Putting It Where Your Mouth Is

The radiation-contaminated food scare (which really began with leafy greens such as spinach back in March) made it back into the news this month with beef. The government's lack of a timely and united approach to the problem even led to radiation-contaminated beef being served in school lunches.

While many people chose to live in a bubble where as long as one doesn't "have a cow" they would be fine, others of us knew that there was no way the radiation-contaminated food scandal would end with the beef industry as its only victim.

Now it has become a fact of life to see signs in supermarkets such as this one (via NYT reporter, Hiroko Tabuchi).

Additional stories in the news this week raise questions about the safety of our seafood (here, via Bloomberg) and indeed of our entire food chain (here, via The Japan Times).

I wrote on Twitter earlier today:

The JP gov'ts motto in monitoring food supply for radiation seems to be: The economy first. The people's health second.

What choice do we have, but to trust the government to monitor our food supply... the same government which is a party to the silencing of the truth such as this:

What is our choice? What alternative do we have but to hope that the government has the people's best interest at heart and are diligently monitoring the food supply?

I wonder what the bureaucrats in Tokyo are eating. Are they as worried about the food supply as the people they serve? What are they feeding their children and grandchildren?

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(added Aug 2, 2011)

This story from Reuters outlines the worries and potential threat to this year's rice crop. Let's hope the central government can get on top of this issue to determine the safety of rice- a staple food of the Japanese diet- before it goes to market... unlike they were able to do for beef.