Is anything safe to eat?

0:01Noel King:Americans are fed up with the high price of groceries, and President Trump recently tried to do something about it. He said he'll lower tariffs on 300 ,000 pounds of imported lean beef trimmings. That's the stuff that makes ground beef. Farmers are furious. They're being undercut. Non-farmers are also concerned. It's mystery beef. We don't know where it's coming from. What kind of meat is it? Is it beef? Is it human, right? I don't want to eat a horse or any wild meat. The president says the beef will be good. They're going to be sending in the highest quality beef, and it's something that we need.

0:35Noel King:But he will not say where it's coming from. And maybe if this were any other summer, we'd just have a hamburger. Unfortunately, it is the summer of explosive diarrhea, salmonella in the dog food, bacteria that causes botulism in the baby formula, and ink in the tofu. Coming up on Today Explained from Vox, is anything safe to eat?

0:59Noel King:Support for Today Explained comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation founded on a hard question. That question is, how do we make sure AI goes well for people? They're working on it, publishing what they find, even when it's uncomfortable. There's hope in hard questions. Ask your hard question at claude.ai.todayexplained. That's C-L-A-U-D-E dot A-I slash Today Explained. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist.

1:43The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook. This is Today Explained.

2:04My name is Helena Bademiller-Evich. I'm the founder and editor-in-chief of Food Fix, which is a newsletter all about food policy.

2:11Noel King:All right. So foods have been having a rough summer. A rough summer. Lettuce in particular. But it seems as though every day I go on Al Gore's internet and there is something else that I am not supposed to eat for a week or I'm supposed to check it, triple check it, boil it. Give me a list of what you've seen have problems this summer. There are so many foods in the news for either recalls or outbreak investigations. We have sprouts in the news for E. coli and Seminola. Another day, another bacteria outbreak connected to food. A 15-state salmonella and E. coli outbreak the CDC says is linked to alfalfa sprouts.

2:53We have jalapenos in the news for salmonella. The CDC is saying those jalapenos came from Mexico and were served at Chipotle, Qdoba, and other restaurants. We have eggs in the news for salmonella. Of course, iceberg lettuce was the star of the summer. It is the worst year for cyclospora infections on record. The Food and Drug Administration now says a sample of shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms has tested positive for cyclosporiasis. Frozen blueberries have been recalled for E. coli. Put down that blueberry smoothie, baby. Step away from the blender. Because you have yet another healthy food option that might actually kill you now.

3:29The FDA just came out and warned that if these frozen blueberries are consumed, the consequences could be fatal. There has been actually a bunch of recalls for things like foreign materials that you do not want to see in food like metal and glass. A new recall for popular frozen fruit bars over concerns they could contain pieces of glass. The outshine fruit bars, those cute little popsicles. Yeah, they have glass in them. I am seeing a lot of jokes on social media that everyone is afraid to eat and they don't know what to do. I'm getting a lot of questions about it. Is it safe to eat anything anymore?

4:07Here's what you need to toss this week. There are seven major food recalls happening right now. Have you gotten sick from any of the food recalls yet? No, we'll got recalled just about everything.

4:19Noel King:Right, so this brings up, I think, a really important question, which is whether there have been more food recalls and more outbreaks of various things in our food this year, the past couple of months, or whether we're just better at identifying them or whether we're just all in a panic. And this basically happens every summer, but we don't notice it because cyclospora was just like such a big moment. What do the facts tell us about what is going on the past couple months? So I don't think we're having more recalls right now. We've had some really big recalls. So far, the numbers do not look that out of the norm in terms of the number of recalls.

5:00That said, the number of recalls are not really a great measure of how well we're doing on food safety. In some ways, recalls are a measure of things working because we were catching issues and pulling them off the market. And it also doesn't tell you what your own personal risk is. I think we're seeing a lot of warning signs though. We are seeing more foodborne illness investigations. So there are more clusters of illness that are under investigation now than a typical year. It is not outlandishly higher than it has been in the past. I've been covering food safety and food policy for more than 15 years.

5:36And every year we see foodborne illness outbreaks and recalls at a pretty steady drumbeat. So it feels like we are seeing warning signs. We are noticing them more. There's reason to be concerned, but it is not like the wheels have all of the sudden fallen off. And everyone I know who works in food safety and public health is not like, they're not panicking. They're saying, you know, there's some warning signs. We stress the food safety system out. We need to reinvest in the food safety system. We need to focus on it. We can do better. But people are not panicking, if that makes sense.

