The Price of a Risk-Free Food Supply

In an op-ed piece submitted to daily newspapers across Alabama (and posted below), Dr. Jean Weese, Alabama Cooperative Extension System food scientist and Auburn University professor of nutrition and food science, offers this warning to consumers demanding a risk-free food supply: Be careful what you wish for.

Consumer Freedom May Be the Price for a Risk-Free Food Supply
Dr. Jean Weese

Stunning advances in food technology are drawing consumers ever closer to what has traditionally been considered the Holy Grail of food safety --- a virtually risk-free food supply.

It is a quantum leap that, in recent years, has been driven in large part by breakthroughs in genetic research. Recently, for example, scientists with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service announced the decoding of a particularly pernicious organism, campylobacter jejuni, one of the deadliest pathogens associated with food.

This is only the beginning. Even bigger advances lay ahead, bringing us closer to a future in which food-borne illnesses associated with pathogens, such as campylobacter and salmonella, will become faint memories, much as we think of polio and smallpox.

Or will they?

Scientific advances, after all, often open as many challenges as they do solutions, and food safety is likely to be no exception. No doubt about it, breakthroughs in food technology have benefited countless millions of people throughout the planet, but the price of this advance could be an approach that increasingly shifts the burden of food safety away from individuals and onto the backs of food processors --- not necessarily a good thing.

What we will get is a food supply in which more and more products are precooked and packaged before they reach us, the consumers. We increasingly will have little to do other than unwrapping these products and placing them into the microwave or oven before serving.

Granted, it’s a prospect that may initially appeal to the countless overworked, overscheduled among us who have precious little time to invest in the intricacies of food planning and preparation. Over time, though, the novelty may begin wearing off as more of us understand the implications of this approach.

Food preparation, after all, is a lot like gardening or home decorating --- one of those unsung pleasures in life that allow us, in our small way, to shape the world according to our own personal whims.

If zero-tolerance, risk-free food means giving up this freedom, how many of us will be willing to pay the price? Are we really prepared to forego the small delight of making our child’s birthday cake from scratch or whipping up a round of yuletide eggnog for friends and family merely to avoid the remote risk of tainted egg yolks?

This raises another question: In our zeal to develop a virtually fool-proof food supply, could it be that we’re simply setting ourselves up for an even bigger fall years down the road? One of the ironies associated with this emerging food safety system is that while it is infinitely safer from the standpoint of consumers, it is much more vulnerable to the risks of human error during processing. Even as the overall risks of food-borne illness decline, there will still be those rare instances when one mistake during processing could lead to the sickening of hundreds of thousands of consumers.

Granted, in exchange for a far safer food supply, many experts, not to mention consumers, would gladly accept these risks. They may be justified. Still, the price could be high: a virtually risk-free food supply in exchange for a system over which individual consumers have far less control. It is yet another reminder of the fact that new technology, while liberating in many respects, nonetheless comes with a price.

Dr. Jean Weese is an Alabama Cooperative Extension System food scientist and Auburn University Associate Professor of Nutrition and Food Science.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at February 9, 2005 04:51 PM | TrackBack