to absorb the load of almost 1 million patients per year.

You may be wondering where the conspiracy is in this story? To be honest, there may be one; there may not be one. What can be said is that the experience of getting sick or being injured in one of the major cities of America may turn into a nightmare of shocking proportions. Who’s to blame, the isolated administrators of the Grady Healthcare System or a broader administration of healthcare in America? Probably a combination of both.

What we will see is patterns emerge from this problem and we will see the pattern solidify in shape and form. The wealthy, those who have the resources to fend for themselves, will be taken care of and their finances will carry them through. The poor and middle class will suffer for they haven’t the financial resources to protect themselves. Lives will be torn, lives will be lost and the strong will continue to survive. In effect, we will see a microcosm of the greater Illuminati Conspiracy Theory. Depopulation and a greater divide between the haves and the have nots.

Many can argue that business, like nature, is a struggle for survival and those that cannot survive in business should and will die. I agree with that idea to an extent. When it comes to vital services, and healthcare is a vital service, survival of the fittest should not be a factor. While Grady does need stronger leadership, it should not be sacrificed as a failed business. It provides more than just a service to the indigent and poor of Atlanta; the very structure of healthcare for all Atlantans and Georgians is at risk if it is allowed to close its doors. Doctors who practice within a 100-mile radius of Atlanta also send their patients to Atlanta for the higher quality of care they can receive in the city. They would no longer be able to do this if Grady is allowed to close as the remaining city hospitals and clinics will be overwhelmed with nearly 1 million more patients per year. The healthcare of Georgians and the healthcare for the entire southeastern US would feel the ripple effects of this.

The release of SiCKO should provoke discussion in this country about the healthcare system and we need to pay attention to how the film is discussed. We know that the health insurance industry has ramped up their attack machine on Moore and they will spin the lies and propaganda about their industry on a daily basis. Let’s try to look through the lies and bullshit that will rise to the top and go beyond them. In the end, all Americans, not just a select few, will benefit if we do this.

More tainted food details

My posts will be a little slow to come this week as my time and energy are in short supply for the blog. There is more news on the contaminated Chinese food product front. These stories can be found with a little searching but you have to move away from the big 5 of mass media to find them.

Another feed product has been found to be contaminated with melamine. A Pennsylvania company that makes feed for shrimp has recalled it product.

The Chinese government is calling the warning to American consumers about imported toothpaste, “unscientific, irresponsible and contradictory.” This, after hundreds have died in Latin America and the Caribbean after using toothpaste imported from China that contained diethylene glycol, a poisonous chemical compound found in anti-freeze. It’s what gives anti-freeze it’s sweet taste. It’s good to see the Chinese are learning more about capitalism than just raking in the dough, now they can add Doublespeak to their resumes.

A Texas laboratory has found more than just melamine, cyanuric acid and diethylene glycol in products coming from China, they have now found acetaminophen in dog and cat food. It looks like we are going to keep finding toxic and banned chemicals as well as drugs in foods coming from China, I wonder if we will ever find some food in there too?

Bon apetite!

The TB scare - A real time example of how conspiracy theories are born.

How do conspiracy theories begin? This is a question that has received some serious study but very little of it has been done from the point of view of conspiracy theorists. The TB scare is a prime example of how certain mechanisms begin to work which lead to a theory being produced. The mechanisms are almost always related to lack of information, conflicting information or a breakdown in processes that occur in a pattern that simply should not occur. Coincidence always plays a part in any of these mechanisms, coincidence or synchronicity is a central component of any conspiracy theory.

Let’s look at the details that are too strange to not overlook and which seem suspicious at least on the first look, if not on a more deep investigative level:

1) There is a great deal of conflict in the statements being made between the CDC, Fulton County Health Department officials and the patient himself. The father of the patient is even saying that he recorded a meeting with these people where he asked questions to explicitly define what the health officials considered to be his options for traveling on a plane.

There will always be two ways of looking at and interpreting conversations and events, its simply a part of human nature that we all see things differently. However, with health officials and lawyers being at the center of this fiasco, some clarity should shine through and in this case the facts seem muddy and unfocused.

2) The father-in-law of the patient is not only a CDC employee, he is a microbiologist who’s area of professional specialty is the spread of TB. The father-in-law made a strange and surprising news conference yesterday in what appears to have been the front of his home. He stated that he did not give his son-in-law TB, that he did not speak with his son-in-law as a CDC representative and that he had no control over his actions.

