The New Food Safety

A safe food supply is essential for a healthy society. Our food system is replete with different types of risk, yet food safety is often narrowly understood as encompassing only foodborne illness and other risks related directly to food ingestion. This Article argues for a more comprehensive definition of food safety, one that includes not just acute, ingestion-related risks, but also whole-diet cumulative ingestion risks, and cradle-to-grave risks of food production and disposal. This broader definition, which we call “Food System Safety,” draws under the header of food safety a variety of historically siloed, and under-regulated, food system issues including nutrition, environmental protection, and workplace safety. The current narrow approach to food safety is inadequate. First, it contributes to irrational resource allocation among food system risks. Second, it has collateral consequences for other food system risks, and, third, its limited focus can undermine efforts to achieve narrow food safety. A comprehensive understanding of food safety illuminates the complex interactions between narrow food safety and other areas of food system health risks. We argue that such an understanding could facilitate improved allocation of resources and assessment of tradeoffs, and ultimately support better health and safety outcomes for more people. We offer a variety of structural and institutional mechanisms for embedding this approach into federal agency action

The relationship of anger expression to health problems among black americans in a national survey

This study examined the relationship between anger expression, other psychosocial measures, and health problems in a nationally representative, cross-sectional sample of 1277 black adults. Subjects indicating a high level of outwardly expressed anger during a period in which they experienced a severe personal problem had a significantly higher number of health problems than their counterparts who expressed low and moderate levels of anger. Anger expression also significantly interacted with a measure of life strain (employment status) to predict health problems. Blacks who were unemployed were more likely to have a higher number of health problems if anger was expressed outwardly at a high level. The relationship was found to be independent of age, gender, urbanicity, smoking, and drinking problems. The overall pattern of the findings suggests that blacks who are at increased risk for health problems may be identified by how often anger is experienced and expressed during periods of emotional distress.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44809/1/10865_2004_Article_BF00846419.pd

Life cycle costing and food systems: Concepts, trends, and challenges of impact valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies

Life cycle costing and food systems: Concepts, trends, and challenges of impact valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies