I feel like I should probably offer a comment on the giant salmonella'd tomato recall going on given that I just recently wrote a piece for the Center for American Progress on the inability of the fractured federal food safety system to actually ensure the safety of the food supply. Um, told ya? But it seems to me that as I spent a good deal of time talking to the former head of the FDA about this very sort of thing happening, I'll leave it to him:

"When we had the spinach episode, everyone acted like it was a great surprise," former FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford, a Bush-appointee and long-time federal food safety official, told Science Progress. "But the likelihood of something bad happening [with the food supply] is always quite high."

Listen to the man. He spent decades working at the highest levels of food safety. The every-now-and-then food outbreak isn't really more of a feature than a bug, isn't it, when we have more than a dozen (!) federal agencies with a finger in the oversight of which, one of which (USDA) has the food industry in its driver's seat and another (FDA) that screams up and down the halls of the Capitol Building that they don't have enough money to do their job. The only element of surprise here is that we're shocked each and every time our 'matoes make us sick. (Photo thx Ian S)