Food Safety

Due to the government shutdown over 800 thousand federal workers are on furlough, a large portion of them are FDA workers whose jobs were to track and identify pathogens in food related illness outbreaks. In fact, if you were to call the FDA food safety division looking for information about food inspection, or suspected food contamination you would hear this, “Unfortunately, we are unable to answer your call due to government shutdown”. Food safety experts say this has serious implications for consumers, in as far as we’re not doing food inspections and we’re not looking for national food borne illness outbreaks, then obviously the public is at risk. A former FDA official said that their biggest concern regarding food safety during the government shutdown would be from foreign food imports, because even in the best of times the FDA is “pinched” when it comes to having enough staff to inspect those shipments. So, if you aren’t in the habit of asking questions about where your food comes from, now might be the time to start. Perhaps the only good thing to come out of the shutdown will be an upsurge in people buying and eating locally grown foods.