i’m actually scared that food safety is going to get so much worse. of course i expected that it would stay bad - since it’s been basically unchanged for the last four years. but now, we gotta worry that it’s going to get more privatized and lax all over again. people shouldn’t have to live in fear that their food could make them sick or kill them. people shouldn’t lose access to their main sources of food because of an illness outbreak.
tagging on to this - in addition to recommending everyone watch out for meat products because of listeria, i’m also going to recommend maybe you start avoiding fresh/uncooked leafy greens, especially in spring and summer, especially in bagged salads. this past year I got a very bad case of cyclospora, a protozoan parasite, which was most likely from fresh produce, and which may have been part of a wider outbreak as there were cases elsewhere in my state around the same time. cyclospora and other protozoan illnesses have been drastically rising in the US over the past several years, up from a few hundred cases per year a decade ago versus several thousand per year now, likely due to farms depending on migrant workers and not providing them with adequate bathrooms/sanitation facilities, leading to fecal contamination of crops or irrigation water (which is how these illnesses spread) - historically, cyclospora was not endemic to the US food supply and was only found on imports or in people who had traveled recently, but that has been changing as more and more cases appear to be spreading domestically.
now, to the safety PSA: simply washing your fruits and vegetables will not fully remove protozoan parasites. it will help, but in order to truly protect yourself, you need to peel them or blanch them in boiling water in order to render them safe. cases usually peak during warm weather, when less of your food is coming from greenhouses and more is coming from fields - be especially careful during that time, and consider growing your own produce if you can.
to underscore how bad this infection is, I was not able to pass any solid stool for over a month when I had it - it resulted in severe, continuous, unrelenting diarrhea, rapid weight loss (I lost around 10% of my body weight during that time), chronic dehydration, and profound fatigue/malaise. you do not want this infection. if I already had other health problems, this infection would have hospitalized me for sure - I barely stayed out of the hospital as it was. cook your food.