It isn’t just the US that is affected: “The vegetables grown and packaged at this exporting farm in the vegetable heartland of Mexico’s Guanajuato State may have been, or could one day be, consumed by you. They go east to Europe, west to Japan, and north to Canada and the United States. The iceberg lettuce basking in a field on a recent sunny day could end up in an Olive Garden salad bar or a Big Mac; the flowering cauliflower might roll down the checkout belt at Costco or Wal-Mart.”

While these stories focus is on offshore food sources, at least a nod to what is or isn’t better than early this decade when Secretary Ann Veneman was in charge when the potential for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) endangering the nation’s food supply played out on her watch.  A year earlier, the New York Times headlined: “Mad Cow Disease in the United States: …Expert Warned That Mad Cow Was Imminent.”  Like the president, who encouraged us to “go shopping” in the face of unknown dangers, Ms. Veneman could only say  “I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner and we remain confident in our food supply.”  How can we trust a food supply overseen by such beef industry “watchdogs?” Has anything improved?  Perhaps as our grateful nation prepares for Thanksgiving, you might want to follow up on how this aspect of food safety is doing these days.