The All Powerful Monsanto

The DemocracyNow news clip (see below) is but another example demonstrating the power that Monsanto yields over the worlds' food supply.

This reminds me of how Monsanto, along with the U.S., was able to garner support from the World Trade Organization (WTO) in order to retaliate against the EU ban on Monsanto’s rbGH infested beef and milk products:

"The European Union instituted a ban on the importation of beef injected with bovine growth hormones. These hormoneare manufactured in the United States by Monsanto Corp. . .The hormone was approved in 1993 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. . .The United States, on behalf of Monsanto, claimed to the WTO that the ban amounted to an unfair barrier to U.S. beef exports. The WTO ruled in favor of the United States and allowed the U.S. government to impose a 100 percent tariff on $116.8 million worth of European imports. . . Thus, the WTO can rule that a country’s food, environmental, or work laws constitute an “unfair barrier to trade,” and penalize a country that does not remove them." (Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, 2005).
The EU could (at the time) afford to absorb these tariffs in order to maintain their food integrity. However, not all countries are financially able to stand up against Monsanto.
 
You can see the news clip here, WikiLeaks Cables Reveal U.S. Sought to Retaliate Against Europe over Monsanto GM Crops:
 

Food safety bill invokes Codex harmonization and grants FDA authority to police food safety of foreign nations

Food safety bill invokes Codex harmonization and grants FDA authority to police food safety of foreign nations

Senate Bill S510 Makes it illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food

Senate Bill S510 Makes it illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food


News - U.S. News

By Steve Green

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com


S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.


“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower


It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.


Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create — without judicial review — if it passes. S 510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food and farming.


History

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton introduced HACCP (Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Points) purportedly to deal with contamination in the meat industry. Clinton’s HACCP delighted the offending corporate (World Trade Organization “WTO”) meat packers since it allowed them to inspect themselves, eliminated thousands of local food processors (with no history of contamination), and centralized meat into their control. Monsanto promoted HACCP.


In 2008, Hillary Clinton, urged a powerful centralized food safety agency as part of her campaign for president. Her advisor was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller*, a giant PR firm representing Monsanto. Clinton lost, but Clinton friends such as Rosa DeLauro, whose husband’s firm lists Monsanto as a progressive client and globalization as an area of expertise, introduced early versions of S 510.


S 510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and human survival grounds.

1. It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency. It resembles the Kissinger Plan.


2. It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security. It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection. Instead, S 510 says:
COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.


Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.

3. It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.

4. It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food. It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements. Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.

5. It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds – How to criminalize them, for more details.


6. It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals. The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease. Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents. Animal diseases can be falsely declared.

S 510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.


7. It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.


8. It deconstructs what is left of the American economy. It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer. The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.


9. It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs. This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil-based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe. The five items listed — the Five Pillars of Food Safety — are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger.


10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control. The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied. It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review. It is (similar to C-6 in Canada) the end of Rule of Law in the US.

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/marketfarming/2010-August/000229.html

Will Food Bill S510 stop you from growing your own garden?

This article explains who will oversee this future government agency of "food safety" (former Monsanto attorney, Michael Taylor), what will be the "new" food standard for food safety (industrialized practices, GMO, hormones, antibiotics, etc) and how the new program will overwhelm small-scale, sustainble farmers with fees and strict mandates:

Will Food Bill S510 stop you from growing your own garden?

by Nancy Piscatello


NY Healthy Food Examiner
December 1st, 2010 11:43 am ET.

 
Food Bill S510 certainly has made a lot of people very nervous. Blogs and websites abound with a kind of hysteria unprecedented by a food bill. This one comes with good reason, folks: S510 gives a future government agency (not yet created, but to be overseen by former attorney for Monsanto, Michael Taylor, who implemented rBGH and unregulated genetically modified organisms) unlimited control and power over all US seed, food supplements, food and farming.

This new agency, under the rule of the Homeland Security Agency, will impose strict mandates for all farms to be industrialized, implementing GMO's, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides and the like to become the standard of operation. This goes against the safe and healthful practices of small, organic farmers, who do not use any of those substances.

