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Article: Nation's food safety program relies on unlikely group of volunteers.(Washington)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Food Institute Report
- Article date:
- August 18, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Food Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The backbone of nation's patchwork food-safety system rests largely on one group of retired women in Belton, MO, revealed USA Today (Aug. 13). The women, all volunteers, gather in the basement kitchen of Belton United Methodist Church on 16 Friday mornings a year to make up meals which FDA scientists will pull apart, counting the nutrients and searching for pesticides and other contaminants lurking in the food supply. The cooks must precisely follow FDA's recipes, mixing ingredients bought in different cities for a nationally representative sample of meals.
The project, known as the "Total Diet Study," measures traces of chemicals in the average diet--levels ...