Time to reverse the inspection percentages.

I'm far more worried about import quality, quite frankly.

I'm afraid if I do read the whole thing, I'll never eat again.

Yeah, but freedom

I did read the whole thing, and from now on I'm eating Earthbound Farms salad mix. Jeebus.

Tastykake sounds like an American twist on a Japanese sexual fetish.

@4 oh the things I could tell you about salad mix ...

No mention of where food borne illness actually comes from? Beef, pork, and chicken farms.

Animal contamination or manure cause all e.coli and salmonella, and almost all listeria. Not to mention swine (pork) flu and bird (poultry) flu come from animal farms.

More reasons meat eaters hurt all of us, even if we just want some canteloupe.

Regulate and tax the hell out of the meat industry, to pay for inspections and prevent their public health consequences (along with about 1000 other reasons).

http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/barfb…

"A new study by a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) economist estimates the total economic impact of foodborne illness across the nation to be a combined $152 billion annually."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201…

#10: Dewd, E.coli and Salmonella literally only come from animals. Listeria exists "everywhere" (kind of like how cyanide is "everywhere") but really comes from animals when there's a major outbreak. Almost all of it comes from animal feces, usually in runoff in agriculture water supply from factory animal farms.

The reason peanut butter and cantaloupes infect people is because it's not cooked or frozen. If you ate uncooked unfrozen factory meat, you'd probably have a foodborne illness right now.

You can be tired of my vegan bullshit when I talk about corpse harvesting torture factories or something, but this isn't insane propaganda, it's just a fact.

In perfect competition, one is always supplied by an infinite number of indistinguishable firms, so this is never an issue. Obviously the fault lies with Obama for imposing regulations that prevent this world of perfect competition from coming to be.

@7 Did you read the article? You should! It acknowledges animal cross-contamination, and some diseases also come from human poop and filth.

This article was terrifying. I rarely eat meat, and now I don't want to eat vegetables, fruit or grains, either, especially from that one farm in Mexico. Ewwww...

But the foxes are already very familiar with these particular hen-houses---do you really want to eliminate the employment of this very real expertise?

I am GAP certified. We farm the same as before certification. We spent many expensive man hours documenting our proceedures and writing our policies for the auditor. We spent days attending university sponsored seminars, instructed by PHD,s, concerning food safety and microbial risks. Audits and harvest inspections are also very expensive. We farm with an espirit of quality and food safety.

Food Safety (GAP/GHP) Certification is on most every farmer/orchardist in Washington because many food/fruit brokers are requiring certiication.

STILL, I as the farmer/grower do not receive one cent more for my product. All I receive is the expense of certification and that tinglin' feeling of knowing you are eating some of the most tasty and safest food grown in the world.

Presently, the number and reliability of private inspection companies, and different aspects of farming, fertilization, irrigation, harvesting and storage are being discussed within farmer based organization. The middle men see it as at profitable private industry and there is considerable infighting.

Missing ....is the consumer willing to pay for safe food certification and who do they trust to do this.?

@15, regarding your farmer-based discussions, have you invited any consumers into those unpublicized discussions? Because how else can they be not "missing"?

@11, you missed the part in the article which talked about field workers being unable to wash their hands after defecating. Disease most certainly comes from human feces, not just four-legged animal sources.

i took a horticultural pest management class from a guy who has worked and studied in the biz for decades, the kind of guy who "knows where the bones are buried" to us an old saying, and he said, speaking of produce "i would never eat anything that came from mexico."

IIRC, some of the E. coli outbreaks attributed to vegetables and fruits (e.g. the spinach outbreak from California) have come organic farms.

Now, these organic farms, while eschewing chemical fertilizers, still need ways to return nutrients to the soil. And so, they turn to the obvious source: animal manure. Which comes from factory farms producing meat.

In other words, turn everyone into a vegan, and you just substitute one problem for another. The real problem is that to get the kinds of yields needed to feed everyone inexpensively requires some practices that people are going to find objectionable.

There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that most people could stand to eat less meat. But doing away with it altogether isn't a panacea.

And let's put all of this on context: there has been no starvation or malnutrition in the US since, well, who knows when. Among poorer people here, the problem is too many cheap calories. This is absolutely extraordinary in the context of human history. As tradeoffs go, this isn't such a bad one.