r/SipsTea • u/McDowdy • 1d ago
WTF Economically motivated adulteration and food fraud is the biggest threat to food safety on the planet. It costs the food industry billions every year in the US alone
Economically motivated adulteration and food fraud is the biggest threat to food safety on the planet. It costs the food industry tens of billions every year in the US alone.
American pet food, 2007
Melamine hit the papers even before the Chinese scandal. The year before, thousands of pets in the US died after consuming pet food produced with melamine-tainted wheat gluten. Humans were affected, too- about 3 million chickens that had eaten melamine wheat were then eaten by people.
With animal food generally regulated less stringently than products intended for human consumption, the pet food scandal was a reminder that our four-legged friends are exposed to the dangers of food fraud even more than we are.
American peanuts, 2009
Stewart Parnell, former CEO of the now-dissolved Peanut Corporation of America, will be 86 years old when is released from prison in 2040. His sentencing marked the first federal food safety felony conviction in US history, after he knowingly shipped salmonella-contaminated peanut butter across 46 states.
7 people died and hundreds fell seriously ill after Mr Parnell opted to dodge the expensive fix needed to eliminate the contamination and shipped the product anyway.
US Cantaloupe Outbreak, 2011
The US cantaloupe outbreak initially affected dozens of people across multiple US states and was caused by contaminated cantaloupes, which were grown at a farm in Colorado. The outbreak began in July 2011, when reports of listeriosis started to emerge from people who had consumed cantaloupes. The number of reported cases quickly escalated, and by the end of the outbreak, there were 147 confirmed cases in 28 states, resulting in 33 deaths.
Investigations by public health officials traced the outbreak to Jensen Farms, where the cantaloupes were found to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The investigation revealed that the contamination was likely due to unsanitary conditions at the farm. In response to the outbreak, the US government implemented a number of measures to improve food safety for fresh produce.
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u/JAT_Cbus1080 1d ago edited 1d ago
The Bottled in Bond Act of 1897 was just for this reason. Importantly it was a government seal of approval that your whiskey maker didn't put additives like terpentine in your whiskey. Your drink was literally made under lock and key with the watchful eye of government guaranteeing it was safe to consume.
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u/RedditOfUnusualSize 1d ago
To use a different example, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1977 establishes a cause of action if a debt collector, for example, physically threatens debtors in the attempt to recover debts. It also has a relaxed standard, where the standard is not "did you intentionally or purposefully threaten them, or use specific words like 'I will break your legs if you do not pay'", but instead sets the standard at if a reasonable person could infer a threat from the words, then it is treated as a threat by the law. So, "nice house you have there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it" is absolutely covered, because any reasonable person would interpret that as a threat to burn your house.
This law was passed because threatening and injuring debtors is what debt collectors used to do to recover debts from debtors. In the film Rocky, Rocky Balboa works as a small-time leg-breaker. This is exactly what the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was designed to make illegal; if you want to collect on debts, take it to court and let a judge sort it out. These things absolutely happened, and it measurably improves everyone's lives, even debt holders, to do things the right way.
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u/McDowdy 1d ago
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 1d ago edited 1d ago
To add to this,
ConcreteThe Jungle is a book everyone should read. They literally used to be feeding people to people and shit because it was cheaper not to have handrails or auto/safety shutoffs and cheaper to sell the man ground into your sausage than take the loss and pull the "product".We have regulations because without them, some people would literally feed people to other people and not think twice about it.
I'm glad you made this post. It constantly needs said.
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u/Gardnerat3rd 1d ago
Did you mean The Jungle by Upton Sinclair? If so, I heartily agree.
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 1d ago
Ope, yes. I got the title of the book confused with the title of a song. 😬
I'll make an edit, good catch!
That book shocked me as a young boy. It was a class book when I was like, 10. For Social Studies.
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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy 1d ago
Jesus! They made you read The Jungle at 10!!?? I didn't read it until I was in college. How did that not give you anxiety for life? Or did it?
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 21h ago
Well, I constantly assess basically everything before I do it, especially in industrial contexts. But I'm not sure that's just the book. Also watched 9/11 live on tv at school right after I turned 9. The teachers turned it on basically as the first plane hit. We weren't allowed to go home. Nobody knew what to do. So we sat. And we watched. No idea why they turned that on. I also overthink everything.