6:10Noel King:It does. And you will know that, of course, some of this has become political and politicized. And you'll see online, like, the reason this is happening is that the Trump administration has done X, Y, and Z. So let me ask you broadly first, did something in the way we handle food in the United States of America change in the last year or during the second Trump administration? I think multiple things are true at once here. The first is that everyone who works in food safety thinks that the cuts we've made to FDA and CDC and some forms of foodborne illness surveillance and in some cases inspections, they think all of those cuts are a really bad idea and stress out the system we have even more than it already has been.

6:56Because there have been significant cuts to CDC and FDA, we don't have as good of a, really a lens on what is happening. We had a national advisory committee, a committee that advised FDA and USDA on how to prevent microbial contamination in food. That advisory committee was disbanded. I think it's also true that what we're seeing right now isn't that far removed from a lot of the food safety problems we've seen for many, many years. Not enough inspections, not enough government oversight compared to what consumers expect, not enough resources to state and local public health agencies. A lot of these agencies have had to cut staff.

7:39It's making it harder to track outbreaks. But the good news is we are still able to track outbreaks. I mean, I think the fact that we still saw reports of the cyclospora illnesses from many, many states and the way that the states and feds were working together is still a sign that pieces of the system are still working as intended. So as bad as those headlines were, we are still seeing really important parts of the food safety system still working. But that doesn't mean that anyone who works in this thinks that those cuts are a good idea.

8:12Noel King:Let's drill into some of the cuts and you can tell me what the understanding is about what they mean. So the FDA has lost about 20 percent of its staff. What does that mean for food safety? What is the FDA doing? Well, even before those staff cuts, the FDA was not keeping up with food safety inspections that are mandated under what's called the Food Safety Modernization Act. And this is a big reform that Congress put through about 15 years ago. Food Safety Modernization Act, as it is called, is very simply to bring our nation's antiquated and increasingly inadequate food inspection service into the 21st century.

8:52It would increase the frequency of plant inspections. It would strengthen record-keeping requirements in food traceability systems so you know where the food came from before it gets to the grocery store. FDA has never met the foreign inspection mandate under that law. Wow. A lot of inspections weren't done during the pandemic, and now there's a backlog. And so that just sort of gives you a sense of how the inspection system we have has not really kept up with the job or the scale of the American food system and really the global food system. We have hundreds of thousands of food facilities that can send food to the U.S.

9:34And so just the scale of what is required is really great. So when we look at the cyclospora situation in particular, that plant in Mexico that is at the center of that outbreak investigation had not been inspected in seven years. And that's not unusual. And so this is an issue that has gone on for a long time. GAO, members of Congress have all tried to sort of highlight the gaps in our food safety system. And so I think we're seeing just, again, further strain and further weakening of that system.

10:12Noel King:Do you think it's possible that something good comes out of hot diarrhea summer, which is that we're in this moment where people are actually paying attention. And sometimes when people pay attention, things do change. You've been covering this stuff for a long time. Is people paying attention enough to fix broken systems? You know, it's such a good question. And I think it's really good that consumers are paying attention. I think the awareness of food safety challenges is just, it's a positive thing, even though it is definitely harming consumer confidence. I'm really saddened to see the data that Americans are buying less produce.

10:49I think that's a terrible outcome. So it's terrible that consumer confidence is taking a hit, but yes, the awareness is good. I don't, however, think that there is going to be any real change that comes of this. when I first started covering food safety many years ago, when there would be a food safety disaster like cyclospora or like, you know, I remember the big, there was a big spinach outbreak in 2006 and there was a big peanut butter outbreak in 2009 and there was a big egg outbreak in 2011. And Congress would actually hold hearings on these situations. And yeah. And I mean, I am not convinced, unfortunately, that there will be some sort of policy response here that sort of looks at things holistically, I think it would be great to see that.

11:34This should be bipartisan. No one thinks that ensuring food is safe to eat is a partisan issue or should be. If we're not going to have congressional hearings about a cyclosporus situation that by some estimates has sickened 30 ,000 Americans, and by the way, that's multiple outbreaks, not just the lettuce outbreak. The lettuce situation is probably tied to about a third of that. If we're not, if 30 ,000 illnesses over a summer does not spark a congressional hearing, like I don't know what would. And so, yeah, I'm not hopeful. I think that just the general dysfunction in Washington is kind of stacking against the deck there.

12:28Noel King:That was Helena Bademiller-Evich of Food Fix. Now, if you're freaking out, Helena has a piece of advice for you. Don't stop eating produce. Pay attention to the recall notices. I'm still eating fresh fruits and vegetables. You know, you can be mindful about where they're sourced from. Pay attention. But it's not something that we all need. We don't need to eat with fear. I think consumers still enjoy among the safest food supplies. here in the U.S., but, you know, it's fine to demand better as well. Like, it's not okay that we're having this many outbreaks and recalls every year.

