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In the News: Rising Food Prices, FDA Flunkies

Posted by Adam Kuban, July 31, 2007 at 10:30 AM

U.S. health officials visit Beijing to talk food safety with Chinese government. This, after the recent string of tainted product scares. Officials on both sides want to devise ways to increase the flow of information about products and to come up with regulations that will govern production and transport. Meanwhile, Paris-based food chain Carrefour makes hay at locations in China by promoting itself as a safe alternative, with its in-store food-testing labs.

FDA food-safety officials give their own department's inspections a flunking grade. But, hey, they're working on it, people.

Rising food prices have shoppers rediscovering discount grocers. In the Twin Cities—and, I suspect, elsewhere—middle-income shoppers are turning to outlets "selling items that have been discontinued, repackaged or are near their expiration date." The usual suspects—high energy and corn prices—seem to be driving the trend.

Speaking of inexpensive food, Paul Levy on U.K.-based Word of Mouth opines on the true cost of groceries: "The truth is that cheap food is not cheap, but that we calculate the price of it incorrectly. We exclude from its retail price the cost to the NHS and employers of illness resulting from food-borne disease, and we exclude the cost of cleaning up the food supply after each episode of one of these modern plagues. We do pay these costs, but we take them from a different pocket. However you stash your cash, though, it's all coming from the same wallet in the end."

OK. Enough with the gloom and doom, you say? Here's a truly bizarre series of photos that may (or may not) lift your spirits.

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Tags: food safety, In the News, shopping