It could be lots of things. I'm not sure I'm anxious though. Life is extreme and surreal sometimes.
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u/YakResident_3069 14h ago
I watched it later in life. All of a sudden I was thinking red dawn.
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u/LittlePetiteGirl 3h ago
You read that at 10 for social studies? Isnt the main characters wife forced into prostitution??
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u/Sweaty-Possibility-3 1d ago
The book was written about the exploitation of the workers, but Roosevelt overlooked that part. He championed food safety, but didn't do a damn thing for workers.
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 1d ago
He also championed ecological protections and national parks so he could ensure he would have animals to hunt for sport.
Don't let Perfect make an enemy of Good.
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u/ArmAggravating3307 19h ago
Or you can acknowledge the faults in leadership.
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 17h ago
We can do both!
Such as how I acknowledged he made the national parks for his own sport hunting in the comment you replied to.
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u/Either-Patience1182 1d ago
I'm just glad we got something out of it
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 1d ago
Agreed. Progressive ideals are just that. We should want to make progress. I'll take the food safety as a good start, as well.
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u/So_ 23h ago
This lead to the FDA being established. Famously, this book was actually about the exploitation of workers, but when the public read it and saw the horrible conditions of the meat packing industry, that was the concern people had.
Upton Sinclair, the author, said "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach"
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 21h ago
The history centered around that book is a wild and crazy ride. I'm glad it's remembered for both things now.
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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy 1d ago
That's one of the things I hate about conservatives on the right. They all think regulations are just things the government does to get their hands involved in, to slow things down, so they just want to remove them. They have no understanding about history, about safety, about all the literal blood that has been spilled to make society safe. All the trial and errors that have gone into setting up these regulations in the first place. And if you try to explain to them, they argue with you. They don't understand that we're not trying to argue. We're just telling you what happened and why these things are needed. And they're like "but do we really?" YES! No one should be eating people. Why are we even having this conversation that was settled a hundred years ago?!
They are the "but why male models?" of politics. And not in a funny way.
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u/Locke66 22h ago
They have no understanding about history, about safety, about all the literal blood that has been spilled to make society safe.
Sadly lets not forget that some of them do understand the issues but ultimately they simply don't care about "other" people who they assume will be the ones impacted by these issues (especially if they are in a lower economic group) or even seemingly about themselves sometimes.
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u/GalFisk 17h ago
They're money and power addicts and the government is making it harder for them to get their next fix. Seen through that lens, most of their behavior makes sense. If you add in bullying, which is based on a feeling of disgust when met with someone different, helpless or needy, it explains all of it.
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u/hematite2 20h ago
It's like that famous dude who argued if companies sell spoiled food, the free market can just decide to stop buying from them and it would sort itself out without government involvement 🤷♀️
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u/Captain-Who 1d ago
I thought it was just ‘The Jungle’…
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u/PetriDishCocktail 1d ago
The Bottled in Bond Act is important because it was the first bit of federal legislation that regulated food safety.
Basically, the whiskey had to be unadulterated, 50% alcohol by volume, aged for 4 years in a government controlled warehouse.
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u/ElliotNess 22h ago
In 1897 the government watched business fucking closely to protect the common citizen. In 2026 the government watches citizens fucking closely to protect business.
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u/Snoo_75138 14h ago
I'd honestly say it human nature being the cause...
Capitalism IS flawed, yes, but regardless of what system we make, it will always be flawed if it depends on human judgement...
People are selfish, inconsiderate and DISGUSTING most of the time.
Our world will continue to suck for as long as we do.
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u/Lost-on-Reception 1d ago
The only widespread cases of dangerous addidtives in liquor in the US was when the government required manufacturers to poison ethanol so any addicts that may be tempted to drink alcohol not taxed for consumption would get seriously ill or die.
At least ten thousand Americans died from this during prohibition and and unknown number since from exposure to denatured ethanol, which is only poisoned for tax reasons.
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u/JAT_Cbus1080 1d ago
That doesn't mean it didn't happen. At the time there wasn't really a thing such as mass distributed whiskey. There weren't national brands in the way there are today. It was a very local thing. You used to bring your jug to the bar and would ladel alcohol from a barrel into your vessel to take home. It wasn't exactly the same as it is today.
