A new poll conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center reveals that Americans expect more from the government when it comes monitoring the country's food supply.
While a majority of people polled about food safety and labeling regard the overall food supply as safe, almost half said their confidence in the safety of the nation's food supply has decreased. Respondents are concerned with bacteria or chemicals in food and the safety of imported food, and they expect the Food and Drug Administration to conduct reviews of domestic and foreign food processing plants at least once a month.
"The Consumer Reports poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly expect the government to do much more to protect the public from contaminated food," said Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union. "Consumers want to know that the food they buy meets the standards they expect -- our poll shows that right now, that is not the case."
More than eight in 10 consumers said that when food safety problems arise, the government should disclose to the public the location of retailers that sold the potentially harmful food, including fish, produce and processed foods. More than 80 percent of consumers polled also said they want the government to be able to require a recall and should be able to quickly and accurately trace food from production to sale. Respondents strongly agreed that the USDA should disclose to the public information about schools, healthcare facilities and other public and private institutions that receive recalled meat.
Ninety-four percent of Americans want all specialty meat and fish stores to label their products by country of origin. Ninety-five percent of consumers polled believe that processed or packaged food should require country of origin labeling and that country of origin information for products should always be available at point of purchase. COOL regulations requires large supermarkets label produce, meat and seafood products with origin, but not independent markets.
Respondents also said they want a more meaningful label for organic fish. Ninety-three percent polled said that fish labeled as organic should be produced by 100 percent organic feed. Ninety percent said that organic fish farms should be required to recover waste and not pollute the environment and 57 percent are concerned about ocean pollution caused by fish farms. More than four in 10 respondents are concerned about health problems associated with consuming wild fish.
A full copy of the poll can be found at www.GreenerChoices.org/foodpoll2008.