NAIS, an animal traceability program, threatens small farmers and ranchers raising heritage breeds of animals and plants. The government would now have the power to simply wipe out entire fields or herds due to "rumors" of disease, with no need for proof. The elimination of biodiversity, for both plant and animal, benefits companies like Monsanto, that hold patents for genetically engineered substitutes. This practice has devastating potential for our food supply, but the monetary interests seem to overrule commonsense on this issue.

The Tester-Hagan Amendment gives hope to some that it will protect the small farmer from this bill; however, loopholes, rules and massive paperwork threaten to overwhelm small farmers. Without adequate funds to support a workforce, designated for the sole purpose of dealing with these new details, small farmers simply will not be able to compete.

So does S510 affect your right to farm at home; sell or trade to your neighbor; or buy at the *farmer's market? The bill, as written, gives the power to do just that. Time will tell how this issue will evolve. Perhaps a better question may be: has this kind of intervention ever proven positive before?


*Our farmer's markets in both Riverhead and Greenport could become a thing of the past, if this bill passes. Co ops that bring raw milk, pastured meats and eggs to consumers would be shut down. Healthy foods would become illegal contraband and citizens would be robbed of their right to health. Contact your senators opposing this bill. There's still time. For now.

http://www.examiner.com/healthy-food-in-new-york/will-food-bill-s510-stop-you-from-growing-your-own-garden

Senate Bill S510: Food Safety or Food Fascism?

Senate Bill S510: Food Safety or Food Fascism?


Posted On: August 22 2010

From Just Means

Of all the many facets of sustainable food, food safety is probably on the top of the list. After all, what good is it, if it's not safe to eat? Out of the perils of systematic pesticide and herbicide use, sloppy factory conditions and general negligence in the factory food sector, we find ourselves in a situation where a number of elected officials are looking to make food safety a priority in the United States. At its core, I respect the desire to make the food supply safer, but as Senate Bill S510 has taken a number of liberties against food independence, I wonder who's backing the bill and why? Certainly, it's not solely about food safety.



Senate Bill S510 is summarized to "A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to the safety of the food supply" except it has a number of dangerously fascist ideas nestled within its outlined text. Because a small farmer is now equated to the industrial farm, the mistakes of the industrial farm are laid onto the small farm. So now small farms, who have little to no recalls or health issues will be susceptible to being nickle-and-dimed by fees until they can no longer run their businesses without breaking the law. That's some scary business.



Let's look at who supports the bill. According to maplight.org, (sidenote: this site is straight-up awesome) huge corporations like General Mills, Kraft Foods North America, National Association of Manufacturers and 25 more organizations support this bill. In opposition: American Grassfed Association, Family Farm Defenders, Small Farms Conservancy 93 others in an open letter to address the Senate Bill S510.


The letter is to the point: the regulations that the government would like to enforce don't actually apply to small operations, specifically organic farms. The disease-laden corporate industry is infected within the large-scale operations where pushing product over quality is more important and safety can sometimes be overlooked. The Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) publishes an extremely up-to-date recall list proving this point effectively. Over the last three years of my purchasing local, responsibly-raised food, I have never once encountered a recall of any sort.


On Govtrack.us, where you can read the bill in its entirety, an anonymous answer to the question of redundancy within the Food Science Experts that work for the FDA was quite clear in its support of knowing the land from which food grows:


"Although one may try to argue that one incident is too many, it appears that the majority of the incidents actually occur in large producers who are "in it" for the money. To strangle the small farmer with regulations and taxations harms not just the industry, but the future of the next generation of farmers who would gain their skills of growing healthful food from this generation."


That's not to say family farms go without issue, but the small farms are able to catch issues quicker, track their product faster, contact their customer base personally and are held to a local reputation that means far more than any corporate marketing could ever buy.



Urge your senator to oppose this bill as it is written; it can severely impede the right of food independence, instill unjust laws upon sovereign tribal nations and turn our neighbors into criminals for taking their personal gastrointestinal safety into their own hands by using accountable, knowledgeable farmers to raise it. It is our own responsibility to ensure the food we eat is raised ethically with cleanliness and the utmost focus on food safety in the United States.


http://www.justmeans.com/Senate-Bill-S510-Food-Safety-or-Food-Fascism/27723.html

Cloned Animals -- 2010 Update from Food and Water Watch

Cloned Animals — 2010 Update

Dead cow carcasses “resurrected” to produce cloned beef

August 15, 2010 

NaturalNews
By Mike Adams

We already know that cloned beef has entered the food supply both in the United States and the UK. Now, thanks to revelations from JR Simplot, a U.S. company specializing in the cloning of cows for beef production, we’re learning that dead cows are cloned to produce the next generation of beef cattle.