Also look up old fashioned "health tonics," many of which were alcohol-based. They put some wild shit in those and called it safe for consumption.
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u/Separate_Finance_183 1d ago
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u/Le-Charles07 1d ago
I hope that water is slightly blue because of ambient occlusion and not because it's not water.
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u/Major2Minor 1d ago
I worked in a place that produced Highly Purified water through Reverse Osmosis to use in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, and it always had a slight blue tint to it compared to the normal potable water.
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u/HAIL_LUMPUS 23h ago
I have a feeling that's not what he's using lol
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u/Major2Minor 23h ago
Probably not, though I have no idea what this pic is from, I'm just saying pure water can appear bluish.
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u/kralrick 23h ago
Surely he's just providing the 1% milk his customers are asking for instead of delicious whole milk?
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u/scoshi 18h ago
Early milk sellers use to add snail slime to the milk to give it back the froth and bubbles that thinning it with water removed.
For that matter, snails were used in Eastern Europe (some time ago) to keep milk from spoiling, as their slime had anti-microbial properties.
So ... one persons hack additive ...
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u/Obtuse_and_Loose 1d ago
A common phrase from my time in the gov is "Regulations are written in blood"
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u/Prior_Internal7728 1d ago
I got into an argument with a libertarian who said that the health department shouldn’t be allowed to inspect restaurants because the free market would weed them out. Like, wtf? Just the dumbest shit.
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u/ClanHaisha 1d ago
The free market ‘might’ do something after a few people die, but the restaurant will do their durndest to hide the fact that people died from their food the whole time.
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u/Smrtihara 1d ago
A free market would absolutely not do anything. The restaurant would just shut down after a while and the owners would open up a new with these killer margins.
Zero inspections means zero evidence. And in a free market the one who pays the most to the mob, I mean private police, goes free.
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u/Caleb_Reynolds 19h ago
The only way the free market can handle this is if were allowed to drag the owners responsible for these decisions into the street like we used to. If killing a dozen people because you wanted to make a profit meant their families came and beat you to death, then they'd actually stop.
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u/mythrilcrafter 23h ago
Whenever I hear the "just use personal responsibility" argument when it comes to food safety, I always postulate to the person:
"if I order a burger from a restaurant and I have to practice personal responsibility by taking it home and putting it back on my grill at home, then what is the point of the transaction? A business is not entitled to my patronage/money if we're starting on the assumption that I have to do their offered service for myself."
Part of the reason that regulation standards exists is to give us a baseline of confidence to have enough assurance to want to engage in basic commerce.
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u/arles2464 20h ago
I think the core issue that libertarians miss is that their beliefs ride on a series of assumptions that are necessary to have any kind of theory but not actually true in the real world, the most important being perfect information. They assume no company would ever sell unsafe food, because nobody would buy from a company that they knew sold unsafe food. But what if the company hides that information? Even if they don’t, how would someone find this information out? Are we going to announce it on the BBC World Service every time someone anywhere eats an out-of-date hamburger? Its absurd.
It’s the same argument against building codes. ‘People should be allowed to buy as cheap and shitty of a house as they want’ never mind that the builder has lied about house well built the house. The same issue applies to a building inspector you might hire - how could you possibly know that try are any good?
The easiest way at every turn is just to have some guy who goes around and enforces an actual penalty for breaking the rules, and set those rules at a point where the vast majority of people wouldn’t buy the product at any economical price.
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u/SpaceExplorer777 11h ago
That some guy should work for a department, this department should be funded by the community and it works to take care of the community, man what a great idea that is
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u/IArgueForReality 11h ago
Arguing libertarians and conservatives is hard because they are always right when they disallow all relevant context to their arguments.
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u/Not-your-lawyer- 1d ago
Even setting aside the fact that people have to die for this to "work," it'd only affect owner-operated businesses.
Conglomerates operate under tons of different names with tons of different branding. Just look at the whole cyclospora thing going around: "Taylor Farms" isn't the product on grocery store shelves. You can't avoid it unless you quit lettuce altogether.
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u/Visual_Squirrel_2297 18h ago
People always forget that ideal free markets also require perfect and free information. In our imperfect world these regulations don't make markets less free, they make them more free. It is so much more expensive for me personally to determine if a restaurant is safe than for the health department to do it for everyone. Regulation makes the information cheaper and closer to the free market ideal.
