New Fears for Food: Old Foes, A New Threat; Irradiation: Promise or Threat?; Emerging Diseases 2003
p://www.cambridgeeducational.com/">Cambridge Educational, PO Box 931, Monmouth Junction, NJ 08852-0931; 800-468-4227
Produced by Cambridge Educational
Directed by Gayle Friedman
VHS, color, 3 tapes, approx. 20 min. each
Sr. High - Adult
Agriculture, Biology, Environmental Studies, Food, Health Sciences, Science
Date Entered: 11/09/2018
Reviewed by Buzz Haughton, Shields Library, University of California, DavisThis is a series entitled New Fears for Food consisting of three separate but related-in-content videocassettes. Old Foes, A New Threat concentrates on food borne diseases, interviewing experts at various government agencies about how modern methods of food production have resulted in contaminated food being transmitted over vastly greater distances than in previous generations, resulting in potentially much greater exposure of dispersed populations to food contaminants like E. coli.
Irradiation: Promise or Threat? Examines the three types of food irradiation now in use in the U.S. but adopts a decided editorial viewpoint in favor of food irradiation, ignoring, for instance, the expressed opinion of some U.S. government agencies that consumers do not need to be informed that foods have been irradiated.
Emerging Diseases covers such food-transmitted diseases as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prion diseases that have resulted in many deaths in England but so far have not spread to this country in appreciable numbers.
Overall, this set gives valuable factual insight into the dangers and ways to minimize risk in the use of food, even though its editorial viewpoint tends toward attitudes adopted and fostered by U.S. government agencies. Recommended for undergraduate audiovisual collections in academic libraries as well as large public libraries that collect in the area of food science and environmental studies.