{"id":17193,"date":"2024-11-25T15:01:07","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T16:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=17193"},"modified":"2024-11-25T16:23:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T16:23:44","slug":"whats-going-on-with-all-of-these-food-recalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=17193","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Going on With All of These Food Recalls?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It might seem like there\u2019s news about E. coli or listeria every week. Here\u2019s what the data on food safety actually show.<\/p>\n

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There has been a barrage of bad news about food lately. Ten people died after eating Boar\u2019s Head deli meat in a listeria outbreak<\/a> that hospitalized dozens of others. One person has died and more than 100 people have been sickened in an E. coli outbreak<\/a> linked to onions served on McDonald\u2019s Quarter Pounders. This month, there has been a food recall<\/a> nearly every day.<\/p>\n

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump\u2019s pick to lead the federal health department, has repeatedly called the U.S. food system \u201cbroken.\u201d And the public seems to agree with that sentiment: A September poll<\/a> showed that confidence in federal regulators\u2019 ability to ensure that the food supply was safe was at a record low.<\/p>\n

But a closer examination of data on foodborne illnesses and food recalls shows a more complicated picture. Experts say that by some measures, the food supply has become safer in recent years: We now have better testing systems that make it possible to detect contaminated food sooner and recall it faster, which means that outbreaks are now often smaller. It\u2019s also easier to detect foodborne illnesses and link them to specific outbreaks. Still, there has been less progress than experts had hoped to see by now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t say the food supply is getting less safe, but it\u2019s not getting safer either,\u201d said Donald Schaffner, a professor of food science at Rutgers University. \u201cWe\u2019ve sort of stalled out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Experts say that the lack of progress is due, at least in part, to a patchwork regulatory system that has struggled to keep pace with an increasingly complex<\/a> food supply. More products and ingredients are now being imported<\/a>, and food is more frequently grown, manufactured, packed and distributed by separate companies. A longer and less integrated supply chain means there are many more points at which the food can be contaminated.<\/p>\n

Consumer habits have also changed, with more people relying on ready-to-eat foods like deli meats and bagged salads that they don\u2019t wash or cook themselves.<\/p>\n

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It might seem like there\u2019s news about E. coli or listeria every week. Here\u2019s what the data on food safety actually show.There has been a barrage of bad news about food lately. Ten people died after eating Boar\u2019s Head deli meat in a listeria outbreak that hospitalized dozens of others. One person has died and more than 100 people have been sickened in an E. coli outbreak linked to onions served on McDonald\u2019s Quarter Pounders. This month, there has been a food recall nearly every day.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump\u2019s pick to lead the federal health department, has repeatedly called the U.S. food system \u201cbroken.\u201d And the public seems to agree with that sentiment: A September poll showed that confidence in federal regulators\u2019 ability to ensure that the food supply was safe was at a record low.But a closer examination of data on foodborne illnesses and food recalls shows a more complicated picture. Experts say that by some measures, the food supply has become safer in recent years: We now have better testing systems that make it possible to detect contaminated food sooner and recall it faster, which means that outbreaks are now often smaller. It\u2019s also easier to detect foodborne illnesses and link them to specific outbreaks. Still, there has been less progress than experts had hoped to see by now.\u201cI won\u2019t say the food supply is getting less safe, but it\u2019s not getting safer either,\u201d said Donald Schaffner, a professor of food science at Rutgers University. \u201cWe\u2019ve sort of stalled out.\u201dExperts say that the lack of progress is due, at least in part, to a patchwork regulatory system that has struggled to keep pace with an increasingly complex food supply. More products and ingredients are now being imported, and food is more frequently grown, manufactured, packed and distributed by separate companies. A longer and less integrated supply chain means there are many more points at which the food can be contaminated.Consumer habits have also changed, with more people relying on ready-to-eat foods like deli meats and bagged salads that they don\u2019t wash or cook themselves.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17195,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17193"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17196,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17193\/revisions\/17196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}