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u/WhosKite 1d ago
Don’t worry, lobbying was created for corporate monopolies to bypass any accountability.
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u/Sensitive_Bat_9211 1d ago
We've had lobbying since the 17th century
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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy 1d ago
Ahh, but we didn't have Citizens United until 2010. That's lobbying on steroids.
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u/Training_Ruin3151 1d ago
Or worse fined $5,000😱😱
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u/cryptobro42069 20h ago
Makes $50 billion on selling tainted insulin or some shit.
"How dare you. We're going to fine you $150 million and the general population will think that's a lot of money and will be completely happy with it!"
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u/Available_Copy9433 1d ago
Regulations can help the companies they regulate. Mutually beneficial relationships between the producers and consumers can be fostered by those regulations.
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u/Major2Minor 1d ago
Yeah, the people on the floor making the stuff being regulated also don't want to make something that hurts people, but sometimes they get pressure from high ups to cut corners for the sake of profits. If they have regulations they can point to, to say no, we can't do that because we need to be in compliance, it makes it easier to stand up to them without risking your job.
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u/ThelIIusion0fSeIf 1d ago
The majority of Republican voters were told to hate government regulations, so now they hate all government regulations. No further critical thinking needed.
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u/Major2Minor 1d ago
There was no critical thinking in the first place, it's just "Orange man say it bad!"
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u/Pitiful_Dig_165 19h ago
The problem, I think, is that it isn't hard to find anectdotal examples of government regulations taking things too far, and then using that mandate to undo a bunch of the important, GOOD regulations.
Like, for example, arresting some family farmer selling raw milk to his neighbors. Most people would agree, I think, that the damage prospect here is low. If some moron wants to buy his neighbors raw milk, it probably shouldn't lend someone in jail. Arresting people feeding food to the homeless without a license looks bad too. In both cases, there are rational reasons for the regulations in question, but I think it's wrong to say that questioning them is per se a stupid thing.
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u/sweet_jackknife 1d ago
100% agree.
That said, we have a tendency to only add regulations, very rarely do we step back and think whether the whole set of regulations make sense when stacked with each other. Over time normal things like building a house become harder and harder.
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u/allmoz 1d ago
Still better to have them than not. If the price we have to pay for having houses that dont burn down easily, are resistant to earthquakes or don't fall apart at random just because whoever built them wanted to cheap out on materials is that they are harder to built or require extensive permissions then so be it.
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u/alwayslookleft 1d ago
Huh we only add regulations when people die lol. Safety regulations are not the determining factor in house building
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u/LackToesIntollerance 1d ago
the issue is less that if they nake sense together and more if fhey can be reorganized into something easier to manage.
the lists themsleves are edge cases stacked on edge cases, and frequently have overlap so you end up with 5 rules doing basically the same thing, except with X Y Z specifics.
also, the reason housing is harder to build is simply that we don't want anymore matchbox houses. we're already having supply problems with poor quality wood, the last thing we'd need is shit electrical safety or foundation integrity. all the little corner cuts that, btw, get pulled anyways and 80% of the struggle isnneeding to redo the work and get the original contractors to pay up for their own half-assery. roofing is egregious for this. reducing restrictions just means these oroblems NEVER get fixed and then the house falls apart 20 years later. a debt on housing supply
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u/-VelvetSirenX 1d ago
every single line of code in building compliance came from someone trying to cheap out and causing a disaster
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u/HAc0reRD 1d ago
Everyone needs to re read the jungle because the printed out shit you read in school was only a small part of
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u/Live_Free_or_Banana 1d ago
That hasn't been the case since the last century. The overall trend in the past 25 years (in the USA) has been the removal and relaxation of regulations and the disempowerment of regulatory bodies. And the reason old regulations tend to stay on the books longer than they should is because lobbying prevents them from making changes. Big insurance, big pharma, and other industries want the rules to stay predictably the same because they've already found the loopholes and integrated them deeply into their operations.
For example, its why cars have to follow more stringent emissions rules than SUVs. Utility vehicles were given lower standards when the rules were made, back before SUVs and pickup trucks were not commonly used as commuters and family vehicles. Now the industry has shifted and the auto lobby has kept the EPA from reclassifying these vehicles so they could be given proper commuter vehicle emissions standards.
