Presidential Candidate John Edwards hopes to make US food more consumer fiendly if elected.

Paul Kaldjian is an Associate Professor of Geography as well as a Geography of Food professor at UWEC.

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Edwards' views translate to UWEC community

Audio version of this story    UW-Eau Claire Geography Professor Paul Kaldjian. (Photo from UWEC)

Eating food is something that everyone has to do to survive.  No matter where it comes from, the food we eat has to be free of chemicals and pesticides to ensure the safety of the consumer. Nearly 92 percent of Americans want to know which country produced the food they are buying, a poll done by MSNBC said in mid-July.

Food is both imported and grown locally, and buyer deserves to have the right to know exactly what the product went through during the process to consumption, according to presidential candidate John Edwards.

One of Edwards’ goals is to make imported food friendlier by putting country-of-origin labeling on each product to give buyers a better understanding of where their food came from.

UW-Eau Claire Geography Professor Paul Kaldjian thinks Edwards is on the right track with labeling but says there is still some work to do. 

“The labeling is nice but incomplete.” Kaldjian said . “What do they do with the information?”

Kaldjian said he wants to see more labeling from within the country rather than labeling from outside of the country because he can get more information from a local label rather than just a country.

According to the John Edwards Website, Americans eat about 260 pounds of imported foods a year and less than one percent is inspected by the Food and Drug Administration. 

The second of Edwards’ goals is to make the FDA more involved with imported food. 

Kaldjian said the thinks Edwards’ outlook on the FDA will benefit in the long-term but will also have more of an impact on the local market rather than the national market. 

“The FDA needs to more honest, rather than a political power,” said Kaldjian.

Other 2008 presidential candidates agree with Edwards and most are on the Democratic side. Several of the Democratic candidates were in Iowa in early November to speak about food safety, led by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

If the nation began to practice a healthier lifestyle, people could live longer and become smarter. There is a lot of hurdles to jump over in order to making these goals more of a reality, but in the long run, the nation will benefit from eating healthier food.