Retrospect
Retrospect
Cyclospora Outbreak: Is Your Lettuce Safe? | Retrospect Ep.247
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In this week’s episode we discussed how Taylor Farms has recalled certain iceberg lettuce products after a cyclospora outbreak raised food safety concerns. We break down what prompted the recall, which products may be affected, the symptoms of cyclospora infection, and what consumers should do if they have these items at home.
"The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty." -Eugene McCarthy
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Keywords
Keywords
Cyclospora outbreak, food safety, lettuce contamination, FDA recall, Taylor Farms, Taco Bell, food traceability, foodborne illness, sanitary conditions, food distribution, public health, food recalls, parasite transmission, food supply chain, food safety regulations.
Jason
Somewhere between the farm and your fork, something invisible slipped through. Not a dramatic Hollywood virus, not a chemical spill, a microscopic parasite small enough to escape notice, large enough to hospitalize families across America. 1000s have become ill. Recalls continue. Investigators are racing backward through one of the most complex food distribution systems ever created. We've built a food network capable of feeding hundreds of millions of people every day. But what happens when one weak link stretches across dozens of states. Today isn't just about lettuce; it's about trust-trust in regulators, trust in corporations, trust in labels, trust in the food sitting in your refrigerator right now. History reminds us that societies are only as strong as the systems they depend upon, and when those systems begin to crack, people start asking uncomfortable questions. So, how secure is America's food supply? Let's find out.
Ian
Welcome to the Retrospect Podcast, a short people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generation's perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Stoney.
Stoney
Hello
Ian
and Jason.
Jason
Hello, everyone.
Ian
How's it going?
Jason
Oh, we're doing pretty good.
Stoney
I got a question. All right, starting right off.
Ian
Okay,
Stoney
how are we supposed to know the difference between normal Taco Bell violent shits and Cleosphorus explosive shits? How do you know the difference?
Jason
I guess would be the only thing would be the frequency. Okay. Nice. I know. It's you eat. I haven't eaten at Taco Bell, and oh yeah, I used to love Taco Bell. I did a lot. I loved when I was in college, and in those my younger years, I ate all that kind of stuff, and I wouldn't even think of running through a Taco Bell today.
Stoney
Okay, so first off, there's a difference, and a lot of people are getting this wrong. The difference is cyclosporasis and cycloporia. All right, cycloporasis is actually the illness that is caused by the cyclopora.
Ian
Yeah, yeah, whatever bacteriasis or
Stoney
whatever. So it it's like this long, so there is a difference. So people, hopefully, you know, we'll help you out there. I just can't say it right. So
Ian
nice. So we'll just say
Stoney
explosive diarrhea.
Jason
Yeah, I mean this thing has just completely. I mean we we've unfortunately have to deal with this. It seemed like every so often that it it pops up, and it seemed like it's happening a lot more frequently now. And there's you know you can probably trace these issues back to you know sanitary conditions and probably these farms where that's the stuff is is picked and then you know ultimately washed and then eventually package you know and I guarantee you these probably these I think it was Taylor Farms is is where the seemed like the problem has been traced to but you know most of these bags I'd be very curious if it has on the bag triple washed
Ian
yeah
Stoney
you know because even even when you do the research, washing it won't take it off. Correct. Really? Because basically, this is a third world type virus. This is something that does impact and other ones like it in the United States every couple of years. But these farm, this particular one doesn't come from a farm in America. This comes from a farm. This is a Mexican type situation, and what you have to understand is, is Ian, if you had to go to the bathroom, where are you going to go?
Ian
I mean, to the bathroom.
Stoney
To the bathroom. Yeah. So in third world countries, people don't won't take the time. They they're paid by how many lettuce they pick. Oh, I see. And etc. So what they're going to do is they're going to just bend down, pull their pants down, and take a crap right in the field. They're not going to go do so. This is a this is a poop type situation that they're putting it in it. And and what happens is is it takes a couple of weeks for that process to happen, and so you know what you're doing is is you're you know they're walking through it, they're getting it on their hands, they're not washing. In America, you wash your hands how many times a day?