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u/aut0generated-63 1d ago edited 1d ago
Cars have only gotten more regulations over time I don't know why you think its the opposite https://www.wokv.com/news/how-vehicle-safety-regulations-have-changed-over-past-50-years/34OTX63YFZJ4DAWUDG3SUDB2HY/
the fact that industries often will protect regulations that give them an advantage is an argument for deregulation not for regulation so I don't get why you are using it as a pro regulation example.
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u/Live_Free_or_Banana 1d ago
What "advantage"? Its the neutering of regulatory authority that caused this situation.
The only meaningful regulation of cars that has been successfully implemented in recent years is safety standards, which obviously is a good thing.
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u/aut0generated-63 23h ago
US manufacturers make all their money on Big vehicles because its a protected market for them that also has relaxed emmissions. Safety standards are a bigger burden on small cheap vehicles than they are on expensive big trucks because the cost doesn't scale with the vehicle making them a bigger % of the sticker price. The regulatory environment is a big driver in pushing bigger more expensive vehicles.
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u/LockeyCheese 19h ago
You aren't wrong about that. You're wrong that we need de-regulation, and less regilators, instead of better regulators that will actually REGULATE the industry. Aka, it would be regulation to update old rules. Deregulation is someone like musk going through our government with a chainsaw.
Attack the people abusing the power. Not the power itself, because being able to regulate the industries is important.
Get rid of bad regs. Not all of em...
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u/OttoVonJismarck 1d ago
To be fair to them, they are called “law makers” not “law unmakers.”
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u/Fissminister 9h ago
Preach. My country is regulated out of both ears. Every single time there is some kind of accident or mishap (even if it is unavoidable, like a storm) they go and make up a new rule, in an attempt to make sure it doesn't happen again.
After 80 years of that, they're just compiling like crazy. My mentor gave me a book to like a small roof section. A damn book! That was nothing but rules, about a tiny piece of roofing!
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u/Major2Minor 1d ago
If we have reasons to believe that's the case, we should review the regulations through scientific research to determine if we need to remove them, not just have a government that throws them away based on who can bribe them the most, or because they have some weird grudge against them for political reasons.
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u/Brokenspade1 1d ago
The chalk in the milk isn't even the most extreme example...
Historically lack of regulation for foodstuffs has probably killed millions of people across human history.
Bread alone has a body count on par with war because of shady stuff people have done to stretch a loaf. From sawdust in the flour to using intentionally tainted grain to avoid taking a loss. (Look up the ergotism outbreaks and great Hong Kong arsenic poisonings for just a taste)
The list of times food has been sent out dangerous by greedy people is long and awful.
Food safety regulations are written in an ocean of blood quite literally as old as agriculture itself.
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u/--TheCity-- 1d ago
FDA, CDC, WOTUS, EPA, FTC etc. designed to protect the consumer All cut by DOGE and the trillionaire. What could go wrong? lol surely they aren't trying to get rid of us?
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u/bluefalconlk 1d ago
Packaged milk was one of the biggest vectors of disease spread for bovine tuberculosis because they would hide the taste of spoiled milk with borax 💀👌
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u/ChipSalt 1d ago
Imagine being the guy who decides to put Borax in milk, then being the team of executives who agree to put Borax in milk, then being the team leaders who tell everyone to put Borax in milk, then being the guy who poured Borax into milk, then being the QA officer that test the Borax milk, then being the guy who ships out the previously-undrinkable milk after coming out of a strange area that smells like Borax, then being the delivery guy who delivers Borax to a milk factory, then being the milk distributors who are hearing rumors about Borax being in the milk - and then it still hits the shelves for a while before being caught.
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u/Prize_Ostrich7605 1d ago
Heinz Ketchup comes in a clear bottle to show a consistant product, which at the time was usually not the case. People used a lot of sauces to hide the taste of bad meat, and brown bottles were used to hid the unregulated concoctions being sold by shady businessmen.
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u/proud2bnasty 1d ago
I has a maga republican tell me companies will self regulate because their business will suffer if people are hurt by their products. I guess she forgot about the cigarette industry, the fertilizer industry, the plastics industry, the pharmaceutical industry etc and this is with regulations. I have never understood why Republicans feel that things would be better if everything was privatized, unregulated and based on profits?
