Should meat, produce and nut food labels include place of origin for products, just like fish products?

Yes

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Should the food we buy be clearly labeled so we know where it has come from? Of course! Don't you care where your food comes from? If our food is not labeled correctly and honestly then our right to choose what we buy is effectively taken away.

Since we have to eat, we have to buy something but our power as consumers to vote with our feet is difficult to exercise if we don't know what is available.

The UK is in the difficult situation that any change to food labeling has to be EU wide that is, agreed and adopted by all the member states of the European Union. Lots of our supermarkets like to promote their packaged meat as British, proudly displaying the Union Jack flag, but did you know that the meat doesn't have to actually come from Britain to be called British? It is legal to label the meat as produced in whichever country it was last processed. So you could import ham from Hungary, say, then smoke it in Britain and label it as British. It's crazy!

The United States is finally drawing closer to landmark legislation that will force food companies to state the origin of certain cuts of beef, pork and lamb as well as peanuts, fruits and vegetables. Being a Texan, it is hardly surprising that George W Bush has not made any efforts to push the legislation forward. In fact much of the food industry has been against the moves; grocery stores and meat packing companies have been amongst the most vocal. They say that tracking the origin of foods is too time-consuming and entails too much paperwork. They claim that it will lead to inevitable price rises. Of, course, its hardly surprising that they say this; the majority of beef sold in American grocery stores is a mix of US and Mexican produce.

So if we don't know where our food comes from, and the people who sell it don't know, then how can they and then WE know that it's safe. And, furthermore, how can we make important decisions about buying locally and not clocking up those food miles that are so dangerous to the environment?

The answer is simple unless we buy from local, independent farmers, we can't make those decisions. But not everything we want to buy can be sourced close to home so we have to put our trust in the stores at some point.

Another reason that food should be labeled this way is that it's what people want. Isn't that a good enough reason? In a recent poll in America 92 per cent want "country of origin" labels.*

Why are we letting business bully us in this way? Quite simply, we are fair game; we want low prices and we don't all have access to specialist butchers shops or farm stores? As often happens, it is the poorest members of society who have the fewest choices. This is why we need accurate food labeling: if we do not, then big business does what it wants. Depriving us our of right to choose and risking us eat poor quality or contaminated foods while they make a fat profit out of our ignorance.

Recently we have had major scares from contaminated poultry originating from Hungary in the UK and in the US from tainted fish from China. If we don't know what it is, how do we know to avoid it?

Consumers are pretty patriotic; we like to buy our own produce and these days we like to buy local. We can't do that if the food is not labeled.

There will always be a large number of people who don't care where their food comes from and that's fine. Let them eat low quality rubbish because its cheap; let them eat fruit that has been picked by people living below the poverty threshold so long as you let those who do care have access to the important information.

Grocery stores ought to realize that there is a growing demand for produce that has been organically grown by independent producers and get this stuff in their stores. There are people willing to pay more for peace of mind. Labeling will just be one more step towards improving the quality of our food.

Learn more about this author, Fiona Thompson.
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