Edible Violence

For a quiet man, Ralph Nader has made a great many enemies. Since 1964, when he first accused the automobile industry of making unsafe cars, the one-man consumer lobby has taken on mine owners, television manufacturers, union leaders and bank holding companies. Last week, Nader was on the attack again. His target: the U.S. food industry.

His Master's Choice. Testifying before Senator George McGovern's Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, the all-purpose crusader accused the food industry of doctoring its products for taste, color and texture at the expense of purity and quality. Claiming that the industry adds unnecessary and possibly dangerous ingredients to foods, he charged it with endangering the health of the American public. Said Nader: "The silent violence of harmful food products ranges from minor discomforts to erosion of bodily processes, shortening of life or sudden death."

In fact, reported Nader, U.S. pets may actually eat better than their owners. While much food for human consumption bears no nutritional information on package labels, dog-food makers stress the nutritional value of their products. As a result, Nader said, some low-income families take to eating dog food.

Like Muckraker Upton Sinclair, whose exposure of conditions in Chicago slaughterhouses led to enactment of the nation's first strong meat-inspection law, Nader is particularly critical of the meat-packing industry. He directed one of his strongest attacks at hamburgers and hot dogs, labeling them "shamburgers" and "fatfurters." The targets, singled out by President Nixon, were well chosen. The fat content of the ubiquitous wiener has risen from 18.6% to 31.2% in 30 years, while its protein content has dropped from 19.6% to 11.8%. Noting the possible relationship between high fat intake and heart disease, Nader branded the 15 billion hot dogs consumed annually in the country among "America's deadliest missiles."

Regulation Hit. No less dangerous, according to Nader, is baby food. He told the committee that the salt and monosodium glutamate added to baby foods serves no nutritional purpose and may actually cause harm. A team of physicians backed him up. They testified that the salt could cause hypertension. They reported that flavor-enhancing MSG, which is added to baby foods to please test-tasting parents, produces the headaches and chest pains of "Chinese-restaurant syndrome" in adults and causes brain and eye damage in test animals. The doctors urged that MSG be removed from the Food and Drug Administration's list of "safe drugs."

While scoring food producers--who will present their case to the committee this week--Nader was no less gentle with regulatory agencies. Acknowledging the FDA's manpower and budgetary problems, he criticized its failure to conduct its own research or release results. Charging that the Agriculture Department is more industry-than consumer-oriented, he said that its inspection practices were characterized by "widespread complicity, incompetence and demoralization among the inspector corps."

To cure the country's nutritional ailments, Nader prescribed a heightened sense of responsibility for the food industry and stepped-up Government inspection. The latter is likelier than the former. Congress has already responded to Nader's campaign against unsound automobiles by legislating strict safety requirements for new cars. It reacted to his testimony on the quality of meat products by passing the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967, and to his disclosures on poultry with the Wholesome Poultry Products Act of 1968. His past crusades on the whole have been well documented, though often sensationalized and overdramatized. Unless his latest charges prove to be exaggerated, Congress will probably again be responsive to his warnings. All Americans may not drive cars, but all of them do eat.

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