Just last week, the Orval Kent Food Company voluntarily recalled over 43,000 pounds of products -- ranging from pecan dip to chicken salad -- containing cilantro that may be contaminated with salmonella. Also last week: 25 people in five states fell victim to E. coli, allegedly from cheese sold at Costco stores across the country. This summer, a salmonella outbreak sickened over 1,000 people and caused the recall of over half a billion eggs.
I could continue to list more delectable food-related sickness outbreaks, but that would be a bit unnecessary. (You can check out more at the FDA's website). My main point is that somewhere along the production line, food is being exposed to some pretty serious risks of contamination.
However, if you compare these outbreaks and recalls to the sheer volume of food our country produces and eats without any problems, you'll notice our food is pretty safe.
But it could always be safer. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the federal government inspects all the meat, poultry and eggs sold between states. On a smaller scale, states can regulate meat and poultry processing plants that sell products within the state, as long as their standards at least match the federal standards. Twenty-eight states currently have their own inspection programs, which have all apparently had prevented food-related illness: "There has never been a documented food illness from state-inspected meat and poultry products."
No documented cases of food illness? That seems almost too good to be true. Why are these state and local programs having such success? Aside from the fact that these smaller inspection programs only serve a few thousand establishments across the country, what makes them so efficient? Is there something these state inspectors are doing that should be replicated for dairy, egg and produce inspection?
P.S. Not everything has to do with meat and poultry. Sometimes frogs can magically appear inside a can of soda (warning: gross photo) and make you wonder, "How the heck?"
