Yesterday, we attended the quarterly International Food Information Council (IFIC) Food Safety and Defense (FS&D) Communications Forum along with representatives from several food animal producer groups, a number of leading scientists and several well-known nutrition experts.

With a mission to “communicate science-based information on food safety and nutrition to health and nutrition professionals, educators, journalists, government officials and others providing information to consumers,” IFIC is really doing a great job of monitoring and communicating trends and confronting the challenges to food safety that we all face. Hats off to them!

A lot of good information was presented at yesterday’s meeting, including findings from the IFIC Foundation 2008 Food & Health Survey. Among the findings that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been tracking some of the recent food safety issues is the fact that 45% of Americans feel confident in the US food supply, while 26% say they are not confident and 29% say they are neither confident nor unconfident. Over one-quarter of Americans don’t trust the food supply? If I were in Congress, I’d certainly sit up and take notice!

It’s interesting to note that the same survey shows that Americans’ confidence goes up when it comes to safely preparing foods for themselves and their families -- with 82% of the respondents saying they trust themselves to safely prepare foods. That may be true, but how do they know that food is safe in the first place?

Our guess is that they’re confident that a knowledgeable, competent person – usually a veterinarian – has inspected that food. And that, rules and regulations were followed before that dairy product, meat protein and even fruits and vegetables went to market. Let’s hope so!

A webcast on the survey is available here.

We’ll have more information from IFIC in the future, including more links to some of the great resources available on their web site. In the meantime, we’re thankful to be able to collaborate with groups like the IFIC – all of us working together to make sure that cool glass of milk, that juicy hamburger and that apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is a safe as it is yummy.