The FDA and several of the food regulating bodies around the world are failing. The time has come for their final demise, and for responsible consumerism to reign supreme. However, because of the totalitarian dictatorship most regulating agencies have had over the food industry, the market is not yet ripe for such a change.

Food Regulation Cannot Keep Up

In "Losing My Appetite for Food Regulation" Part 1 and Part 2 I touched on the fact some populations, growth spurts, and technology advancements are just too much for food regulation to keep up. However, in the famous words of capitalist marketing - but wait, there's more!

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

What's wrong with China? Well...

"For 50 years," said Wang Wu, a professor at Shanghai Fisheries University, "we've blindly emphasized economic growth. The only pursuit has been G.D.P., and now we can see that the water turns dirty and the seafood gets dangerous. Every year, there are food safety and environmental pollution accidents." - Source: NY Times

One thing the Chinese are good at is admitting when they are wrong, or at least off track. But it's just a little late given the fact most of the water in China is now rated so low, it is not recommended for any use - much less fish farming.

Due to the total lack of food manufacturer transparency, the only real way to track what goes into your mouth is by watching what the food regulation agencies are talking about. In my reading of the recent news from miscellaneous agencies around the world, I couldn't help this prevailing thought - 'What the heck are they thinking?!'

Strange Things in the Food Supply

The good news is - they are finally going to start tracking cloned livestock. Although the U.S. FDA seems to think cloned livestock is safe, I'm still just a little nervous about the prospect of cloning in our food supply.

Sustainability Blog, like many others, seem to think the practices of corporations, socially responsible or otherwise, are like the news on TV - we just watch it happen. There is another popular opinion that CSR is just a bunch of propaganda and marketing. I don't entirely agree with either opinion.

Corporate Social Responsibility isn't just something we watch. CSR is a full contact sport, and requires your participation. Not only by choosing to boycott the companies that are not socially responsible, not only by speaking out against unjust corporate practices - no, there is a lot more to CSR than meets the eye.

Google didn't cooperate with OWT - and so they struck back in their 2007 accountability report. They even managed to give a completely false assessment on Google [pdf] "based on publicly available information." I am not going to consider OWT a good resource after this, and you probably shouldn't either.

Gross Inaccuracy #1

"Based on publicly available information, Google does not make any commitments to operating in an open and transparent manner."

Uhm - what about all of Google's blogs and highly informational press releases? Or are they just faking all that public transparency?

I don't know about you, but I've wanted a Shelby Cobra for as long as I can remember - and now I don't have to feel guilty about getting one. That particular Shelby pictured above (photo by Dave Bullock) is a brand spanking new kit car from HST Automotive converted to use K2 battery horse power.

It was one of the many electric transportation solutions showcased in the International Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS) this year, with a lot more where that came from over at Wired.

But wait, there's more!