13:16Noel King:Coming up, Helena called it the general dysfunction in Washington, what it means for your food.

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16:37Noel King:This is Today Explained. I'm Noelle King with Ashley Stevens, Senior Food Editor at Salon.com. This summer, Ashley has found a partial solution to the problem of what can you safely eat. In the grocery store, she's been using an app that tells you if food has anything to do with Taylor Farms, where the cyclospora outbreak originated. And she discovered it is a lot. As I was scanning item after item, one, you realize how many items are actually connected to Taylor Farms. They're a huge macro brand with a ton of subsidiaries under them. But I remember turning a corner and scanning a pack of Earthbound Farms broccoli florets, and I was like, oh, these are connected to Taylor Farms, but I don't know what to do with that information.

17:22They're not connected to any current outbreak, but do I necessarily feel good about eating them right now? Not really.

17:30Noel King:Now, at one point in American history, we might have trusted our government to give us answers or to investigate, but trust in government is low right now. Ashley, in 2026, it is no surprise that this began over the summer to get very political very quickly. We had the outbreak, the explosive diarrhea, and then immediately you start hearing it's the fault of the Trump administration. A source tells CNN that funding cuts by the administrations created a perfect storm. Our food is less safe because of Trump's cuts. Be careful out there. Then you have people saying, no, actually, there are food recalls every year.

18:07The incidence of foodborne illness has not really changed since 2011. It's remained flat. So, yes, there's a real cluster of food safety warnings right now. But no, we can't say that this is an official or record spike in food recalls.

18:21Noel King:So help us untangle some of that. There are politics at play here because there are politics in our food. There's no way around it. How exactly does politics play into how safe our food is? I think that the big key word here is transparency. In July, there was FDA traceback data that linked the shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms to the cyclospora outbreak. The FDA on Monday doubled down on its identification of Taylor Farms as the source of the cyclosporiasis outbreak. FDA's traceback investigation and the outbreak data continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico.

19:06And then simultaneously, you know, as people do, they start kind of digging into, oh, who owns Taylor Farms? Right. And quickly it was revealed that the CEO, Bruce Taylor, has donated millions of dollars to conservative and Republican aligned political groups, including about a million dollar contribution to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. in 2025. So you've got sort of these two narratives right now, and they end up coalescing at the White House in the middle of the cyclospora outbreak. So as there was increased news coverage of, oh, this lettuce is making people sick, you had leaders at Taylor Farms going for kind of a late night visit at the White House.

19:48And within a couple days of that, the FDA came out and said. Sample of lettuce from Taylor Farms thought to have tested positive for the intestinal parasite cyclospora. was actually a false positive. The suspected culprit was lettuce from a grower called Taylor Farms. But last night, the FDA announced its test of Taylor Farms products produced a false positive. You know, the thing is, that could absolutely be true. However, federal officials still maintain, though, that broader traceback evidence still pointed to Taylor Farms. So I think that what we're seeing right now in that not of an example is just the lack of transparency that people are feeling, where it's like, well, where did the sickness actually come from?

20:29And who is actually putting this lettuce on my plate, right?

20:34Noel King:And then we have HHS SecRFKJR, who has told us from the moment he entered into this role that we should be skeptical of the American food system. Something is poisoning the American people. Now, he talks a lot about ultra-processed foods. There is no way for any American to know if a product is safe, if it is ultra processed. He talks a lot about sugars. It's as addictive as crack. His narrative, you should be skeptical, has obviously caught on in a lot of ways. What has he said about this? And what do he, and as I understand it, his new cooking show, tell us about the American food system? Like, what is the point he's trying to make?

21:24Noel King:Because this sort of seems like a moment for him. He's like, I told you not to trust it, and you're all getting diarrhea. Yes, absolutely. That is the way to put it. And I think what's fascinating is his new cooking show is called The Real Food Show. Hi, I'm Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., your HHS secretary. Welcome to The Real Food Show. America, it's time to eat real food. And what I found interesting about the script of the show is that it focuses a lot on knowing your food, where it comes from, and choosing essentially real American purveyors. So, you know, local American farmers, fishers, ranchers, etc., to be purchasing your food from.

22:10And that's the way that we as American patriots should be eating, essentially. But obviously that stands in pretty stark contrast to the Taylor Farms incident that we just talked about where people feel really disconnected from the reality surrounding what's on their plates. So essentially we have been told by people like Secretary Kennedy that things like ultra-processed food are actually the boogeyman. And this is despite the fact that there's no federally recognized definition of what ultra-processed foods are. So again, like you said, it just seems like a pretty stark contrast between what he's saying in terms of eat real food, know where it comes from, this is the American diet, and the current reality where people are having to use an app to scan barcodes on the back of produce to figure out where it originated.