Senator Boxer has issued a statement about an odd change in US policy. Sorry I don’t have a link as this was sent to me directly:

The Department of Agriculture recently announced that it would remove the word “hunger� from reports on the nation’s food supply. Instead, it announced that it would use “low food security� or “very low food security� in its reports. I have written to Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns to express my displeasure over this change.

Officials at the Department of Agriculture report that the change in labels was not a plot to try to disguise or mask hunger in America. Instead, they claim that “hungerâ€? is too amorphous a phrase to describe, in their terms, ”a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation.”

Although I have monitored the politics of food-aid and security for many years, I have to say it is not clear to me why a term like “hunger” suddenly would be seen as vague compared to “low food security”. Strange. Was someone offended to hear that people in America go “hungry”? Senator Boxer puts it this way:

I believe that most Americans are acutely aware of the meaning of “hunger,� especially when used in official reports meant to describe peoples’ access to the food supply.

Exactly, so perhaps that’s why they changed it? Now politicians can say “this report shows no one in America ever goes hungry“, even though the numbers might show 35 million people still experience “low food security” issues.

I’d write more, but you’ll have to excuse me as I’m experiencing a high bladder security issue…probably a result of my low food countermeasures.

It sounds like the process to detect a carcinogenic red dye called Sudan IV is non-trivial. Something to do with HPLC?

I mention this because in 2005 there was a Sudan dye scare in the UK, which apparently led directly to higher food prices:

Two recent incidents of turmeric contamination and 97 cases of sudan-contaminated palm oil for sale on the European food market prompted the Commission to call for tighter controls for both these foodstuffs.

Once details of the measures are cleared, the tighter rules mean that imports of both these foodstuffs must be accompanied by certificates to prove they are free of the carcinogenic sudan red food dye. Such certificates are currently required for all imports of chilli and chilli powder products into Europe.

[…]

Over 600 well known processed foods were pulled from the supermarket shelves after the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) detected the illegal dye in a batch of worcester sauce made by St.Albans-based Premier Foods.

I suppose the recent incident in China should have the same effect, although it is not clear yet whether the Chinese are going to require red eggs to be more tightly controlled or just find someone to severely punish.

And while food prices might rise, I certainly would rather pay for food I can trust rather than some colorful piece of chemically altered substance that is approved for consumption by an agency that does not want to address the root of the problem (pun intended). In other words, my heartfelt congratulations to the Mayor of New York for the successful and complete ban of transfats even though the FDA seemed unable or unwilling to do so.

I understand the concern with a rise in food prices but sometimes I think people forget that the ban/control is for a known toxic substance that is almost undetectable to humans (i.e. tastes good). I’m happy to pay experts to ensure a better quality of life and prevent poison from entering my food, thank you.

Several years ago a para-legal, who also happened to be vice-president of the Brown Jug liquor store in Anchorage, initiated a new Fake ID law for Alaska. He promoted the notion that the market for fake IDs could be better regulated, based on the following logic:

When a minor uses a false identification or misuses a valid ID to attempt to circumvent the law, a crime has been committed, and that’s the case in almost every jurisdiction.

But too often the business that has been hoodwinked gets charged with the crime when it is in reality the business that is the victim.

In Alaska, they take a different tack: a business that is the victim or attempted victim of such fraud can confiscate the ID, then sue the perpetrator for $1,000 in civil damages.

After the law passed the Brown Jug started to alert parents of teens caught with fake IDs that they had the option of fighting a civil action or paying a $300 fine and sending the accused to alcohol awareness classes. Seems to me that someone using a fake ID to get alcohol is already plenty aware of the stuff, but I digress.

Has this approach been successful?

According to [Brown Jug’s] O’Neill, bouncers at the club spot a lot of false IDs and earn enough in resulting bonuses that these jobs have become very sought after and are considered to be high paying.

At Chilkoot Charlies, O’Neill said, one-third of the $1,000 penalty goes to the bouncer, one-third is kept by the company for administration (they pay a lawyer to process the letters and claims) and one-third is donated to a charity called People First.