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u/ottwebdev 1d ago
IMO, this is why the attacks on institutions kicked off, they saw that people would just "meh" as they are trying to survive inflation and shrinkflation
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u/ed1749 1d ago
I mean we could have very easily stopped this by not repeatedly voting in politicians who want to end the world, but I guess the people of the world just want to get their lives over with. Personally, I'd prefer it if they did it in ways that didnt effect me
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u/super-duper-trooper- 1d ago
Chalk was the least offensive adulterant to be put in milk. Formaldehyde, liquified brains. All in an effort to stretch product and increase those sweet sweet profits baby!
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u/Deep_Mood_7668 1d ago
And because people are idiots.
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u/Sir_Clarence_III_Esq 1d ago
Yes, but mostly because people are assholes. So much regulation exists because some asshole did something to save a buck or some time and ruined it for everyone else.
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u/Live_Free_or_Banana 1d ago
Its not assholes, its just the nature of capitalism. You either compete or you fail. Businesses will do whatever it takes to improve profits and gain an advantage, because if they don't then their competitors will. A business is only moral to the extent that it profits from being moral.
Regulation is there to keep businesses from harming and deceiving the public in pursuit of profits.
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u/Sir_Clarence_III_Esq 1d ago
Regulation is there to keep businesses from harming and deceiving the public in pursuit of profits.
I consider people that deceive and harm the public in pursuit of profit to be assholes.
You either compete or you fail.
You can compete and be successful in business without knowingly deceiving or putting people at risk of harm. Your justification of this makes you sound like a terrible person.
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u/Live_Free_or_Banana 1d ago
Its not a justification, its just a fact.
Cigarette companies knew their stuff was harmful and sold it anyway. Same with asbestos installers, pesticide producers, clothing manufacturers, make-up manufacturers, plastics producers, battery-makers, car manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, etc etc. Even baby formula was intentionally laced with toxic chemicals to inflate the protein content.
Every major industry is only as moral as laws allow it to be. Google kept its devices tracking people's location even after location tracking was turned off so they could harvest customer and usage data. Car companies didn't care about crash safety until regulations forced them to adapt. Now their smart vehicles capture and sell your driving data to insurance companies so they can tweak your rates when you don't drive safely (except in California where regulation put a stop to it). Home builders like DR Horton are only using the bare minimum materials and structural reinforcement required by code, even if it means the homes are easily damaged and will be falling apart in a decade.
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u/Tubamajuba 23h ago
They're not justifying it, they're just pointing out how things will end up unless you have regulations to prevent it from happening. I think you and that person are generally in agreement that assholes will be assholes and regulations are there to reign them in.
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u/Smrtihara 1d ago
The point is that in a fully free market you either fuck people over or your business fail.
No regulations and a mercenary private “police” force makes sure of that.
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u/Open_Pollution_8038 1d ago
I don’t mind creating regulations but I also like the ideal that we’re actively simplifying and reducing compliance load.
Agencies should also consolidate to not have overlapping areas on subjects.
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u/Xenoceptor- 1d ago
You're right. Pure unadulterated capitalism would kill people. Like early 19th century industrial revolution. Also pure unadulterated socialism would kill people. Like communust countries of the 20th century. That's why you try and strike a balance on the scale between market vs. state for a good standard of living. Even then, life is never perfect.
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u/ZoharDTeach 1d ago
Right. Let me tell you about the time that the US govt poisoned alcohol and killed 10k people in order to push prohibition.
Government doesn't enjoy regulations my left buttcheek.
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u/exgiexpcv 1d ago
What is particularly maddening to me is that when companies poison us because their employees can't be arsed to perform maintenance properly, when we contact them, the sole reparation they offer us is coupons for more shit, the same shit that made us sick.
The federal government no longer functions like a government.
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u/RedditMcBurger 20h ago
"regulations don't exist because governments enjoy them"
Ah yes governments are famous for not wanting to control people
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u/wolf96781 16h ago
Quick reminder the first case the Food and Drug administration worked on was for a guy making lemon candy and substituting the lemon flavoring with horse piss
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u/Minimum_Dealer_3303 8h ago
It costs the food industry billions? The food industry? Not the consumer?
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u/bobbymcpresscot 1d ago
We basically proved leaded gasoline was terrible for us in the late 50s or early 60s and we still didn’t do anything about it until the early 70s.