Ian
Oh yeah, you know,
Stoney
especially in the food service. But these people don't do that, and. So it gets from their shoes to their hands to the product. Then it takes a couple of weeks for process. You can wash it all you want. That doesn't guarantee that it's going to take the virus off of it or parasite off of
Ian
it. Right. So yeah,
Jason
they say a sample of shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms, New Mexico, was tested positive for cyclospora. Federal health officials said, "I'm reading a an article on Microsoft MSN MSN, and they're basically saying they've expanded the the company's expanded to a multi-state recall tied to a growing multi-state outbreak, and that's Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Although there are other states, including Louisiana, that are involved. Yeah, they said the positive test result comes after Taylor Forms announced it was voluntary recalling iceberg lettuce sourced from Central Mexico, while removing all such lettuce from the U.S. market, so they're right now trying to get rid of it. But the problem is, one thing I learned, and and it takes about 50 to 50 to 60 days for the FDA to actually take action once a because there's usually about that much time between all of a sudden people are getting sick to the actual FDA gets gets word of
Stoney
it
Jason
and then begins the process of trying to track it down. So that's a lot of lettuce probably people are consuming during that time, and of course everybody is is is getting sick from it, so they say the recall covers 12 ounce and 24 ounce bags of market side market side iceberg salad, as well as eight ounce and 16 ounce bags of market side shredded iceberg lettuce. What
Stoney
is market side? That's Walmart. Yeah, you're right. That's Walmart.
Ian
Walmart's brand. So
Stoney
not only is it the Walmart stuff, it's the Taco Bell stuff. And you're going down the line because it all it's the same lettuce, just packaged differently for different institutions.
Jason
Yeah, it was distributed between June 29th and July 16th, with the best if used by dates ranging from July 18 through August 3rd, according to the FDA. Wow!
Stoney
So right now they're looking in Michigan at 1,200 cases, Ohio 500 cases, Indiana 50, Kentucky 25, and West Virginia 25 cases. There are no deaths reported so far in this, other than the fact you wish you were dead after spending, you know,
Ian
a whole day of 24 hours to
Stoney
48 hours on the toilet. Yep. They said the
Jason
effective lettuce was distributed. I don't know if Stoney. It was distributed in 27 states.
Ian
Okay.
Jason
So it's there's a lot of country. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm
Stoney
saying. It's it's there are other states involved, but these caught it the worst, and the the verified outbreak connections are Taco Bell, Taylor Farms to Mexico, Taylor Fresh Fruits, Walmart Market Side, other unnamed restaurants, which I do have some name, and it's exact farm field water source and sanitation failure is the root contamination points, which is exactly what I was saying a few minutes ago.
Ian
Interesting,
Stoney
but market size the big one because that's, I mean, think about that. That's how many WalMarts did that go to? A
Ian
lot.
Stoney
Miranda and I used to love a couple of the little prepackaged salads there. We went to the grocery store this weekend and going, "Hey, baby, you want a salad? No, I don't want no damn salad. Don't want no salad.
Ian
Not this time.
Jason
Yeah, and they said the they said the Taco Bell restaurant. They said the agency agency said that not every Taco Bell restaurant in the five states received lettuce from this supplier. Yeah, the agency's investigating illnesses in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia, and has advised custom consumers in those states, not to eat shredded iceberg lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell restaurants. Yeah, the problem is that that that particular virus is very hearty, and I know Stoney mentioned how difficult it is to wash off if you use cold water. All it does is spread it. You have to heat. You have to use very very hot water. Which guess guess
Stoney
what that does to your lettuce? Oh, it wilts it.
Jason
Yeah, cooks it. It it doesn't. It's a you got to like remove like the first three layers. But
Stoney
I bet you Bill Gates is going to come up with a wash that's going to come take it right off. But it's an mRNA wash.
Ian
No, no.
Stoney
Bet you that happens. Watch.
Jason
They say. I'll make
Ian
a tick that'll make you allergic to it.
Jason
Yeah. They say cyclospor is a microscopic parasite that can cause severe diarrhea, nausea, stomach cramps, fatigue, and other gastrointestinal symptoms. And well, the biggest one is
Stoney
watery diarrhea. Yep. And then stomach cramps or pain, bloating, excessive gas.
Ian
Interesting.
