aussie made asks why you don’t think about what’s in your food

Did you see the Aussie Made expose about what we’re really getting in our imported foods?

According to Aussie Made, if you’re not buying Australian Grown food then you just don’t know what you’re getting and you possibly don’t care about your own or your family’s wellbeing.

The consumer and business site, which claims to have been helping shoppers, businesses and indeed Australia for 25 years, yesterday launched a major attack on imported foods, quoting Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) testing results on imported foods. And if a picture can tell 1000 words, then the images on the Aussie Grown website must have an entire book behind them –

The Aussie Made website states the following:

“Unfortunately, AQIS only tests around 5% of the produce coming into Australia, which means the other 95% is tested by, well, shoppers like you and me. If that alone isn’t food for thought, try this. We buy more than 5.5 billion dollars worth of imported food every year. That’s billions of dollars that isn’t going to our farmers and their local communities.

So what can you do? The simple answer is buy Australian grown produce when you can. It’s better for you, your family and our farmers.”

The message, apparently, is simple –

is aussie made just trying to scare us (and do we care if they are)?

Well I guess you could ask what Aussie Made has to gain by revealing this information. As they say, this is just the facts – and not even all of them. Perhaps I’m a little naive, but the primary answer seems to be encouraging us to support Australian food and farming. Which is surely not a terrible thing?

The flipside, of course, as comedian Dave Hughes asked last night on The 7pm Project, is the question of how we would feel if other countries decided to stop buying from Australia. And considering the billions of dollars worth of food exported each year, we probably wouldn’t feel so great. Aussie Made has a simple answer for this one – unlike other countries, the standards of our food production are so high that should other countries put us to the test, we would pass with flying colours.

the real question: is aussie made all we should be considering?

I completely agree with Aussie Made that we should at least stop to think about the food we buy. Consider where it’s come from and what standards of growing and processing it’s been subject to. And if you are in fact someone who thinks about what they buy, rather than just gravitating to the brightest and shiniest goodies on the grocery shelf, then surely this begs the question of whether Aussie Made is, in fact, all we should be looking for.

Issues of food miles, possible contamination from strange overseas beasties, and supporting the Aussie battler farmers aside, one of the most important questions to ask about your food is, quite simply, what it has to offer you.

(more) food for thought

• Is it organically grown and farmed?
• Has it been sprayed with all sorts of ‘approved’ yet questionable pesticides, herbicides and fungicides?
• Does it contain additives/non-foods?
• Has it been kept in storage for months (or longer), sprayed and flavoured and otherwise injected to make it look and feel good?
• Is it seasonal?
• Would you have access to this food in nature; is it a ‘real’ food?
• If it’s seafood, has it been sustainable fished?
• If it’s meat, is it grass-fed? 100% free range?

My take?

Aussie Made is a great start, and I’m all for supporting local trade. But the truth is that once you start thinking, you just can’t stop, can you? And when it comes to what you put in your mouth there’s a heck of a lot to get you thinking.

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