Monmouth County Teen hopes to Convince Federal Lawmakers to Improve Safety of Imported Food Products

Colts Neck High School senior Christopher D'Urso is hoping to help close current loop holes in U-S laws that don't require originating countries to be listed on processed foods imported here.

The 17-year-old D'Urso testified at a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday about his personal experience during Christmas, 2011 after eating his family's traditional Italian pignoli cookies. "After eating those cookies I suffered from this bitter, metallic taste in my mouth that lasted for a few days. So, I looked it up and and I found out that it's called Pine Mouth and it's caused by a cheaper, inedible species of pine nuts which are sometimes substituted by Chinese companies," said D'Urso.

After investigating further, D'Urso discovered the bag the pine nuts were packaged in did not include any labeling. "So, I then began to look into why do some products not have to have Country Of Origin Labeling (COOL), and that's how I found out the inadequacies of the current laws where there are many loop holes that have been too broadly interpreted so that the majority of products are sometimes exempt from country of original requirements," D'Urso said.

D'Urso has been working with Shore-area Congressman Christopher Smith to create legislation that would close those loopholes to improve the safety of imported food products. "You would think that especially when you're injesting food you would have the right to know where that food is coming from, but the way laws are written now they say processed foods don't have to have country of origin labeling." D'Urso explained, "The problem is the laws don't actually say what processing means, so it's left up to the enforcing agency to determine it."

D'Urso called the issue an important one that needs to be addressed, "Every day that goes by is more days that people could be getting products from countries that they don't know the origin of, and that is scary," he said.

It's no surprise D'Urso decided to look into the matter further. He plans on studying economic and international relations at the University of Pennsylvania this fall.