Stoney
That that's a key to me. That was nausea, loss of appetite, unintended weight loss, severe fatigue, low grade fever, headache, body aches, and occasional vomiting because it's messed up your system so much. Wow. You know now you're going to go at both ends. That's not. That doesn't sound fun. I guess we should. And they can improve and return because you can treat symptoms, but it's going to take you back over and come back on you. And it can last several days, several weeks, and and in some cases, it looks like it's going to go for more than a month in some people.
Ian
Yikes! Who wants to live like that? I was gonna make a joke. I was like, I guess we should have done like a little viewer discretion advice. Don't eat while you listen to this episode because it's gonna probably make you feel a little yeah, I know nauseous to think about it. What do you call it whenever you overthink your hypochondriac? Anybody who's a hypochondriac, don't listen to this episode. I think I may have had lettuce this week at some point. I have no be honest with you. I have
Jason
not been eating salad lately. No, no, I've really kind of shot. Me too.
Ian
Better safe than sorry. But again, I love a good salad. Yeah, but it's
Stoney
not just lettuce. Yeah, it's been tied to blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, cilantro, parsley, and I eat all
Jason
that. I know. Yep, I eat all that. Yeah, you know, I really do. You know, it's unfortunately it can it it the incubation period I think is about two weeks.
Ian
Okay, that's why it's not to mention that early. Yeah, yeah, you can cover the symptoms. Yes, yeah, it's
Jason
before it becomes infectious. Yeah, you know, so it's like with most
Ian
viruses, it kind of takes its. It takes the time. It's
Jason
it can survive on a dry surface for about a week. Get out. Yeah, for
Stoney
lettuce isn't dry, right? Venice is mostly water. Any other
Jason
surface that's dirty or wet, I mean, it can last for a while. And what happens? It forms a a cyst around itself, and that's how it protects itself. So it's very difficult to pierce that that cyst. So it's I said it's very difficult. I had a friend of mine one time told me at a at a local restaurant. He goes, we during the last if y'all recall maybe a couple years ago there was a big deal with lettuce, and he told me, "Look, we wash, we triple, we get this lettuce. They say it's wash. We triple wash it again because there is no way to get it off. There just there, it just isn't. So it's like once again, it goes back to kind of you know you know what's going on with the food supply here. I mean, is it is this the inherent weakness that the supply chain has right now? Because these fields, unfortunately, these these workers that that are are being employed to to pick all this lettuce, you know, a lot of them don't have access to bathrooms, washing, hand washing stations. Yeah. Look, I've had people tell me. I mean, sometimes they just use the bathroom in the field. Well, you know, you know, that's what I said earlier, and that's what happened.
Stoney
But even what's happening more is, is we're outsourcing this outside of America, we're we're we're destroying our farmers here, but I can remember seeing migrant workers in farms in America, and what did they what did they do? You had the migrant workers that would go from here to there, and they would do this, and you had these trailers with porta potties on them. You provided people a place to go outside, so it was rare that you heard about something like this coming from American farms. But now that we're outsourcing most of this, it seems like there's an uptick in how often this is happening. That just seems to be me, and I would like to say this: I am not a doctor or a medical professional. Right, right, right. But a couple of things that they are talking about that we really need to look at, if you catch this, is oral rehydration solutions, electrolyte monitoring, and assessment of kidney function, and any type of nutritional support when your weight loss is significant. And if you're having you know two to four weeks of explosive, watery diarrhea. You need to look at that, and in some cases, even intravenous fluids have been put into people. Yeah, and you need to also think about this. If you think you've got this, contact your doctor and review your medication list because. Some medications, you know, they worsen dehydration as you're taking them. So you need to think about that when you contact your doctor. Stay in touch with them.
Ian
Yeah,
Jason
they say symptoms generally begin two to 14 days after eating. Two to
Ian
14 days.
Stoney
Yes, that's how long it takes. Oh my
Ian
gosh!
Jason
And they say routine stool tests frequently miss this.
Ian
Dang.
Jason
Yeah. Imagine eating
Ian
a salad and then almost two weeks later, you just
Jason
exactly.
Ian
That's crazy.
Stoney
And right now, it's about 8.6% of people that got it are hospitalized.
Ian
Really? Yeah. They
Jason
say without treatment, symptoms may come and go for several weeks or even months. Right now, I was reading there is a guy in Ohio suing Taco Bell for being sick for two weeks.
Ian
Get out!
Jason
Can you imagine having explosive diarrhea for two weeks? I can't imagine. I don't like it once.