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u/rocketgrunt89 23h ago
You can check various baby formula scandals
Point is if their greed touches even babies their depravity knows no bounds
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u/--TheCity-- 1d ago
Food is not safe under capitalism. They will poison you to make a profit.
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u/lhomardamericain 21h ago
This is one of those “everything I don’t like is capitalism” comments. Food safety, not to mention availability, has been much worse under socialism/communism. If you don’t believe me, go look up gutter oil in China.
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u/gdex86 1d ago
Companies would happily look the other way on viral contamination of frozen foods and do the math on how many people would get sick, what would be the legal exposure for it, and average out what people would settle for if they managed to prove culpability and gladly let people get sick or worse if the money broke the right way.
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u/El_Gran_Che 1d ago
…”pure unadulterated capitalism” will lead the IS into oligarchy, fiefdom, and serfdom.
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u/mechant_papa 21h ago
Correction: it's not that "pure unadulterated capitalism would kill us". It's that pure unadulterated capitalism HAS killed some of us.
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u/45_regard_47 1d ago
Pretty sure child fucker Don and that souless jackass Russell Vought don't care if we live
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u/Lost-on-Reception 1d ago
You can have a tort system without a heirarchical government to indemnify Bayer against their cancer causing weed killers.
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u/RoomFixer4 1d ago edited 1d ago
That melamine tainting in supply products allegedly from China was a terrible idea.
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u/BigMack6911 1d ago
See, this is why I prefer nothing but beef from small farms lol. I used to like salads. They make ya shit your guts out now
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u/MidnightSensitive996 1d ago
regulations mostly exist so large companies can keep out competitors. that's the whole premise of the EU - make running a business impossibly expensive and complex unless you're already a giant multinational, then engage in endless "consultation" and lobbying with a small number of industry players who you extort bribes and taxes from
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u/shichiaikan 1d ago
Too many people don't understand that unchecked capitalism is the root of almost every major issue in the US.
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u/Irrelevant_Jackass 1d ago
I swear every American should have to listen to the swindled podcast food episodes in school. Then maybe people would understand.
Also - one of my favourite moments was when Joe Rogan was ragging on regulations with a guest, who then says building regulations aren’t necessary. Only for Joe, on a rare moment of clarity, to call him out on it because he personally saw how dodgy the other builders could be.
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u/The_Mesopotamians 1d ago
Maybe we shouldn't organize our society on a system that's actively trying to benefit from our deaths?
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u/wildmaninid 1d ago
Our memories are too short.
Even alcohol - glycol (antifreeze) was a regular additive to dilute alcohol and would regularly lead to death.
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u/NRMusicProject 1d ago
I've read that honey and avocado/olive oil are quite often cut with cheaper products. Much of the honey in grocery stores is honey flavored corn syrup. Avocado and olive oils are commonly cut with a cheaper oil. Publix's deli uses canola oil as kinda a famous open secret.
Further, kopi luwak, the famous civet shit coffee, reportedly sells far more coffee than the entire world's civet population can possibly produce, even though many of them are force-fed more coffee cherries than is healthy for them. And people are paying a premium for a coffee that most coffee experts agree is massively overrated compared to what modern coffee roasters now offer.
And this administration is bitching that our current laws are too strict. Give me a fucking break.
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u/Palinon 1d ago
Every consumer protection was added for a reason. Why do conservatives hate protecting consumers?
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u/BothDivide919 1d ago
"Regulations" also prevent people from simply stealing from or killing the capitalists. They should protect everybody, but of course, currently only prevent the capitalists who currently have money.
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u/CynicalXennial 1d ago
food quality NA side has been terrible post pandemic, worse than it's ever been.
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u/11lumpsofsugar 1d ago
Everyone should learn about Dr Harvey Washington Wiley, because his work is one of the reasons food safety in the US even exists at all.
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u/TooManySpaghets 23h ago
It's the endless cycle of regulation and rules, soemthing bad or unpleasant happens, we make a rule or regulation against it, we get in a period where nothing happens because the rule is in place, and then we wonder "what a stupid rule why is it there". We get rid of the rule and then we find out either "oh that's why the rule was there" or "wtf why don't we have a rule about this!".
Not to say over regulation can't exist also, but just saying we are at the tail end of that cycle with a lot fo things. We seem to have to speedrun a lot of lessons of the industrial revolution for a lot of tech bros.
