Food Safety Authority there to protect the growers – not the eaters

Fresh-food testers discover chemicals 200% over limit
Chemical residues up to 200 per cent above legal limits were found in fresh produce sampled for the Food Safety Authority. The annual food residue surveillance programme tested unwashed capsicum, strawberries, lettuce, mushrooms and courgettes, from growers whom the authority will not name. Only the courgette samples were all within the maximum residue levels for fungicides, insecticides and other agricultural chemicals. In the other four categories, 10 of the 108 samples exceeded the legal limits by between 10 and 200 per cent.

There won’t be any prosecutions from these results, and consumers won’t be told who is doing it, this follows a story yesterday that many foods don’t meet the nutritional information of the packaging and indeed the packaging is really just a marketing element that the producer doesn’t really ever intend to uphold. Each time the Food Authority tells us why they are a gutless wonder and why these results are dreadful, and it’s always aimed at saving the food producer and not the consumer – which is exactly what the Food Authority is, it’s interests to look after consumers are dwarfed by their main concern to look after producers, and news that some producers have gone over the limits by as much as 200% and no consumer will know about who it is and no one will be prosecuted really highlights this.