Let's not waste our time with North Korea--their pathetic "nuclear event" could have been simulated with a few sticks of dynamite.  It could be 10 or 20 years before they get it right and by then Kim Jong-il will have been overthrown or assassinated by his own people or both as more and more North Koreans discover through the Internet and smuggled videos that the world outside is a better place.   In other words, this problem is bound to take care of itself. 

Meanwhile, the war at home against contaminated veggies has just begun and before it kills all of us I think we should bow to the inevitable and start nuking our produce. 

According to a fantastically interesting article by Michael Pollen, The Vegetable-Industrial Complex, published in the The New York Times, 76 million Americans get sick every year from food, more than 300,000 are hospitalized and about 5,000 actually die. 

Following the outbreak of E. coli in hamburger meat, many producers, instead of cleaning up their foul act, simply started irradiating their products.  That way, if there are microscopic droplets of cow dung on your Big Mac, you can eat it worry free and come to think of it, it might enhance the flavor (or lack thereof).  The problem seems to be we are stuck with the big industrial approach to food and there is very little government will to change this.

Now that "organic" foods too are increasing being produced by corporate farms we might as well bow to the inevitable and save as many lives as we can.  All you really need to know is that the "Natural" Selection Foods company that recently had the little problem with spinach washes 26 million servings of salad every week in ONE plant.  Thus, you see, any contamination from say ONE little leaf of spinach from Farmer Fred's Manure Enriched Organic Food Patch could theoretically infect 26 million people and there is no way now or ever to inspect every single leaf of spinach.   It just can't be done. 

So, instead of thinking we can reverse ourselves and go back to Willy Nelson's so-called "family" farm I think we might as well start nuking now.  What do you think?

EMAIL PRINT

posted at 11:38:33 AM | comments (1)