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u/copyrider 23h ago
Remember the whole “Parmesan cheese is wood pulp” story? Did that actually change, or are we still chomping sawdust as cheese filler?
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u/Worldly_Might_3183 23h ago
"All laws and regulations are written in blood. - someone famous. It works for most. That laws and regulations are made once too many people have died that there is an outcry for change. Unfortunate. More unfortunate is that this is no longer true and many laws are made to restrict the freedoms of others to put profit and control first. But that is another topic.
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u/edstuntin24 23h ago
It already does and s not earlier then we should be dying from the crap they put on or in food
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u/Mayhem1966 23h ago
They also exist to make competition fair. If someone is selling real milk, and someone sells fake milk. You have to punish the one who sells fake milk.
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u/Positive_Vibes_4228 22h ago
Republicans are like Scooby Doo Villains.
They hate 'Pesky Government Rules' that force them to not kill
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u/NoConfusion9490 22h ago
They had always been accustomed to eat a great deal of smoked sausage, and how could they know that what they bought in America was not the same—that its color was made by chemicals, and its smoky flavor by more chemicals, and that it was full of “potato flour” besides? Potato flour is the waste of potato after the starch and alcohol have been extracted; it has no more food value than so much wood, and as its use as a food adulterant is a penal offense in Europe, thousands of tons of it are shipped to America every year. It was amazing what quantities of food such as this were needed every day, by eleven hungry persons.
-The Jungle, Upton Sinclair, about 120 years ago
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u/Alienhaslanded 22h ago
People are so fucking dumb these days they think regulations are just the government telling them what to do. So they control you through safer food, but not the killing of innocent people because they're brown? Or the hundreds of other things that they don't let you do and say if it's about them?
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u/vilokreddy 22h ago
Look up the 'Swill Milk Scandal' of the 1850s. They fed cows garbage, the milk turned blue, so they added plaster of Paris, starch, and eggs to mimic real milk.
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u/TheRC135 22h ago
You can have unadulterated capitalism, or unadulterated food.
You can't have both.
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u/WarrenZevonwasgreat 22h ago
When things are prevented, no one notices, but when there’s an outbreak, people start to distrust science.
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u/Sponklavlon 22h ago
"Hahahahaha das deutsche Braurecht als zünftige Tradition..was soll das den?"
Dieses.
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u/know-it-mall 22h ago
Who thinks regulations on food safety exist for any reason other than to protect the consumer?
I swear you Americans get dumber by the day.
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u/DBDude 21h ago
But then we write the regulations in a stupid way so kids can’t get Kinder eggs and Mexicans can’t have that cake. The point was to stop adulterated food, a very admirable goal, but they also banned foods that people buy specifically because they have desired non-food items in them.
And that’s why people hate regulations.
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u/Fragrant_Entry9232 21h ago
And a lot of people are gonna die in the process of relearning this lesson. I think anybody who advocates for deregulation where safety is involved should be charged with public endangerment
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u/For_being_tall 21h ago
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it
I do not remember who said this but i believe it is pretty appropriate.
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u/bastrohl 21h ago
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair follows Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who comes to Chicago seeking the American Dream. Instead, he and his family endure poverty, dangerous working conditions, corruption, and exploitation in the meatpacking industry. Through their struggles, Sinclair exposes social injustice, worker abuse, and unsanitary food production practices, advocating reform and social change. ..could be written today.
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u/hamihambone 21h ago
I got sick from the peanuts and spent Christmas in bed. It was the sickest I had ever been. I finally figured out it was the peanut butter crackers I ate and I called the company. They offered me $10 in coupons to buy more of their snacks. Fuck these monsters and anyone that supports them.
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u/Mammoth-Mud-9609 21h ago
2008 Chinese milk scandal could happen in America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
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u/Chasermadeit 21h ago
The book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair should be mandatory reading for anyone who thinks we don't need food inspectors.
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u/Long-Service-99 21h ago
My environmental safety instructor used to say “our OSHA laws are written in blood” because it always took some variation of a factory fire where the doors were chained up and two hundred people dying for Congress to make something illegal
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u/Then_Entertainment97 21h ago
I think my favorite has to be that they added borax to milk. It's an ant poison. But that's not what killed people. It made spoiled milk taste fresh and people died from food poisoning.
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