How safe is your food?

terrorists are the least of our worries. al-shrubco and cronies will do us in through neglect and greed. the number of food poisoning cases are up;number of USDA inspectors down.
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original-orlandosentinel

How safe is your food?

Recalls have watchdogs demanding that worried consumers be protected.
Mark Chediak
Sentinel Staff Writer

February 27, 2007

From peanut butter to baby food, a recent rash of food recalls is leading more and more shoppers to question what's safe to buy and pushing watchdog groups to demand protections up and down the nation's food chain.

Both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration insist the food-supply system is among the safest in the world and steps are being taken to make it even safer.

Since a massive spinach recall last fall, the FDA has been working with produce growers to prevent contamination of leafy greens. And just last week the USDA said it would step up inspections at some meat and poultry plants.

Still, the news of hundreds being sickened by staples such as peanut butter is enough to make consumers such as Paul Steele of Orlando pay special heed to what they decide to put in their grocery baskets.

"I'm careful about where I shop, and I'm careful about food preparations," said Steele, who was loading several bags of groceries into his trunk last week outside a Publix supermarket on South Orange Avenue in Orlando.

For instance, Steele, 49, said he has become hesitant about buying bagged spinach after three people died and nearly 200 were sickened after eating spinach tainted with a virulent strain of E. coli.

"I'm starting to rethink that you can take it on face value that the product is clean," Steele said. "I certainly think about it more since there was a spate of these stories."
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complete article here

:shrug:

Bacterial infestation is a problem with only a fairly small (though not insignificant) fraction of the food supply, but Frankenfoods seem to be the order of the day in North America. Even pesticide and other chemical poisoning is more worrisome than e-coli and salmonella.

How many people die because of bacterial infestation when compared to how many people die because of hormones and genetic modification?

Ask me again in 20 years. People are starting to show the effects, though, of hormone-laced meat products, esp. beef -- men with unusual breast enlargement, and so on.

Tell me in twenty years that it's more worrisome.

Maybe 20 years from now, it will be too late to worry, like global warming.

:)

I'll beat this drum again. Buy Fresh. Buy Local. Eat food. Not too much. Plants mostly. Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. Plant a garden. Meet your chicken.