From mercury in tuna and wood pulp in parmesan cheese to ground beef treated with ammonia to retard E. coli (“pink slime”), the press does a good job exposing the dangerous and deceptive practices of Big Food. The problem is, the public forgets about the food risk or contamination, assuming that reform is in the works and that is just fine with Big Food. Often nothing changes.
For example, many thought the problem of mercury in tuna had been solved since it has been so widely reported. But Time [3] recently wrote “the latest analysis shows that eating fish the way the government recommends is exposing people, especially pregnant women, to unsafe levels of mercury.” And two years after the nation’s stomach was turned by pink slime, its manufacturer Beef Products, Inc. had reopened [4] plants and even filed [5] a defamation lawsuit against ABC and Diane Sawyer. Who are you calling pink slime?
Here are some hidden-in-plain-sight facts Big Food doesn’t want you to know.
1. Meat preservatives cause cancer.