The modifications are designed not just to make the product require less water or resist

The modifications are designed not just to make the product require less water, or resist particular ailments or insects, but to make it sweeter, rounder, more or less juicy or a more attractive colour. Extensive scientific testing, they say, also shows that the procedure is harmless. The World Trade Organisation now appears to accept these arguments and last week decreed that the EU’s ban on beef bred with hormone additives is unwarranted.Exactly what proportion of fruit and vegetables on sale in US supermarkets has been genetically modified is not recorded – a supermarket chain that tried to find out received replies from only 20 per cent of suppliers. It is no good having automatic toilet-flushing and requiring staff to wear caps and gloves and cover all hair and beards (as at Hudson), if even a small portion of one batch of what turns out to be contaminated meat is held over and added to an unspecified part of the next day’s production. At Hudson, this practice made it impossible to trace where the bacteria might be found, which is why the plant was summarily closed.Public insouciance about the application of technology has led to the acceptance (or ignorance) of developments that may be insufficiently tested or regulated. Dubious practices at one plant – in this case a meat plant in the cattle country of Nebraska belonging to an Arkansas- based firm Hudson Foods Inc – can affect wholesale and retail customers across America.

The hamburgers produced by Hudson Foods made their way into 28 states, two of the country’s biggest supermarket chains – Wal- Mart and Safeway – and most of the Burger King restaurants in the Midwest (which were suddenly unable to supply any burgers at all, when the suspect meat had been recalled).The reams of regulation invite different interpretations and corner-cutting which may negate the hyper-hygiene dictated by law, however dutifully observed. Whether you want a restaurant meal of steak and salad, a T-bone for the home barbecue or a hamburger and fries from the local takeaway, the national consensus is that it should be accessible to all – and, mostly, it is.This admirable picture, however, has another side which is reflected in the shortcomings that have come to light during the investigation into the recent outbreak of E coli food poisoning in Colorado.The United States is a huge market, and vast food processing conglomerates have grown up to supply it. Thanks to their innate optimism and their faith in the benefits of scientific advance, Americans also had few qualms about intensive methods in agriculture, or the swift application of technical advances.
The interests of farmers in economies of method and scale, the interests of the food industry in efficiency and profit, and the interests of consumers in cheap and plentiful food, all seemed to come together in a symphony of affordable abundance that is still the envy of world. Letter: Exam question

Sir:You report (25 August) that Trinity College, Cambridge has seen an increase in the number of first-class degrees, from 26 per cent to 34.1 per cent. May I ask on behalf of my GCSE students whether this represents a decline in the standard of the examinations set?
Dr W A PENNYWhitley Bay, North Yorkshire. Letter: Blair’s boar

Sir: I read with interest the press reports of the Prime Minister’s holiday eating.

Local wild boar in a white wine sauce, home-made pasta with a wild hare sauce and rabbit in a wine sauce were enjoyed.
I thought Mr Blair was against sporting pursuits and not a fan of the countryside rally. What don’t I understand? Will these culinary delights be available only to the overseas traveller in years to come?PAUL M COOPER. There was a time, not so long ago, when Americans had a simple, if – to Europeans – somewhat naive, attitude to the food they ate If the government said it was safe, then it was. That confidence was grounded, first, in the touching belief that the government had the best interests of Americans at heart, and, second, in the plethora of rules, regulations and labelling requirements that govern food production and sales in the US. It was further reinforced by the near-certainty that the food in the supermarket, with few and clearly displayed exceptions, was all-American, produced in the US by Americans, for Americans.