Other articles by Shelley Shelton:

Red Rock: bliss in the booniesRed Rock is growing up Community notes Caring for little ones is a big job Marana lauds two long-timers Budget gets council's OK, but not without some cuts Public is welcome here Town puts in place new ethics policy Community notes Community notes

Health Care
Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION General
A1 Communications
Cable Techs

For those who've been alarmed by recent scares involving tainted imported products, there's bad news and … moderately comforting news.

The bad news: There's not a lot that U.S. consumers can do to protect themselves from tainted imported foods. In fact, it's hard even to know which foods are imported.

The better news is that considering the vast amounts of food streaming into our country from other places annually, the percentage found to be tainted is quite small.

That's not much consolation for the folks whose pets died earlier this year after eating pet food laced with melamine, an ingredient that also went into swine and poultry feed. Nor does it comfort the families of 51 Panamanians who died after ingesting cold medicine tainted with diethylene glycol — a thickening agent used in antifreeze that spurred a toothpaste recall earlier this month here in the United States.

Add to that the Food and Drug Administration's limited capacity to inspect food as it comes in — this year it will test about 1.3 percent of imported food — and people begin to worry about whether the food they're eating is as safe as it seems.

An unsavory list of food detained at our borders this spring includes frozen catfish tainted with illegal veterinary drugs, fresh ginger polluted with pesticides, melon seeds contaminated with a cancer-causing toxin and filthy dried dates.

About a quarter of our fruit, both fresh and frozen, is imported. For tree nuts, it's about half. And for fish and shellfish, more than two-thirds come from overseas.

With imported food on the rise, consumer advocates are renewing their call for "country of origin labeling" that would tell food buyers where their food came from so they can choose to avoid foods from certain countries.

"It was put into place on seafood last year. For every other commodity, it's delayed," said Chris Waldrop, who oversees food safety on behalf of the Consumer Federation of America.

A 2002 farm bill required the labeling to go into effect for produce, meats, peanuts and seafood by September 2004, but implementation was delayed.

Now that seafood labeling has gone into effect, the other items are scheduled to start having origin labels in September 2008, Waldrop said.

The concept began as a consumer-information issue, but the recent food scares — mainly over foods coming from China — have raised the more serious problem of providing a way for consumers to protect themselves, he said.

But others in the food industry argue that all the labels in the world won't make the food itself any safer.

For one thing, our country has weathered repeated scares originating from domestic foods. Last week, Gills Onions LLC recalled California-grown, diced yellow onions because listeria had been detected in one retail bag. Last year saw recalls of domestic spinach due to E. coli contamination and peanut butter due to salmonella contamination.

"Having a sign (stating country of origin) that's likely to be inaccurate anyway isn't going to do much for food safety," said Lee Frankel, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas in Nogales, Ariz.

Rather, retailers should have their own safeguards in place, including dealing only with a set of secure, known suppliers rather than jumping from cheapest supplier to cheapest supplier, he said.

"In general, consumers are relying on the reputation of the retailer to do the right thing," Frankel said.

If they're still feeling uneasy about whether to buy food from a given retailer, Frankel said, consumers can call that store's consumer-affairs adviser to ask about safety policies for suppliers.

Aside from that, washing fresh produce once it gets home is a major preventive measure, he said.

Will Humble, assistant director for the Arizona Department of Health Services, said it's a matter of how much risk people are willing to accept into their lives.

"If your standard is, you're not willing to accept any risk, then you can just stick to bland, boring American foods that you know are produced by General Mills in Battle Creek, Michigan, or something," he said. "Rather than the country of origin, you ought to be looking at the sodium, fat and sugar labels."