This is very odd on several levels and the first thing that comes to mind is exactly what he and his son-in-law did talk about in relation to this situation. I cannot believe that this Dr. would not have been extremely interested in the details of his son-in-law’s health situation and most especially would have been interested in his plans to travel. His strongly worded statements that he, and the CDC, did not give his son-in-law TB are strange in that it has not even been suggested that he or they did in fact give him the disease. This kind of heading off at the pass strategy is peculiar.

3) The patient claims that he did not fully understand the risk involved in this little adventure and that he was convinced he was not contagious. Even though it was not discovered until after he had left the country that the form of TB he has was the XDR strain, he was still aware that he had a multiple drug resistant strain of the bacterial infection.

On a regular basis we are made aware of the ever increasing problem with drug resistant illnesses. I, and many others find it odd that this fact alone did not concern this young man more seriously when he was diagnosed. Just the term TB alone is enough to frighten most people, treatable and low level of contagiousness or not. To get on a plane and set off to Europe with your new bride is actually unfathomable. Even if you consider the point of view that he was selfish and did not want to waste the money spent on this trip there is still the fact that family, most certainly the father-in-law, would have been alarmed at the intention to travel in that condition.

With these inconsistent and almost unanswerable questions and answers, the attention of people is caught. When things do not add up, and in the TB scare case many things do not add up, people will begin to dig into the connections and facts much more deeply. Things do happen around us for which there is no explanation. Coincidences that seem improbable can and do happen. But when a breakdown of process occurs on a level this great, and involving a system that is fairly well defined and tested, suspicions will arise.

The inaction by the border officer who let this man pass is almost too unreal to be true. Here you have an employee who has been chosen for their ability to follow rules and orders unquestionably, who sees before him a computer screen that tells him to don protective clothing, isolate the suspect and notify officials immediately and his response is to let the man pass because he “looks healthy”? These things do not add up, human error rarely compounds itself to these levels, and I cannot think of an instance where the errors have been so widely spread where there was not something behind the scenes, guiding the outcome.

Now, I am not saying that the TB scare is a conspiracy theory. To be honest I can only see signs of a possibility, but I can see no real connecting string to each phase of this event. But the fact that the coincidences and errors all indicate a resemblance to known aspects of conspiracy theory (Revelation of Method for one) should be enough to concern the CT researcher and enthusiast, as well as leave the non-CT with a sense of uneasiness.

While the information is still developing and this is extremely fresh in your mind you should take note that the surrounding facts and oddities of this case are exactly how a conspiracy theory starts. Whether you believe all, some or no conspiracy theories it should still be something that you note.

More news on the melamine tainted food scandals

The safety of Chinese imports is a still developing story. The latest round of items contains a quite disturbing story. The former regulator of the Chinese food and drug agency has been sentenced to death after he was found guilty of accepting bribes to the tune of over $850,000. His harsh sentence isn’t nearly as disturbing as the vulnerability of Chinese regulators are to bribery. If the head regulator can be bribed to look the other way for such a relatively paltry sum, with not only his own life but the lives of innocents at stake, there is no way we can guarantee that local inspectors cannot be bribed as well. This of course deepens the concern we should have over any food, hygiene or health related product that is imported from China.

Chinese government officials have now stated on the record that US producers who get their raw materials from China should be cautious, “U.S. companies doing business with Chinese companies must also be very clear about the standards they need, and don't just look for a cheap price," says Yuan Changxiang, a deputy director in the ministry charged with inspecting imports and experts, in a USA Today report.

More melamine is still showing up in new dog food on the shelves of stores. Either this was caused by a factory not cleaning all of the tainted gluten from their food processing equipment, an unknown bag of contaminated gluten still being in their stockpile or an entirely new lot of gluten was used that is still showing signs of contamination. The bottom line is that the contaminated gluten is still showing up in the food supply several months after the story first broke.

The American Meat Institute thinks we should all just shut up and eat what ever they damn well want to give us. In a letter sent to Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Herb Kohl, who both chair Agriculture subcommittees at the Food and Drug Administration, the AMI states, “"Unfortunately, some groups have public policy positions supporting mandatory county-of-origin labeling for red meat that are solely for the purpose of erecting trade barriers, especially directed at Canada and Mexico - our two largest export markets for red meat."

"The claims made in that letter are irresponsible at worst and at best misleading - with respect to the handling and inspection of imported meat products," said Boyle. "To assert that any country-of-origin labeling regime would have an impact on food safety or the integrity of a food product is absurd."

So, we once again see an instance where a special interest group that works for big business really doesn’t give a damn about the safety and health of their customers. Screw you, AMI. It’s groups like yours that make me realize I made the right decision when I became a vegetarian 10 years ago.

We are slowly being poisoned, have been for decades, by big agri-business. The purpose of this mass murder is profit, culling of the human race and the maintenance of control over the masses (you and me).

How the press is complicit in the tainted food scandal and how this promotes the goals of Big Business.

The recently unearthed scandal of tainted food imported into the US from China brings a host of problems to light. How government trade policies with China are flawed, how our food safety system is ineffective and how the investigative journalism of America’s once-great fourth estate is no longer capable of performing the basic “Five Ws” of reporting.

The question of why Chinese exporters are intentionally using toxic substances in the food items being exported is not being fully investigated. We are being told that melamine was placed into the faux wheat gluten to boost nitrogen content in the product, which would then indicate a high protein level. The mass media in America has left that answer as being the final word on why the melamine was present in the food items with little follow-up to the story.

The foreign press has performed a much better service than their American counterparts. What they have unearthed is a global effort by Chinese exporters of food, medicine and hygiene products to add toxic substances to the products they manufacture. Over 100 Panamanians have been killed in recent months after taking Chinese manufactured cold medicines that contained di-ethylene glycol. Di-ethylene glycol is an ingredient found in anti-freeze. This isn’t a one-off case as the same chemical has also been found in toothpaste made in China that has also killed numerous Panamanians and an unknown number of other Latin Americans.

This problem cannot be simply brushed aside as a case of human error. Too many of these cases show forethought and the intention to deceive regardless of the consequences. This cannot be brushed aside as a case of greed. Sooner or later the mounting deaths and fallout over safety will flare up and someone will have to pay the price.

There is a much darker reason behind the organized and systematic poisoning of our food and health items. When our own government admits that they cannot inspect all food that enters out country, which they have done, only two things can be done. One; is to increase the funding for food inspections to a level far beyond what it is at this moment. The effect of this is to anger Americans over the cost and condition us into accepting that this is something far to big for us to control. The other thing that can be done is to simply accept this as a new fact of life and we will have to learn how to live with the threat posed by imported food items.

Our government will not address the root cause of this problem because this would alter the power of the new global economy. In the end it would adversely affect the bottom line for existing and emerging big businesses. In the end it promotes a greater agenda where the lives, money and future of all people are controlled by big business. Fear and feelings of powerlessness are two methods of conditioning that are used by these people to control our lives and as this story evolves watch for the media to promote fear and portray the process of inspecting all food products to be an impossible task.

More bad news regarding Chinese food imports

There are more developments in the melamine tainted food scandal to report. According to Scientific American, US investigators looking into the source of the contamination have toured two food processing facilities that were identified as being the source. The investigators found both factories closed, "We visited the two facilities and there is essentially nothing to be found because they are closed down," said Walter Batts, head of FDA's office of international investigations. An FDA team has been in China since April 30.”

This leads me to a question that neither Scientific American asked nor the inspectors volunteered, if the factories were shuttered and the machinery dismantled, how can they be sure that these really were the facilities that made the tainted wheat gluten? It sounds to me that the investigators were taken to a facility that leads them on the proverbial wild goose chase.

The Contra Costa Times recently ran an editorial comment about the scandal which brought to light another aspect of our food safety, or lack thereof, of which I did not know. According to the article’s author, John E. Peck, milk protein concentrate is an industrial-grade ingredient that has found it’s way into our food chain as well with absolutely no governmental oversight or safety review. Milk protein concentrate is used to make adhesives and is also used in adulterated cheese products which range in type from nutritional drinks, candies and potato chips. It is also used in several Kraft products such as Velveeta cheese, Mac ‘n Cheese and Kraft Singles.

In yet another related story, the director of the Mississippi Poison Control Center is giving a two-thumbs up style approval to catfish imported from China that was found to contain antibiotics that are illegal for use in the US. "Would I personally worry about eating this? No, not in any way," Cox said. "I'd serve it to my family and my children. And I'm not advocating that we eat Asian catfish either, I'm just saying I'm not worried that there's a danger there." Yet these antibiotics were found to be so dangerous that they were banned from use in food producing animals in the US in 1997.

And one final side note about these wonderful, healthy and safe products being imported from China, approximately 100 Panamanians have died after taking cough syrup that was manufactured in China. The company that made the medicine added a chemical that is similar to antifreeze and it was not authorized to manufacture medicines in the first place.

Bon apetite!

How the melamine and cyanuric acid contamination effects byproducts that you will consume.

