The US Food Supply

[remora]

This is something that really annoys me. We've seen so much in the news about the food supply from e-coli in spinach, to salmonella in peanut butter, to melamine in pet food (and even in low doses of human consumed meat including pork, chicken, and fish).  I guess it wouldn't irritate me so much if the government didn't seem to be taking an oh well what can you do? mentality. That kind of mentality implies that they will do nothing instead of actually trying to solve the problem.  By the way, no one except the victims and their families (who are victims too) have suffered any consequences in the 2006 spinach e-coli case.  This, to me, just tells businesses that they don't have to have any accountability for their actions or lack thereof.  The FDA has put in voluntary guidelines for growers, but again they are voluntary not mandatory. Many companies will only raise their own requirements if it becomes part of the marketing scheme as a way to compete with other companies (a good reason to avoid monopolies -- but that's another soapbox altogether). In Dole's defense, they did come up with a new tracking system after last year's fiasco.

Another rant for another day that is related: the news really irritated me when the said that pet owners could likely only sue for the original price of their pets (who are family members) when one guy tried to sue for so much money for a pair of pants. This comparison brings up so many soapboxes in themselves, I think I'll leave it for another day.