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Eat To Live: Going after antibiotics

By JULIA WATSON
UPI Food Writer

DURHAM, England, June 30 (UPI) -- On the menu of the Rose & Crown, an 18th-century coaching inn in Romaldkirk in England's Yorkshire Dales, is Mr. Woodall's mature Cumberland ham with fresh figs.

There's also Loch Fyne smoked salmon, cheeses from neighboring farms and a host of other local possibilities which, while not bearing anyone's name in particular, have been sourced from an area within easy driving distance of the pub.

Apart from the delight of eating stuff that comes from somewhere you can picture in your mind as you stare out of the ancient windows beyond the old stocks (in which minor offenders were clamped to face public scorn) and up to hills spotted with free-grazing sheep rising into the distance, should you have any complaint (unlikely) with what you've consumed, you know where to go with it.

Sourcing food locally not only means supporting local growers, it also means that they have to maintain a standard both in taste and safety that guarantees they won't be deluged by diners waving fists and cudgels in response to some food drama that may have overwhelmed their stomachs or their taste buds.

But because so little food is locally sourced, we should be glad of the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

This is one of the better achievements of the World Trade Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The Codex forms the basis of food legislation in many of the countries that are signatories to it -- some 173 member states plus the European Community.

It is meeting again next week to look at new proposals that should protect us further from disease caused by food contamination.

It will be discussing, among many subjects, the maximum acceptable level for lead in fish; the maximum limit for cadmium (which can give you kidney damage) in rice, mollusks and more; ways to prevent contamination of Brazil nuts by carcinogenic aflatoxin, and the means to prevent and reduce toxic and carcinogenic dioxin and other PCB contaminants in food and feed.

But of real interest is that the members will tackle the issue of antibiotics in animal feed. Should everyone agree, a Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance will be established.

At last we could see something done about the established fact that antibiotics in animals can produce bacteria that become resistant to drugs in animals and humans. These bacteria can appear in our food through the slaughtering process. Once we consume disease-resistant bacteria, it is possible they could cause diseases in us for which we have no known treatment.

If it goes through, the Codex Task Force would be free to develop a risk assessment policy to lower the food safety hazards associated with the use of antimicrobials, as these are called.

Let's hope there's no resistance from the delegates.

But our best protection from unsafe food is to buy, as best we can, food that has traceability. Suppliers who are proud enough of their foods to reveal who they are, and where they are operating, are unlikely to be tampering with their produce. If we look after their livelihoods by supporting them, they will look after the quality of what we eat.

You many not be able to buy Mr. Woodall's ham unless you travel to the north of England. But what the Rose & Crown did with it can be emulated by anyone with a local supply of good Parma or Serano ham, which his Cumberland ham is not unlike.

Just ask your supplier to cut two slices per person as thinly as possible. Pleat it loosely on a plate and set beside it a couple of really ripe figs you have cut through only up to their stems in four. Then glug over the ham a little really good olive oil and a grinding of black pepper.

It's important with Parma ham not to buy it too far ahead. Like other products of quality, the fresher it is, the better it tastes. And anyone who takes the fat off the ham should be put into the stocks at Romaldkirk: The proportion of fat to lean is a vital part of Parma ham's appeal.