Here’s how it works: A large number of cows are slaughtered and then chopped into steaks that are tested for their flavor, texture and other qualities important to steak eaters. The source animal of each steak is recorded, and cells from that source carcass are preserved for possible cloning in case the steak turns out to taste good. Once all the steaks are gauged for their desirability, the dead cow carcasses from which the flesh was cut to produce the steaks are harvested for their DNA.

This DNA is then used to clone new cows who are fed, raised and slaughtered to see how their flesh steaks taste. This cycle is repeated through multiple generations in order to “evolve” cow clones with great-tasting flesh.

“The animals are hanging on a rail ready to go to the meat counter,” JR Simplot employee Brady Hicks (yes, that’s his real name) told BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-e…). “We identify carcasses that have certain carcass characteristics that we want, but it’s too late to reproduce the genetics of the animal. But through cloning we can resurrect that animal.”

This “bovine resurrection,” it turns out, is just the latest mad science idea from an industry that recognizes no value in the life of a cow but tremendous value from its dead carcass.

Frankenfood beef

The upshot of all this is that the beef people are buying and eating in the US and UK right now could be from cow clones raised from the dead carcasses of other cows whose DNA were harvested for cloning. Yep: Only in the food industry do you see this sort of Frankenstein science — trying to create life from dead body parts through a process they call “resurrection”… and then serving up Frankenfoods to consumers.

Far from the world of live foods, beef products are dead food made from dead cows that were given life by taking dead cells from the carcasses or other dead cows who were only kept alive in order to harvest their dead DNA. If it sounds a little sick and demented, that’s because it undoubtedly is. This process violates so many principles of ethics and spirituality that it’s hard to even know where to begin.

Of course, by the time a thousand cow carcasses are all ground up, mixed together, extruded, irradiated and packaged, no one can tell where the beef actually come from… or even if it was cloned in the first place. Slap a greasy patty of cloned beef between two hamburger buns at a fast food joint and no one is the wiser.
That’s sort of the point, actually: The beef industry knows that people don’t really have much of a clue where their beef comes from — and they don’t want to know! So even if beef comes from cloned animals raised from the harvested DNA of dead cow carcasses, the average consumer remains clueless.

The high price of low cost

The goal of the beef industry is to create the best-tasting beef in the world at the lowest cost possible. Period.

There is no consideration in the industry for the experience of the cow, nor the ethics of playing God with bovine DNA, nor compassion for the suffering of these animals when they are slaughtered, nor the impact of factory farming on the environment. It’s all about corporate profits at the expense of the cows who are born, bred, cloned and slaughtered merely to produce another quarter-pounder that ratchets up another dime in profits for the beef factories.

If you haven’t yet seen The Meatrix, be sure to check it out: www.TheMeatrix.com
Think about that the next time you dare to buy anything made from cow parts. You may be buying Franken-cow beef originating from the “resurrected” DNA of a bovine carcass.

By the way, very few American consumers know the truth about this. They have no idea cows are being cloned from dead carcasses to create cloned beef that the FDA has already declared to be “safe” for the food supply. To help spread the word, please share this story using the Facebook or Twitter buttons above. People need to know the truth about what’s really going into their foods.

Whole Foods, by the way, has banned cloned meat products in its stores. So if you do eat beef, you can safely shop for it at Whole Foods without encountering cloned beef. Of course, you’d probably be better off with a predominantly plant-based diet, but that’s another article altogether.

Cloned beef will NOT be labeled as “cloned” in the USA. So there’s no way to know whether conventional beef you’re buying at the grocery stores (or eating at a restaurant) actually contains cloned beef. The industry will lobby hard to avoid honest labeling in much the same way that the GMO industry doesn’t want foods labeled as “genetically modified.”