One unfortunate trait that Americans share is our lack of ability to think more than one step ahead. We may think we have foresight but in reality we can’t think beyond what is directly in front of our faces. The issue of melamine-tainted feed is one of those issues. While we worry about the safety of the chicken and pork we eat, as well as the ingredients of the food we feed our pets, we aren’t thinking about the secondary and tertiary uses of the animal processing business.

Modern agricultural methods squeeze profit from it’s products using every possible source. The old joke that no one really wants to know what goes into sausage isn’t entirely what I am referring to, although that does play a major part. The byproduct of animal farming and processing is precisely what I mean in this case.

Let’s take the recent announcement that the feds were looking into the effect that melamine tainted feed being fed to farmed fish could have on our health and safety. While our initial response is to worry about the fish filets and canned fish that are bought at the grocery store, there is another aspect to this process. The meat of the fish is only one part of the animal that is used in other dietary and food products. Fish oil and fish livers are used in dietary supplements of many varieties, not just dietary supplements such as vitamins. Protein shake mix is one use, recycling fish livers into other fish and animal feeds is another.

We know that the melamine found in the pet foods that were tainted affected the renal and endocrine systems of those animals. While the sensitivity they showed may not have been identical to how a human body reacts, it does bring up the question of how the melamine and cyanuric acids found in those feeds would react in a concentrated form in the body of animals and humans. The processing of contaminated fish livers could increase the concentration of those products and in turn increase the concentration in humans and livestock due to the consumption of those products in the form of dietary supplements or processed food ingredients.

By the same token, processing contaminated fish into other animal feeds would re-introduce the contaminants into the food chain, effectively increasing the chances of human exposure. With so many products and chemicals that have been banned from use in America due to their long-term effects on the human body, we have to look at this seriously. Are we forgetting DDT or PCBs? Yes, we are forgetting them. There are no studies available which document the effects of long-term human exposure to melamine or cyanuric acid. In other words, the government and our health officials have no idea how these chemical compounds will effect our health 20, 10 or even 5 years down the road.

Waste products from fish farming are also a factor. The offal or bodily waste of farmed fish, is also processed for other uses. Offal is used in the making of other animal feeds, including fish feed. Fallen stock from fish farming is even used biogas production in Europe. There is literally nothing left behind in this industry. Anti-bacterial drugs are also used in the fish farming industry just as it’s done in the cattle, pork and poultry industries. Chemicals are given to farm raised salmon to improve their color and the residue from these chemicals is ingested when you consume them.

The point is that this is closed loop system and the introduction of a new chemical compound into one part of the equation introduces the chemical into the remaining parts. When the government allows fish, chicken, pork or beef that has been fed tainted food, no matter how small in quantity, to be introduced to our food chain, it will affect all areas of the food chain, not just the end product. The contaminants that are present will be processed and concentrated in the various bodily systems of these animals and be combined in the processing of those organs in a factory. The concentrated contaminants are then passed on to you and I in some other form. There may be little if any melamine in the salmon croquettes you serve tonight or next month, but the vitamin pills you take with that meal may have much higher levels of contaminants because of the ingredients of that supliment. The long-term effects are unknown and you and I are the guinea pigs.

News - Melamine contamination scandal expands to include farmed fish feed

WASHINGTON - Farmed fish were fed meal spiked with an industrial chemical linked to the ongoing recall of pet foods, though the contamination level was probably too low to pose a danger to anyone who may have eaten the fish, federal health officials said Tuesday.

We've had pet food, feed given to pigs, feed given to chickens and now feed given to farmed fish in this scandal. What's next? Only two more areas in the human food chain are left, feed given to cattle and used in processed human foods. Once we get to cattle the other area of concern would be milk.

For prior postings on the melamine scandal click here.

News - Feds announce 20 million chickens effected by melamine scandal.

The feds waited for the Friday data dump schedule to announce major news that 20 million chickens have now been effected by the growing scandal surrounding melamine tainted gluten being introduced into the human food chain. Waiting until late Friday afternoon to announce things is an old tactic, the news is overshadowed and little recognized because most Americans are just waiting to enjoy their weekends. In this case withholding information that involves the health and safety of the American public is inexcusable.

The federal agencies tasked with protecting our food supplies and health are still parroting the line that this issue is not a threat to the health of Americans, yet there is enough concern to hold USDA certification for these 20 million chickens until more can be learned. As I have discussed in an earlier post, the actual effects of melamine on the health of humans is vastly understudied and is basically an unknown factor.

What is equally concerning to me is how this has grown exponentially from the contamination of pet food, to an isolated case of tainted feed given to pigs, to a wide net of tainted feed for chickens. Yet every step of the way, the federal government tells us the same story. "Don't worry." "It's an isolated case." "There is no risk to the public's health and safety." And in each case we find the contamination has expanded, even to the point where 3 million effected chickens were sold and eaten by an unsuspecting public. And still, they trot out the same response, "Don't worry." only for us to learn days later that this scandal is ever growing.

