Is it the chicken or the egg? Both, it seems, after last week’s news about an alarming rise in food-poisoning cases.
Eggs, free-range at that, were identified as one source of a recent Victorian outbreak; in the US last week the Organic Consumers Association attributed the birds themselves, albeit factory-farm fowls, as “the most deadly source” of the bugs we can get from food.
It’s both the way we grow our food and the way it is handled in its raw state – vegetable or animal – that matters.
Contamination of food and water sources with antibiotics, hormones and faecal matter is the major public health challenge of highly urbanised societies. We are breeding super-bugs.
Food standards need rigorous enforcement. A trustworthy good food guarantee, underwritten by the federal government as a national health code, is overdue.
