I was saying the same exact things over on Bluesky, adding that his year's recalls were trending to come in a bit low. Nope! I'm an idiot and everything is going to kill me. Best part? That "deadly food" meme faded out just as I said it would.

To the East Palestine, OH trainwreck I'd add Boeing losing a door over Portland. SUDDENLY, planes were having daily issues. AH!

I'm constantly on about how the internet has utterly broken our sense of danger and our risk calculations.

the US is still ranked THIRD safest in the world for food

I find that very hard to believe. The food safety in the USA is a joke. The FDA has laughable standards for what is allowed in our food compared to the European Union.

The chemical azodicarbonamide (ADA) is banned in food in Europe because it breaks down when heated into semicarbazide, which causes toxicity in animal studies and urethane, a potential human carcinogen. This chemical is used in bread in America to generate those nice, uniform little bubbles in baked bread. Note, baked. American bread is filled with a chemical shown to be toxic in animals and a potential human carcinogen. Why?

The case of ADA is not an isolated incident but rather a symptom of a broader difference in food safety philosophy between the US and EU. This fundamental difference extends far beyond a single additive and is deeply rooted in each region's regulatory framework.

In the US, the FDA's approach is rooted in a 1958 legislation that introduced the "Generally Recognized as Safe" (GRAS) status for food additives.

Originally intended for common ingredients like vinegar or salt—which are also used as additivies—GRAS now allows manufacturers to bypass the FDA's rigorous approval process for many additives. They can assemble their own expert panel to assess safety and send the results to FDA. Important note: sending this is completely voluntary.

The US allows corporations to regulate themselves, declare an additive safe, and put it in our food without going through any approval process. Since no one has proved these chemicals harmful to people, the FDA accepts the manufacturers opinion that it is safe to use.

Who has ranked American food 3rd safest and how did they come to that conclusion. This is an extraordinary claim and I can find no evidence to support it by searching. The closest I can find is this study which is from 2012, more than 14 years ago and long before Trump gutted American food safety agencies. There is no chance in hell this information applies now.

I just want to eat a salad without worrying that i'm gonna shit myself to death, my guy.

A lot goes unreported. Most people aren't going to go to the hospital for food poisoning. Last time it was 28K so yeah at least I had decent insurance. I reenacted the Exorcist scene, in both the in a storage bin and the bathroom, then I passed out. I can assure you it's not that safe. I stopped eating a lot of stuff and actually try to only eat imported food.

Please provide a source for this. I'm finding it hard to believe the US ranks as high as 3rd in the world for anything constructive.

that the US is still ranked THIRD safest in the world for food

Source? This sounds like a pretty crazy claim so I tried to look it up, as far as I can tell there is no international food safety ranking. The closest I could find was the US coming thirteenth in food security according to gfsi but that's not the same thing at all.

Is that an upto date stat?

Yep. I get a couple recall emails a day, often with a couple recalls in each of them. The only type of recall that seems more prevalent is 'without benefit of inspection' recalls, which is code for smuggled goods. That is usually cured fish and likely increased to dodge tarrifs. Otherwise, it's very similar to how it's always been.

It's still true that food in the US is, by and large, safer than many other countries as far as foodborne illness. A lot of the perceived lack of safety is a lack of trust in the agencies that are supposed to handle regulation, testing, recalls, etc. It's also a question of severity; both how severe the issue is, and how many people are affected. We've had multiple unusually-severe and unusually-widespread outbreaks in 2026, and that led to a lot more public awareness. The Taylor Farms Cyclospora outbreak, for example, was easily one of the most severe food safety events in US history.

Due to massive government staffing cuts and mass resignations, the inspectors responsible for testing for safety are hugely understaffed and overworked. They were already understaffed, but recent cuts made things much worse. A fairly average number of issues are being reported officially, but it's almost certain that many issues simply aren't found, or they're found but not properly investigated. Susan Mayne, the former director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (the branch of the FDA that tests and reports on food safety issues) found that the FDA is posting incorrect data to make it appear as though food safety issues are less severe this year. (edit note: I originally wrote that Mayne endorsed the interpretation that 2026 numbers are being underreported because of staffing issues, but on closer read that interpretation was from the public health advocate Sarah Despres, not former director Mayne).

safest != healthiest by any means tho.