There’s one thing we all know for sure: The beef industry prefers to keep consumers in the dark about where all that beef really comes from.

Cloned Meat: British Consumers Have Eaten Parts of at Least Two Bulls

Cloned meat: British consumers have eaten parts of least two bulls

Food Standards Agency identifies all eight animals bred from cloned embryos as fears mount over traceability of livestock

James Meikle

Wednesday 4 August 2010 18.06 BST

 

The FSA confirmed that meat from a second bull bred in the UK from embryos from a cloned US cow had entered the food chain. Photograph/Alamy

Consumers have eaten food from at least two British bulls bred from embryos of a cloned US cow, the Food Standards Agency said tonight as concerns mounted over the traceability of such livestock.

Investigators were satisfied, however, that milk from at least one dairy cow bred from an embryo had not been sold, the FSA said. The history of two other dairy cows was still being investigated.

The agency had now identified all eight animals bred in the UK from cloned embryos from the one cow. While it was working to find their offspring, it said, these would be at present too young to be used for breeding or to provide milk.

The FSA previously revealed that meat from one bull had been eaten; meat from a third bull, which was slaughtered last week, was stopped from being sold as food. At least two of the bulls were on the same farm, near Inverness in Scotland.

The agency remained of the view that owners of such cattle destined for food were technically in breach of the law despite European commission officials suggesting that was not the case.

In a statement, the FSA said: "Four of these embryos resulted in male calves and four were female. Aall were Holstein animals. The FSA can confirm that meat from a second bull, Parable, has entered the food chain. Parable was born in May 2007 and was slaughtered [on] 5 May 2010. This is in addition to the confirmation given yesterday that meat from another of the bulls, Dundee Paratrooper, entered the food chain in 2009.
Meat from both of these animals will have been eaten.

"While there is no evidence that consuming products from healthy clones, or their offspring, poses a food safety risk, meat and products from clones and their offspring are considered novel foods and would therefore need to be authorised before being placed on the market."

The statement said a fourth male calf died at around one month old. No meat or products from this young animal entered the food chain and its carcass was disposed of legally.

"Of the four cows, Dundee Paradise is alive on a UK dairy farm. Following a visit from local authority officials the agency has been informed that there is no evidence milk from this animal has entered the food chain," said the FSA.

"The agency has traced two other cows that we believe are being kept as part of dairy herds but at present we cannot confirm whether or not milk from these animals has entered the food chain. Local authority officials are visiting the farms on which these animals are kept.

"The fourth female calf died at less than a month old. No meat or products from this young animal entered the food chain."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/aug/04/cloned-meat-british-bulls-fsa

Meat From Cloned Cow Offspring Entered Food Chain Last Year The Food Sta...

Inspecting Chinese Facilities - How Effective are these Audits?

Whenever I read a news story that uncovers atrocities at Chinese factories, there always seems to be a representative from that company stating "we have quality control measures", "we continously inspect these facilities", "we perform thorough audits", etc. 

In a recent blog entry I had posted a news article from John Matarese, "Do your kids' juice boxes come from China?" in which Nestle defends its use of Chinese apples, saying, "We audit these facilities".

I suppose those words are supposed to offer a guarantee that the food we consume will be safe and that we should be comforted in knowing that these "audits" will ensure no human rights violations and exploitations are occurring in these facilities.  And where exactly do the audits originate?  Are these audits performed in the actual Chinese apple orchards?  Does Nestle ensure that these apple orchards are not being labored upon by political prisoners or other forced, slave labor?  Are children picking the Juicy Juice apples?  Does Nestle also monitor the pesticides and chemicals used on these apple orchards?  I know Juicy Juice does not claim to be organic, however, if pesticides and chemicals are used in these Chinese apple orchards, are they in compliance with U.S. FDA safety standards?  Or does Nestle only audit the Chinese factory where the apples are delivered?  Nestle's vague answer of auditing doesn't really answer anything.  As many Americans know, even our own food industry is ineffective, especially when it comes to USDA inspections of slaughterhouses and beef processing plants (I intend to post more in depth on this topic throughout my blog--another reason why everyone should get to know their local farmers and ranchers.  Another alternative that I have chosen for spiritual/ethical reasons is to reduce or eliminate beef from the diet--but I'll go more in depth on that later).

