Thursday, April 11th 2002

We are a society concerned with food. We plan our lives around mealtime. Food is at the center of our celebrations. It's what we use to comfort ourselves in times of sadness. Yet in the U.S. alone, an estimated 76 million Americans get sick, over 300,000 are hospital-ized, and 5,000 die annually from food-related illnesses. Lurking in the background as we sit down at the table are troubling questions about the very food we are eating.

• There are reports about 'mad-cow disease', Salmonella, and other potential contaminants infiltrating the food supply. Is our food safe? And who makes that decision?
• Advances in biotechnology now permit new combinations of genes to be introduced into our foods. These genetically modified (GM) foods have been developed to ensure resistance to diseases in the field, longer shelf life in the store, or better nutritional content. But how do such foods affect our health, the environment, our view of nature? Can GM foods help relieve food scarcity in developing countries or might they, instead, cause economic hardships that make matters worse? Who should make decisions regarding GM foods?
• Many of us are turning to dietary supplements to improve our health. How much do we know about the possibility of herbal overdose, drug interactions, or malnutrition?
• Recent events have intensified concerns about bioterrorism. Could our own food supply be targeted? What can we do to protect it and ourselves?

At the Food Frights forum, we explored these questions from a variety of perspectives so that we can make better informed — and wiser — decisions for ourselves, our families, our clients, and our communities.

This Choices and Challenges "Food Frights" forum is a production of the
Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Virginia Tech in partnership with
the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Veterinary
Medicine, the College of Human Resources and Education, and the Virginia Cooperative Extension Family and Consumer Sciences program. Additional support has been provided by a grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy.