From eggs to bread: will scare stories ever end?
NOT sure how many people actually do it these days, but if you like to go to work on an egg the latest advice is that you can now do it on a runny one as safely as you can do it on a well-cooked one.
For, 28 years after Edwina Currie inadvisedly stated during a TV interview that most of the egg production in the country was infected with salmonella, the authorities look set to deem runny eggs safe for everyone – provided they carry the British Lion stamp of approval.
Egg producers have worked hard to virtually wipe out the risk of salmonella – but their efforts to convince the Food Standards Agency to move away from its ultra-cautious approach has been a long, uphill battle.
There was a fad for food scares back in the 1980s and 90s. The egg scare was followed by the BSE, or mad cow, scare – a piece of hysteria which threatened to ruin the UK’s beef industry, even though it affected mainly dairy cattle.
Again, the country’s farmers had costly rules and regulations heaped on them, many of which are still in place – despite no such cases for years.
Indeed, it is hoped that Scotland can soon gain international “negligible risk” status – which would help if we wanted to export beef to countries such as the US and Canada again.
Then there was the “Frankenfoods” scare over genetically modified crops, which showed that in an important industry like food production you’re never more than a few misguided TV or newspaper reports away from a scare story.
The fuss in recent months over the weedkiller glyphosate shows nothing has changed.
Despite the fact it has been used safely for years, some groups want to stop its licence being renewed.
Drawing on new, ultra-sensitive techniques, these campaigners claim that small traces can sometimes be found in bread.
They don’t mention that you’d need to eat something like 700 loaves a day for decades to feel any ill-effects, though.
But if they get their way and the weedkiller is banned, it could mean grain in Scotland’s wet climate being left in the fields to rot.
Although there’s little chance this would lead to people in this country suffering from famine, buying more food in from abroad could well mean many folk in poorer countries going to bed hungry.