Good News. Bad News.

I always look forward to writing these articles, but admit that they do concern me. I want to write about positive things and actions that are being taken in the industry, but it seems that most people with whom I discuss the food industry (particularly those who don’t work in the industry) only have bad things to say. So I’ve decided to give both good and bad news this time.

Let’s start with the good news. CDC released data in its 2011 report on food safety showing that the numbers of illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths from food poisonings all were down compared to the 1999 report. This is great news for those of us in industry, and it should be great news for all those people who like to badmouth Big Food or food conglomerates. But did you hear any of this in the media? I certainly didn’t. I happened to notice that other authors were using new numbers in their writing and decided to look into it. Now if you are the Food Safety Geek at your company, you’d surely want to tell your team that they are improving and creating safer food for the people of America. I like to pat the team on the back as often as I can. So why didn’t the media cover this positive news—as they did the negative 1999 report?

That brings us to the bad news: There is still a multitude of people who don’t know enough about their food and who like to blog in unscientific (or pseudoscientific) blogs about the shortcomings of the food industry. Noone ever does enough. Here’s a short list for which “corporate food” is under attack and supposedly responsible: social responsibility; feeding the additional two billion people coming to the planet using only organic methods; organic vs. natural vs. the corporate farm; genetically modified foods; too many certifications; marketing unhealthy foods to minors; food waste; differentiating best by, sell by, use by, freeze by; imported food vs. locavores; vitamin fortification—needed or not; special taxes on foods deemed “bad” by someone; fad diets (the other guys’ are bad for you, but mine is good). How are you and I as food safety professionals supposed to maintain our reputations and continue to improve with all this hostility?

Hopefully you read the last issue of QA (May-June 2014) and saw the article by the editor about “Proactive Customer Education.” There were some interesting statistics in that article that made me think again about the positive nature of the food industry. It was a nice article about how some of our group is trying to beat back the door of hostility and pseudoscience. Pull that old magazine back from the friend to whom you loaned it and read that article again. Bottom line is: “If you don’t do anything, you only guarantee more of the same thing.”

Apparently I like to read about the food industry because I also found a good book about the naysayers. (What’s that? A good book about the naysayers?) Dr. Jayson Lusk, a food economics professor in Oklahoma recently published “The Food Police.” In an unabashed attack on the pseudoscientists and control freaks that frequently find fault in the food industry, Dr. Lusk takes us from sitting on the sidelines in our own game to wanting to be activists.

Calling the anti-food folk the Food Police, he describes what he believes is their agenda and how to debunk their pseudo arguments. It’s a very positive read for anyone who’s read the views of the other side. I recommend that you all buy one, read it, and then pass it around your office and book club and share it with as many folks as you can.

A friend recently gave a presentation about how the public views the GMO issue. The one thing I took away is that if you’ve already made up your mind, being educated in a truthful fashion is the only way that mindset can be changed. The bad news is that you also get to decide if what you learned was truthful; so in reality, you’re probably not going to change your mind.

Even with all the bad news, there’s so much good news that it needs repeated and shared. Don’t let the Food Police tell you or your friends just the bad news and the negative arguments. As food safety professionals, we need to not only be out there talking and educating and getting the message to the consumer, we need to be the first ones to be there, so consumers get the real facts first and don’t get converted to the myths of the naysayers’ position. The food industry is doing a good job keeping people safe. We’re improving. We’re minimizing waste; we’re making the food safe; we’re the ones who get food from a raw state into some edible form and get it transported from the farms to the consumers in all those big cities.

There is a balance. Listen to all sides, but be sure you are just as active as—or better yet, more active than—the naysayers, telling people that we are doing well; explaining that without the food industry, the food safety professionals, the food processors, and the handlers/transporters, none of us would have the chances we have now to live in a city and not spend 85% of our time working to put a plate of food on the table every night.

Keep up the good work making food safe, and keep talking about it.