Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: “We just proposed rules that would require calories, labeling in restaurant menus in chain restaurants around the country... We are going to be updating the nutrition facts panel on the back of packages and (the government is) looking to update serving sizes ...We’ve got a lot on our plate.”
Debra Eschmeyer, outreach director, National Farm to School Network, and co-founder of FoodCorps: “Well, Julia Child had it right. It’s about romance, it’s about relationships. We’ve taken the relationship out of food with the farmer, with where it’s grown, how it’s grown, who picked it. I quote Julia Child left and right and she really does bring it home a lot about trying to make it so that when you’re having a meal, you’re having it with friends and family, you’re sitting down, you’re enjoying it.”
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana): “The rise of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and who controls the seed is one that’s particularly disturbing to me as a farmer. With GMOs, farmers don’t control the seed, multinational agribusiness does. You’ve probably heard about these transgenic plants. A gene is taken from a microorganism, a plant or even an animal, inserted into another plant. You and I have heard over and over that our only hope to feed the planet, as our population grows is GMOs. Well, I’m here to tell you that I don’t buy it. What is has done and what it continues to do is take away options for family farmers. And it takes away options for consumers. If we keep moving down this path, farmers won’t be able to control their seed, something they have done since the beginning of time. And no longer will you truly know what you’re eating. And once the genie is out of the bottle and they’re introduced there’s no going back. For family farmers in rural America it’s hard to compete with consolidation and centralization. Consider this. Four meat cap--meat packing companies control 84 percent of our nation’s beef. Just 10 percent of our nation’s egg producers produce 99 percent of the eggs we consume. And only two-tenths of one percent of the nation’s food manufacturers produce 53 percent of the nation’s food. That’s the reason--there’s a reason why in the ‘70s, Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz said, “If you’re in production in agriculture you need to get big, or get out.”
Sam Kass, assistant chef and senior policy adviser for healthy food initiatives at the White House: “Our greatest grain agriculture is 80 percent of our farmland. We eat more wheat, in particular, than we eat corn, oats, all the grains combined. So if we are going to change the food system, it seems to me that we’re going to have to learn to both re-appreciate and learn to regrow this mix of whole grains, often inherited grains – grains that don’t easily grow in a monoculture but grow in great succession and are better for the soil and better for our health.”
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