Where did that food come from? Your guess is as good as the label
Law would streamline regulations -- if it passes
The apple-blackberry sauce sold widely in Seattle supermarkets, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture organic seal on the label, says it comes from Chino, Calif. It also says "Product of Canada."
So how do you know where it's from? You don't.
Dried banana chips are labeled as being from Sumner. But banana trees don't grow in Sumner. Peanut butter from Canada? There are no peanut farms in that country.
Congress passed a law in 2002 saying that consumers were to be told where the food they buy comes from. But five years later, shoppers who try to determine the origin of meat, poultry, fruit, vegetables and frozen or canned food in most of America's grocery stores often enter an Oz-like land of obfuscations, omission or outright lies.
Without knowing where the food came from, consumers can't be certain it is safe, experts say.
"This labeling becomes vital in ensuring that products are of high quality," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "If people know they're going to get caught for shoddy practices, they're much less likely to engage in them."
So what happened to the labeling law?
The Agriculture Department, bowing to pressure from the meat lobby, the grocery industry and a Republican-dominated Capitol Hill, postponed the launching to 2004, then 2006 and finally to 2008, with the exception of seafood, which has been labeled since 2005. But the litany of recent reports on tainted food -- E. coli in spinach, salmonella in peanut butter, botulism in chili and the still-growing list of tainted Chinese products -- has prompted action.
Last month, the House Agriculture Committee updated the labeling law and the full House included it as part of a complex and long farm bill.
But don't expect labels to immediately sprout throughout grocery stores. The Senate still has to weigh in, and then the Department of Agriculture has to write rules telling everyone in the food supply chain what the law actually demands. Also, President Bush has threatened a veto of the entire farm package because of its tax and farm-subsidy implications.
However, the White House is "well aware" that more than 92 percent of consumers polled this spring said they want to know the origin of the food they buy, said Patty Lovera, assistant director of the public interest group Food and Water Watch.
The updated law would require that beef, pork, lamb, goat, fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables carry a label with the origin of the food. The no-man's-land of labeling would be the grocery store aisles of processed food in cans, jars and pouches. Labeling country-of-origin for processed food is voluntary and the new law would not change that.
A few groceries, especially high-end chains, already do extensive labeling of fresh produce.
"Because some stores are already labeling some of their produce, it will grow harder for other companies and interest groups to argue it cannot be done," said Chuck Benbrook, chief scientist with the Organic Center, a nationwide, non-profit, food research organization.
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Where did that food come from? Your guess is as good as the label
