Non-posting day for Jack, so figured I'd waste some time on the website for the Food & Safety Inspection Service, which documents recalls -- the raison d'être of Jack's new pointless "Food News" segment. I was curious how warranted his constant eye rolls and condescending sighs are, so I pulled numbers
from here for the last 10 years (nothing's there for 2024):
- 2023 = 4 million pounds of food recalled
- 2022 = 1.8M
- 2021 = 15.5M
- 2020 = 1.5M
- 2019 = 20.5M
- 2018 = 20.6M
- 2017 = 20.9M
- 2016 = 58.1M
- 2015 = 21.1M
- 2014 = 18.7M
- 2013 = 13.1M
Seems to hold steady unless something big happens politically (2016) or societally (2020) but too lazy to interrogate that at the moment. Minus the blip years, we averaged 18.5 million pounds for a bit. If anything there seems to be a
positive story here, since 2023 was well below that.
Only patterns I could eyeball were:
- A shit ton of processed meat product is the culprit
- "Unlabeled allergens" is the most common reason
Jack reveled in discussing the "fecal contamination" of Cabot Creamery but obviously that's a super rare issue for American food to have. The Economist ranked 113 countries recently and put
the United States in the Top 3 for food quality and safety.
So as usual Jack has done no research, is missing the point, giving the laziest take possible, and choosing to bitch about a negative that isn't even there.