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Show ; America's Food: Safest Ever i Agriculture is the ultimate success story of the American private enterprise system. Yet increasingly in recent years, some in our t society have insisted on fretting about the "safety" or nutritional i value of the nation's food supply. In a hard hitting address earlier this month (June 6), Agriculture Secretary Earl L. Butz blasted some of the myths perpetuated by these fretters. ' "The biggest problem we have with our food in this country ', today is eating too much of it," Butz told the Institute of Food Technologists, meeting in Anaheim, California. "If our food supply is not nutritious and delicious, how come we see so many people overweight from eating it?" The Secretary - not one to mince words - criticized the Delaney X Clause to the Food Additive Amendment passed by Congress in 1958. The clause says, in effect, that any additive found to cause f- cancer in animals or humans cannot be added to foods. I "On the surface this would seem to be a good idea," said Butz. V "In practice it has turned out to be utter nonsense one of the worst b legislative additives of all times. A law or an amendment that requires zero tolerance of any substance leaves no room what- soever for the judgment of scientists who might make new findings about the risk-benefit ratio of any particular food additive. t, "Such laws flatly say 'no to technology and research that might p often prove of great overall benefit in food storage and preser- j vation - and in preserving human health. This is the extreme w position this country now finds itself in with regard to our food t supply." f He noted the irony of "food faddists and extremists" stewing about the "safest and most nutritious food supply the world has .' ever known" a safety provided in part by modern processing and food additives. I In modern times, science has added Vitamin D to milk and i conquered rickets; has put Vitamin C in foods and virtually G eliminated scurvy; has added nitrites to fish and meats while they are curing and helped control the threat of deadly botulism. Thanks to such advances coupled with the wonders of modern medicine - the average life expectancy of Americans since 1900 has p gone from 47 years to over.70. Given these facts, it is difficult to argue with Butz's contention t that J'when man doesn't have anything to worry about, he invents something; and by and large that is what too many Americans have done with regard to our food supplies." |