Food

I'm reading a book about food, and I'm sad. Scared, even. (Also heard an interview with another author on the radio on the cab ride from the airport a few days ago, ironically.)

The FDA, over the last 50 years, has slowly had power drained from it until it's unable to keep us safe from poisoned meat, spinach, peppers, and so impotent it's not allowed to keep us away from medicines that will kill us.

This is Congress' fault. And every president since 1980 who's signed these crappy laws. Yes, the FDA can be slow. Making sure that a new drug is safe takes a lot of testing, which takes a long time. But I'm tired of people dying because we're in a hurry.

I was shocked to learn that you can die from overdoses of vitamins A or D. I could be persuaded to let go of the idea that herbal supplements have to be proven effective. But why the hell can't the FDA require proof that they're safe?

The FDA should be way more powerful and way better funded. We should have inspectors making sure our food won't kill us, and our drugs work the way they're supposed to. Hopefully we won't get to the point where we have antifreeze in our toothpaste, but I'm not hopeful.

Other interesting food facts - the fruit and vegetable growers of america can't get along. They see each other as competition, so they don't promote their products, which would make us healthy if we ate them, and make them lots of money.
On the other hand, Michael Pollan used the fact that we eat mindlessly in front of the TV to trick his child into eating vegetables. Put a plate of bite-sized broccoli in front of a child who's watching TV, and they'll gobble it down.