I understand that the government doesn't want panic in the streets but at the rate this story has grown a panic in the near future is becoming more and more possible as it continues to worsen. They still cannot guarantee that the effected gluten has lept from simply being present in livestock feed, to use in processed foods. At first they claimed there was no evidence and no possibility that the effected wheat gluten had been used in any product but pet food, but we soon found that to be untrue.

Will we next learn that the same gluten was used to make the pasta that is sitting in our pantries?

Paging Upton Sinclair.

Keep your eyes open for the name of author Upton Sinclair to come up in an article or two as the year progresses. The recent food safety issues that have cropped up in the US and the release of director PT Anderson’s film “There Will Be Blood” should be enough to bring Sinclair’s work back into the national consciousness, even if it’s a fleeting mention. Have we really changed at all since his day and time?

Sinclair was the type of person we are sorely lacking in today’s political and social scene. An intellectual who’s interest seemed to lay far more with the common working man and the impoverished than with the academic, political and economic elitists of his time. He was a pure leftist, who brought his populist ideas to his work and even ran in several gubernatorial races in California, and is still a decisive figure to the far right-wing nearly 40 years after his death.

While the full scope of Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle” doesn’t seem to be on the radar of the country one facet of the story, our food safety, is beginning to gain attention once again. It seems we have a weekly food recall. E-Coli, salmonella or some other bacterial contamination of our food keeps rising to our attention. Now we have the melamine controversy where it appears that the government is spending more time keeping the full extent of the problem out of sight than they are keeping us informed of what they are doing and what we need to be aware of. Has the government, or any health agency for that matter, told us what could be the symptoms and risks of melamine to the human body? I haven't seen a mention from the feds on the effects or symptoms from day 1.

The main problem with the melamine story is this. The CDC, USDA and FDA have said over and over that they can find no indications that there has been a risk to the health of the public from this event. They have also released statement after statement that the risk has been minimal and “no problems have been detected to date.” The problem with those statements is that very little is actually known about the effects of melamine on the human body. The subject is understudied and what we do know is that the permissible level of melamine in human food that is mandated by the government is zero. None.

So how can the government, in good consciousness, tell us to not worry when they themselves know very little about how this triazine compound effects us? We are getting a much more clear picture from China, where this originated, that the profit eager and safety absent industrialists of that country are spiking their foods with high levels of melamine. Perhaps this is all a larger, global version of the Tuskegee Experiment? I’m also sure that the US Intelligence Community will be as eager to see what the long-term effects are just as they were interested in US cancer rates during and after the period of atmospheric nuclear tests.

News - Melamine contamination hits the food chain, 3 million strong

This whole melamine story just keeps getting worse the longer it drags out. 3 million chickens that were fed melamine tained feed have already been introduced to the food supply and consumed:

http://www.horsesass.org/?p=2871

In a conference call with media this afternoon, USDA Assistant Administrator
Kenneth Petersen revealed that as many as 3 million chickens, contaminated with melamine from a single Indiana feed mill, have already been slaughtered, distributed and eaten. An additional 100,000 breeder chickens are currently being voluntarily quarantined by farmers.These 3.1 million chickens represent only those that fed on a single batch of feed made from melamine-tainted pet food “salvaged” in February. Petersen told reporters that the “investigation will lead to additional farms.”

So, how many of you have eaten chicken over the past month? Will someone please remind me as to why we pay the salaries of the USDA and FDA managers who are tasked with maintaining our food safety?

News - Food roulette

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18132087/

Only 1.3% of all imported foods to the US are inspected, projections call for only 1.1% to be inspected next year.

Last month alone, FDA detained nearly 850 shipments of grains, fish,
vegetables, nuts, spice, oils and other imported foods for issues ranging from
filth to unsafe food coloring to contamination with pesticides to
salmonella.

Makes you wonder how much of the other 98.7% of imported food had the same problems.

Each year, the average American eats about 260 pounds of imported foods,
including processed, ready-to-eat products and single ingredients. Imports
account for about 13 percent of the annual diet.

That averages out to about .65 lbs of imported food eaten daily by the average American. So, out of that 1/2 lb plus of imported food you are eating, only about a 1/4 teaspoon has been inspected for it's safety. Go to the cabinet and pour .65 lbs of sugar or flour into a measuring cup and take out 1/4 teaspoon. That is a scary graphic to consider.