Origin labels can raise questions about food safety

By Valerie Phillips, Deseret News

Published: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 12:00 a.m. MDT

I like knowing if the watermelon I'm buying was grown in Green River or Mexico, or if the grapes came from Chile. So I appreciate country of origin labeling, known as COOL.

But the recently added meat and seafood labels make me feel geographically challenged. For instance, the package of ground beef that says it came from Canada, the United States and Mexico. Surely the label could be more specific than a whole continent? That just seems like a heckuva lot of miles for one cow to travel.
But, from what I've been able to interpret, this could mean that the cow was born in one country, raised in another country and slaughtered in a third. Or that the ground beef was made from meat scraps from more than one cow, and they all came from different spots on the map.

The seafood labels are even more confusing. I saw a package of frozen salmon that proudly proclaimed "WILD ALASKA SALMON" on the front.

But the small print on the back said, "product of China." I asked the butcher how wild salmon caught in Alaska could still be a product of China. After all, that's quite a swim for a fish.

She told me the fish is caught in Alaska, then shipped to China for processing. I must have looked incredulous, because she added, "They've been doing this for a long time, but it's only because of the country of origin labels that anyone noticed."

I checked packages of other frozen fish, which are apparently well-traveled. Great American Seafood Imports' "Pacific wild-caught salmon fillet" came from China. Its farm-raised tilapia fillets were also from China, and its white shrimp from Thailand. Kroger's "wild-caught" cod fillets were from China, as were its bay scallops.

Chicken of the Sea frozen shrimp was a product of Indonesia, and Star Kist's canned "wild- caught tuna" said, "product of Ecuador." Harbor Seafood's "sushi-grade" swordfish, "all-natural, wild-caught," was a product of Singapore.

I e-mailed the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, asking how much wild Alaska salmon takes a detour to China before it's sold in the United States.

"ASMI does not have access to this information. Only individual seafood processors would have that information. I can tell you that it would likely be a significant amount, but that not all of it comes back to the U.S., much goes to the E.U.," spokesperson Emily Butler wrote.

She added that the fish is quick-frozen before it's shipped to China. The processing includes portioning it into fillets, and the purpose ofsending it to China is "cost savings."

Perhaps my concerns are unfounded, but this is the same country that gave us toxic melamine in milk products and pet food, and lead paint on toys.

If our own country, with its many safety regulations, can still end up with salmonella in peanuts or E coli in spinach, why do we trust our food to a country where there are a lot fewer laws?

For more information, I went to Ty Frederickson, who has been buying Alaskan seafood for Gastronomy's Market Street restaurants and fish markets for the past 30 years. He also teaches classes on buying and cooking seafood.

"What happens is, they over-caught, they have too much fish, and they can't sell all of it. So the excess is frozen and shipped over to China, where the labor is cheap," he explained.

In China, factory workers remove skin and bones, cut the fish into portions, etc., and then it's refrozen and sent back to the United States.

Frederickson said he won't buy salmon that's been processed in China, even though it can be $5 per pound cheaper than salmon coming directly from Alaska.

"I do buy some frozen wild salmon, but it's been frozen correctly, and I don't buy anything that's left the United States. Just because it's wild doesn't necessarily mean it's good."

Gastronomy's farmed salmon comes from Canada, because Frederickson doesn't like buying fish flown from Chile to Miami and then to Seattle. He does buy shrimp from Contessa, an American company that has a farm in Vietnam. However, he won't buy frozen scallops from China or crab from Russia.

He sticks with distributors that he knows and trusts.

Likewise, he advises consumers to get to know the people working behind the fish counter.
"Ask where it was caught and where it was processed. It should be the same place," he added.
Another bothersome issue with COOL labels: fish, meat and poultry that have been cooked, breaded, sauced, etc., are exempt. So you have no way of knowing where those fish sticks or frozen dinners were processed.

Country-of-origin labels are a start in helping us figure out where food comes from. But they raise a lot more questions than they answer.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705301600/Origin-labels-can-raise-questions-about-food-safety.html?pg=2