Ethical issues related to food safety What Are We Eating? Ethical issues related to food safety

What are we eating, honey? Honey, or Not Honey? What are we eating, honey? Definitely not honey

Emmm, I am pretty sure pollen is in our honey. Story of Honey More than ¾ of honey sold in U.S. grocery stores does not contain pollen. Emmm, I am pretty sure pollen is in our honey.

So what are these? Syrup?? Sweetener?? Story of Honey Food and Drug Administration says that any product that contains no pollen isn't honey. So what are these? Syrup?? Sweetener??

Why Pollen? Pollen works as a tag to identify the originality of honey. Without pollen, it is hard to detect whether honey comes from a safe resource. Ultra-filtering removes pollen.

What is life without Pollen? You don’t know the history of your honey. It might be contaminated with illegal antibiotics dangerous to your body in long term. It might cause fatal problems to certain group of people.

How this occurs? Some countries produce cheap but unsafe honey. Regulations do not permit honey from these countries being imported. Manufacturers in U.S. nevertheless purchase dangerous honey. They remove pollen so that no one knows where it is from.

Fundamental Reason: Greedy Manufacturers are trying to maximize profit. Cost of honey from illegal resources is significantly low.

Other Reasons The evil start: Weak control: Ignorance of buyers: Many unsafe honey on the global market There are brokers making living on trading this Weak control: FDA lacks interest and resources to check the honey on the market. Ignorance of buyers: Consumers are unaware of the issue of unsafe honey, nor do they know the consequences.

Manufacturers are taking advantages of these loopholes.

WARNING for Manufacturers unsafe honey

Responses from companies Some companies refuse to explain their purpose of removing pollen Some shift responsibility to suppliers, claiming they are unaware of the issue Some falsify their reasons of removing pollen

Excuses! Experts point out that none of the above reasons are legitimate. All are excuses to avoid criticism.

List of honey without pollen Manufacturers, Wake Up!

ManuFacturers Should: Be honest: release information about the source of honey to the public Recall products that have suspicious originality Face the reality: instead of lying to cover the mistake, admit what has been done and take the responsibility to fix the problem Cooperate with regulation agencies to stop similar things happen in the industry

Other food safety issue The organic myth: many food products are labeled organic, but are they truly organic? ?

Organic Milk Cows that produce organic milk are supposed to eat organic food Manufacturers imported feed from other countries to avoid high cost of organic feed Imported feed might not be organic, but no one question it

Deceptive food label Not Real Juice

The “No MSG” trick MSG, a flavor enhancer, is considered bad for your health “No MSG” label does not mean there is absolutely no MSG in the product It can mean there is no ingredient named as “MSG” But there might be MSG in other ingredients such as enzyme

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Food manufacturers needs to be honest to the public, But relying solely on company’s consciousness is not feasible

What can we do to make a better world?

Media To alert customers of any suspicious food safety issue To help consumers understand more about safe and unsafe food

Consumers Be aware of food safety Give more pressure: Actively get updates on food safety issue Learn more knowledge about what is good or bad for your health Give more pressure: Choose to buy from manufacturers who do the right thing so that others cannot continue Shout out loud so that regulation agency will work more efficiently on solving such issue

Responsibility of FDA FDA should act as a security guard of the health of the society More execution is needed: e.g., in the case of honey, check samples of honey on the market Release official information to alert consumers Put on high penalty to punish companies that violate regulations and warn the others

Reference Links http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/ http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/ http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_42/b4005001.htm