The previous link is to the ‘printer friendly' version of the article, here is the link to the original article:
http://www.zmag.org/...=66&ItemID=7289
About the author Vandana Shiva
'World-renowned environmental leader and thinker Vandana Shiva is director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology, and the author of many books, including Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit and Monocultures of the Mind. In 1993, Shiva won the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize. Shiva is a leader in the International Forum on Globalization, along with Ralph Nader and Jeremy Rifkin.'
Below is an extract from his article:
'In the year 2004, we need to learn from the food mistakes of the industrialized food systems. Systems that have created Mad Cow Disease and unleashed an epidemic of obesity and diabetes. These diseases of unhealthy processing are not identified as 'food hazards' in food safety laws, though they are a hazard to health. That is why the proposed law is obsolete - it fails to take into account the diseases related to industrial food processing which are creating ill health and should be treated as unsafe.'
###
Yes food may well be produced under exacting hygienic conditions but it can still be overly processed, full of additives and chemicals and unsafe to eat. Conversely in a suburb of Delhi an entrepreneur runs a market stall preparing and selling deliciously wholesome, organic foods but under slightly less hygienic conditions? Under the proposed legislation the author argues that by imposing their food safety rules the big buck food suppliers and their bedfellow bureaucrats would force this street seller out of business - and that's exactly (he says) what they want to do.
Certainly very interesting; but is Vandana Shiva right? Can / should food safety consider the long as well as the short term effects of consuming food products? And would the red tape of food safety really force the centuries old street seller out of business?
Food for thought.
Regards,
Simon