The past decade witnessed the massive offshoring of jobs to low-cost countries, decimating the U.S. manufacturing base. Today, Americans are being challenged by the financial crisis, which has left much of the service economy in shambles. Yet another avalanche may be on the horizon: the lure, and potential liability, of cheap food.

Almost a quarter of the average American's food is imported. But increasingly, imports are from developing countries that do not meet U.S. standards regarding sanitation, worker safety, environmental practices, quality of ingredients and treatment of animals. China is not only providing a larger share of seafood, fruits, vegetables and ingredients for processed foods, it also has a virtual monopoly as a supplier of vitamins, food supplements and many ingredients in pharmaceuticals.

Ordinary Americans learned of the consequences of the gaping loopholes in the financial sector regulations. Yet few know that the government is also ill-equipped to manage the complex web of global food supply chains. This lack of transparency, coupled with a highly fragmented U.S. food safety infrastructure, enables unscrupulous suppliers.

There are 12 federal agencies administering 35 different food safety laws. The Food and Drug Administration inspected only 52 Chinese plants from 1998 to 2005. At U.S. ports, only 1 percent of imported food is tested for biological contaminants. Once found, contaminated food is returned to the source, but the odds are high that the tainted food will be returned to America and evade testing.

To make matters worse, the FDA does not check for nonorganic contaminants, such as heavy metal, that may be present in produce, fish and dietary supplements. Moreover, savvy suppliers sometimes reroute products, especially seafood, to an inland port such as Las Vegas - which has no FDA inspectors.

The United States allows the importation of processed chickens from China - chickens bred and killed in Mexico, and shipped to China frozen and returned for sale in the United States. Wal-Mart sells presumably U.S.-caught shrimp that was processed in China. The bottom line: A significant amount of food can cross the ocean several times before entering the United States - without ever being inspected.

The debacle of the 2007 pet food recalls shows that even the most reputable brands can be contaminated by minuscule ingredients - in this case, melamine-tainted wheat and rice gluten. Months passed before the FDA determined the root cause. The list of recalls grew day by day, creating a huge supply disruption as retailers' shelves remained empty.

Most consumers are unaware that melamine has been found in the urine of U.S. livestock from melamine-imported feed. And more than 2,500 metric tons of imported Chinese dairy ingredients and products entered the U.S. food system in 2007.

Although the FDA contends there is "no risk" to humans, there is little research on its cumulative effects, and kidney ailments were found in thousands of Chinese babies drinking melamine-laced milk.

A 2008 federal study reports that the prevalence of chronic kidney disease in the United States has increased from 20 percent to 25 percent in the past decade - and for older Americans, it is significantly higher. Is it a coincidence that these trends parallel the imports from China?

The problem is that we just don't know.

Traditionally, food was more regional, grown and processed closer to the point of consumption. Western food today has been transformed by consolidation and commoditization, where large conglomerates buy and sell a wide range of ingredients globally. These days, "low price is king."

In China, rules are often broken - and quietly cutting corners is viewed as a survival strategy. Only recently have U.S. authorities implemented regulations regarding country-of-origin labeling for fresh meat, fish, fruits and vegetables. However, such labeling is not required with even the slightest processing, such as cut-up fresh fruits and stuffed fish at the grocers or imported processed chicken.

Few consumers would know that globally sourced food ingredients are in everyday items with familiar brand names like Nutri-Grain bars and Sara Lee bread. "Ingredient sourcing" is veiled in much secrecy - distributors don't want you to know where they get your food. Marketing hype and well-crafted packaging of branded processed foods - even many of those labeled "organic" - often lead us to believe that their ingredients are from U.S. farms. But organic doesn't always mean domestic.

One thing is clear: The current solutions to food quality are not sustainable. Quality risk in global food supply chains cannot be eliminated by fiats, inspections, auditing and testing.

For their part, consumers must take deliberate actions and vote with their pocketbooks. They can seek out information on ingredients traced back to the country of origin, and press for shorter supply chains by requesting more local sourcing at retail establishments.

Companies can make available, when asked, ingredient sourcing information. Food companies should look beyond costs to ensuring quality and consistent enforcement of U.S. standards in the supply chain, from the farm to the fork.

The government needs to play a more interventionist role. U.S. policy can move domestic farming toward more sustainable practices and maintaining a more diverse crop mix needed for food ingredients - and future leverage.

Finally, because the safety of food ingredients sourced from developing countries cannot be inspected or regulated, setting up facilities in host countries - like the FDA in China - provides an opportunity to better understand the root causes of food problems and hasten those nations' path to global standards. The Obama administration should also consider a Cabinet-level agency with authority over all food safety, enforcement and research.

Our health may depend on it.