American food safety checks have nearly stopped now that the FDA has been cut so bad|y. They can’t even follow up on investigating reports anymore.
Why are we importing and allowing dangerous foods to be sold here?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ecoli-bacteria-lettuce-outbreak-rcna200236
I’m by no means suggesting that the FDA cuts are good (they are, to be very clear, dumb and bad), but in theory, food is still being tested at the state level.
I can only hope that the Government of Canada is aware of the state programs, and whether they are suitably robust.
I would not trust any republican state level of testing
Buddy, if you think this is new…
Well, the important part is at least you realize it now. But there’s a reason most other countries don’t import US food, our food safety standards have been a joke longer than anyone on Lemmy has been alive.
So by all means, organize to ban US food imports, but you shouldn’t have been eating it to begin with.
I’m American, but if other countries apply pressure, we have a better shot of raising the standard.
I’m sorry but this is a false equivalency. Yes, American food has generally been trash quality-wise, but there is still a difference between under regulated and inspected, and NOT regulated or inspected.
Yeah, it’s good practice to avoid US food in general, especially meat, which is truly horrid. Produce can be hit-and-miss. Dry goods aren’t so bad, but I still prefer to buy from any other country.
Produce is e.coli Russian roulette.
Buy organic produce from a local supplier.
A luxury many can’t afford.
Why would produce being local have anything to do with e. coli infection? 🤔
Food imported into Canada still has to pass our regulations and inspections. We don’t let it slide just because the US government does.
When we import food/drug manufacturing equipment we often accept American certifications as compliant with Canadian standards. If a company can say they are compliant FDA or NSF while facing no risk of facing an actual inspection/audit then we may have to exercise more scrutiny ourselves.
How do you test food for the growing conditions?
Like Ecuador may use some terrible banned pesticides or fertilizer. When a banana boat arrives at Vancouver, how the hell would you know if you can’t test for its presence in the peel or flesh?
Banned pesticides and fertilizers are banned because they leave traces that are harmful to the human body. Otherwise they generally won’t be banned in the first place. So all they have to do is take random samples and do proper checks. If it was impossible to detect the presence of after effects of such banned substances, there would be no point in banning them since the end product would be no different from normally grown varieties, hence no reason to ban them.
That said, I don’t know how good our processes are, but I do think that more funding needs to be allocated now since the FDA won’t be doing any of their own testing. Turning cargo back at the inspection centers would be an easy way to ban US foods without changing a single law or policy in the country with a high degree of deniability that this was the intent in the first place.
Not true, don’t be so selfish.
Many things are banned because the human body that is harmed is the farmworker. There may be no delectable harm to the consumer.
We should still ban imports of shoes from companies that employ child slave labor. And we should also ban bananas that use chemicals that cause reproductive diseases and cancer in farm workers
