my own drum

This week the news is from Taco Bell. A familiar strain of e-coli bacteria has turned up in their food in the Northeast, making some people very ill. This on the heels of a national recall of fresh packaged spinach back in September, which was closely followed by an outbreak of botulism in carrot juice. Why do I even care? I don't eat fast food as a rule, and I'm not into branded organic products either. But I do like fresh spinach. The reason that I care however is because these cycles of bacterial infection make clear that there are holes in the structure of our food distribution networks. We are a nation of consumers (no news there), and being consumers we must be able to trust our sources since we don't actually produce for ourselves. Those in charge of food safety and distribution seem to be real good at notifications and tracking down sources of infections, but they are failing at prevention. And as much as I hate to point this out, our food chain would seem to be highly vulnerable to external influences - people who would infect that food as a means to an end. So my concern is not about a localized infection, natural or otherwise, but about how the distribution of a that infection or tampering could easily reach a large number of people.

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