What's in my food?

I just finished reading Fateful Harvest by Duff Wilson, an Eric Brockovitch type book where the underdog local folks take on big industry. Essentially, a fertilizer company was taking the hazardous waste from other companies and converting it to fertilizer. Apparently there are loopholes where what was a hazardous waste can become a product as soon as it changes storage and/or labels. This fertilizer company was then selling their fertilizer to farmers, and some farmers ended up with fertilizer that contained enough other stuff to kill their crops. And unless other things are placed over the fertilizer, the plants will take up enough of the nasty stuff which will then pass through the food chain when the plants are eaten, either by humans or by cows which are then eaten by humans or produce milk.

There were a couple of things that I got out of this book:

1) "We the people" no longer have a voice. We may elect politicians to their positions, but it's the corporations with their highly paid lobbyists that get the legislation they want passed.

2) I worry about what kinds of chemicals and nasty stuff are in the food I buy, including the fruits and vegetables, the meats, fish, and poultry. I tend to think more and more that I need to buy a plot of land where I can grow what I eat so I know what's in my food. But even still, any soil supplements, fertilizers, etc, the actual ingredients aren't listed on the bag, so I may still end up with cadmium or lead or other unwanted things. And that's making the assumption that the land I do eventually buy isn't already contaminated with this stuff.