As of the end of November, Brown Jug stores had confiscated almost 200 misused IDs. Last year the company nabbed 284, so word might be out that you do not attempt to use a phoney ID at Brown Jug—just the result the company was hoping for. “Kids spread the word,” O’Neill said.

“We confiscate more false IDs than all the other licensees in the state combined,” O’Neill said, not by way of bragging, but to illustrate how much more effective the law could be with more diligence from fellow licensees.

That last note caught my attention, especially as earlier in the article O’Neill admits

“Not enough licensees do it,” he said, “and no one at the police department has the time or desire to do it.”

Why not increase the fees until the police think it is worth their time or they have “desire”? Setting a bounty for accusations has its risks (aside from opportunity cost — police investigating other more serious offenses). For example, I wonder if they have run into a situation yet where unscrupulous bouncers or checkout clerks are generating the fake IDs themselves and then framing kids in order to blackmail parents? Taking that thought a little further, I wonder if Alaska will soon promote legislation that allows the people to sue companies responsible for security breaches involving IDs? That might help prevent fake IDs from reaching the market and thus be a powerful counterpart to the Brown Jug Law (incentive to detect fake IDs). Or, in a more specific sense, it would help decrease the incentive to steal an ID from one customer to blackmail another.

I found the Brown Jug Law article on the Montana Gaming Group website.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest CSPI released a memo in October that apparently urged the State of California to find a way to use regulation to prevent another E.coli outbreak:

In a legal petition filed with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Department of Health Services Director Sandra Shewry, CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal said that mandatory regulations governing manure, water and sanitation on farms could help reduce the number of produce-borne food outbreaks.

[…]

In addition to the recent spinach outbreak, tomatoes, lettuces, melons, sprouts, carrot juice and other foods contaminated with E. coli, Salmonella or other pathogens have caused outbreaks. Those pathogens are usually—though not always—linked back to animal agriculture, which CSPI says warrants a particular regulatory focus on manure and water.

[…]

CSPI says that the use of raw manure as fertilizer should be prohibited during the growing season, and that composting practices should be monitored to ensure pathogens are destroyed. Water used for irrigation must be tested and found suitable and only drinkable water should be used in produce processing facilities, according to the group.

CSPI’s petition also urges better hygiene and sanitation on farms, and for improved package markings that can be used to track back produce to the farm of origin.

Crazy. That almost sounds like they want food to be clean. Wonder if they can find a way to not only convince consumers but foreign countries that American food is safe.

And if you think it’s getting hard to trust food that comes from some remote farm (that you will never step foot on), it turns out you even can’t trust pesticides anymore:

In February this year, a counterfeit herbicide used in Italy was found to contain quantities of a potentially dangerous insecticide. In 2004, hundreds of hectares of wheat were wiped out in France, Italy and Spain because of a fake herbicide. And a 2002 study of supermarket produce in the UK found traces of eight illegal and potentially dangerous compounds.

Not that pesticides should have ever been trusted, but the fear of “terrorism” certainly highlights the flaws in a web of trust surrounding modern agriculture. Wonder if China will be facing some similar urgings after events like this one:

China has arrested the manager of a factory which used grease from swill, sewage and recycled industrial oil to make edible lard, a Chinese newspaper said on Monday in the latest health scare to hit the country.

Health officials also detected “toxic pesticide” in lard produced by the Fanchang Grease Factory in Taizhou, in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, the Shanghai Daily said.

Yuck. It is even harder to control something when people believe it to be the key to their health. I’ve met many Americans who are convinced that pesticides are what keeps their food safe for consumption. But I find that about as ironic as the last part of the AP story on Chinese lard:

Authorities in several cities last month found Sudan IV, a cancer-causing industrial dye, in “red-yolk” duck eggs sold to poultry farmers who had mixed it with feed.

Red yolks are regarded as a sign of extra nutrition, thus making them more expensive.

So you pay more for the colorful appearance of nutrition, even though the color is cancer-causing — sounds familiar.