Flash in the Pan

An interesting article from the Associated Press notes that although many American businesses and institutions are doing a trans fat purge, Americans eat about five times as much saturated fat as trans. So while society has one problem food item in its sites, the things it ignores to do so represent a much larger collective risk.

And while we're on the food safety topic, imported fish, fruits, and vegetables sound a lot less appetizing when you hear how often they fail inspections, according to another AP story. Here's a disturbing sentence:

With only a minuscule percentage of shipments inspected, they say the nation is
vulnerable to harm from abroad, where rules and regulations governing food
production are often more lax than they are at home.

Delightful, particularly with the statistic that the average American eats 260 pounds of imported food annually, or about 13 percent of the annual diet. What, we can't get something around here? Of course, given the problems with spinach a while back and other domestic food illness issues, a strict diet is looking more appetizing.