I am really curious about these auditing and inspection processes in place, especially since so many of the products found in our market come from China.  I found the following 2010 news article from Nicholas Kolakowski  in which he investigates the inadequacies of inspection processes in Chinese facilities:

Microsoft's Chinese Factory Inspection Could Prove Ineffective

By: Nicholas Kolakowski
2010-04-15

Microsoft has promised to dispatch an investigative team to a Chinese factory allegedly engaged in workplace violations, with a full audit to be conducted the week of April 19. However, the National Labor Committee report that sparked Microsoft’s action also documents how the KYE factory in Dongguan has a supposed history, according to its sources, of covering up violations such as the use of underage workers ahead of both government and corporate audits. That report also alleges that workers are coached on what to say to auditors before their arrival. Microsoft insists it has been monitoring workplace conditions at the factory on a regular basis.

Microsoft announced plans April 15 to investigate allegations of labor violations at a Chinese factory building its products, in response to an April 13 report by the National Labor Committee. However, that same report suggests the factory’s management has a system for disguising potential violations before audits, putting into doubt the efficacy of any investigation. 

The National Labor Committee, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization (NGO) that seeks to draw attention to labor and human rights abuses, documented workplace abuses at the KYE factory in Dongguan City that range from excessive working hours and harassment by security guards to restricted freedom of movement and inability to use the bathroom during their shift. The report, which quotes one unnamed worker as saying, "We are like prisoners," can be found here.

Microsoft insists that it has been auditing the situation at the KYE factory on a regular basis, and that it has dispatched an investigative team to the facility to review the veracity of the National Labor Committee’s report.

"We should note that as part of Microsoft’s ongoing supplier SEA (Social and Environmental Accountability) program, an independent auditor has been inspecting the KYE factory annually," Brian Tobey, corporate vice president of manufacturing and operations for Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, wrote in an April 15 posting on the Official Microsoft Blog. "In addition, Microsoft personnel conduct quarterly on-site assessments, and receive weekly reports from KYE on key labor and safety criteria that we monitor as part of our supplier SEA program."

Over the past two years, Tobey continued, "we have required documentation and verification of worker age, and no incidence of child labor has been detected. Worker overtime has been significantly reduced, and worker compensation is in line with the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition standards for the Dongguan area."

That runs contrary to the National Labor Committee report, which documents substandard factory conditions extending back to at least 2007.

Tobey also stated that a "comprehensive on-site audit of the facility will be conducted next week, with the specific goal of investigating the allegations raised in the NLC report." Monitors will apparently be present at the KYE factory until that investigation’s conclusion.

Microsoft’s Vendor Guidelines and Vendor Code of Conduct can be found on this corporate site. The company’s remedial measures for vendor violations of the code apparently include retraining and termination of the business relationship.

The question becomes whether such monitoring actually works. The National Labor Committee’s report devotes a chapter to government and corporate audits of the KYE factory facility, describing how "someone in KYE management was alerted with sufficient time to round up the hundreds of workers who were under 18 years old" ahead of a supposedly unannounced government visit.

Microsoft representatives who visited the factory, according to the report, were "always … accompanied by mid- and high-level managers. On these walk-throughs, U.S. company representatives hardly ever speak to the workers." Ahead of corporate audits, workers are apparently coached about what to say with regard to working conditions, dorms, meals and shift length.

Images accompanying the report were apparently smuggled out of the KYE factory "over the last three years" and show makeshift dorms and young workers passed out at their stations.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to answer eWEEK’s questions about why the company’s previous audits might have failed to reveal any workplace violations, instead referring to Tobey’s blog posting. If the National Labor Committee report’s description of KYE management’s response to investigations holds true, though, then the factory has ample time to prepare a response to an audit.

Other tech companies have experienced similar controversy over their Chinese vendors within the past year. In a 2009 audit, Apple found 17 violations of its Code of Conduct in a review of 102 facilities. Additionally, a July 2009 engineer suicide at Foxconn, which manufactures the Apple iPhone and iPod, raised an issue over workplace conditions there.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Microsofts-Chinese-Factory-Inspection-Could-Prove-Ineffective-104690/

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