CNN Student News - 03/28/16
This Monday: the series finale of our look into the U.S. food industry. We're exploring the challenges associated with produce, including the stress on farmers.
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Welcome to a special edition of CNN STUDENT NEWS. I`m Carl Azuz.
Today, we`re wrapping up our series on the U.S. food supplies, zeroing on produce.
This is our last installment of CNN special " Raw Ingredients" , taking a look at how engineering and importing have replaced old fashion growing in the U.S.
Food industry and how consumer demand still has the power to influence the industry.
Our reporter Cristina Alesci has gone inside some of America`s biggest companies, seeing what most folks haven`t seen before, getting incredible insight as to how production affects what`s on our plate.
CRISTINA ALESCI, CNNMONEY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Salads. Americans are eating up to five times more leafy greens than they did 20 years ago.
We`re consuming three billion pounds a year. But our intensifying love affair with fresh produce is creating problems for farmers, for the environment, and even for our own health.
One in six Americans, that`s 48 million people, get sick from contaminated food each year, 3,000 die. Don`t you think it`s coming from undercooked meat and fish? Well, produce is actually responsible for about half of the illnesses.
MANSOUR SAMADPOUR, PHD, PRESIDENT, IEH LABORATORIES: Any industry that wants to produce safe foods, they can`t do that. ALESCI: Dr. Mansour Samadpour runs one of the nation`s largest food safety consulting labs.
Chipotle recently hired his company to assess and improve safety standards after the government traced an outbreak of E. coli back to some of its stores. He stocks listeria and salmonella in his office.