Stoney
But here's what I want to. I want to kind of go over. I touched on it a minute ago, of in America when our farmers were producing our food and stuff like that, something like this happened in 77 and 78. This was one of the first documents of this virus or parasite. Then it was 1990. Then it was 96. Then it was 97. Then it was 99. Then you had a little break in it. Then it was 2013. Then 18. Then 19. Then 20. Then 22. And now 26. Seems like we're getting this a little bit more often, doesn't it? Since we put our farmers out of work and started outsourcing this to Mexico and other countries, right? And you know, before it was some. Sometimes it was outsourced, but some. You know, it's just the more we bring this into America, it seems we're more hurting ourselves.
Ian
But it's all about the money.
Stoney
Oh, sure. Definitely about the money. Well,
Jason
unfortunately, I think this unfortunately this feeds into what a lot of people that I mean, why this kind of like push for socialism and against capitalism, and you know, it's just kind of one of those things where when you are a for profit, you know, you're always looking for ways to cut costs to maximize profit for investors into the company because anybody that puts money or buys stock, what do they want to do? They want to make money on that number. Number got to go up. Money's got to go up constantly. So,
Stoney
but in America, we what we do is, is we're we're destroying ourselves by protecting ourselves and protecting our children so much. You go to Mexico or somewhere else. What's the first? What's the first rule?
Jason
Don't drink the water. Don't drink the water.
Stoney
Don't use the ice. Don't do this. You know. So when you're looking at Central America, South America, you know, Latin America generally, you know, a lot of places in the Caribbean, you know, South and Southeast Asia, and other tropical or subtropical areas. Don't drink the water. Don't do this. Be careful what you eat. You know, wash your hands often. You know, if it doesn't have alcohol in it, you know. Be prepared to get the shits right. You know, if it's not killing it, hey, maybe that's it. Maybe we need to wash our lettuce and vodka. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Why not? Hey, you know what? What if we, you know, a little in better than Bill Gates' mRNA of vegetable and fruit wash? How
Ian
come my salad's making me drunk? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They
Jason
say that the parasite is transmitted. Work party will be
Stoney
better. It's
Jason
transmitted through food or water contaminated with human fecal matter. So, unlike norovirus, which everybody's familiar with, norovirus, it has not normally spread directly from one person to another because the parasite must mature in the environment before becoming infectious. Kind of what I mentioned that it takes some time for it to actually to get to where it makes you sick. So, so here
Stoney
it goes. It says the infected person sheds osts. It's double o c y s t s. Y'all can please write in and tell me how to pronounce that right. Human waste contaminates water, soil, drainage equipment, and/or production environment. The osis remains outside of the body long enough to become infectious. Irrigation water, flooding, spray water, hand handling, wash water, soil splash equipment, or hands transfer the infectious osis to the produce. The lettuce is then harvested, cut, shredded, packaged, and distributed. And because it's eaten raw, there is no cooking step to kill the parasite. And then think about this: the large processor distributes. The product to restaurants and retailer networks, and patients become ill days to weeks later. More time passes before testing, reporting, interviews, and time track. By the time the source is suspected, much of the food may have been eaten and are discarded. Well, you're going to discard it one way or the other.
Jason
I was reading a 2025 International Food Information Council survey. They surveyed 3,000 American adults. Said only 55 were confident in the safety of the U.S. food supply. That ain't very high.
Ian
That's not
Jason
confidence fell from 70 in 2023, and 62% in 2024. So it's continuing to drop. Only 11% describe themselves as very confident. Among people lacking confidence, 59% believe profit was prioritized over safety. There you go, fist and
Stoney
fist and bump in because he just said money, money, money. Yeah. Oh, oh.
Ian
So a few people got sick. That's okay. We're still making money. We can't. We can't. We can't. We have to keep outsourcing it.
Jason
Yep. 54% believe different parts of the food system failed to work together. 46% blame insufficient government regulation. 43% pointed to excessive food recalls, and 50% rank foodborne illnesses among the three leading food safety concerns.
Ian
It's crazy. We live in a we live in Louisiana, like seafood capital of, or I think a very major contender of seafood in the United States, and we still will import shrimp because it's cheaper.
Stoney
I have a public health timeline. may 1, 2026, was the start of the CDC seasonal domestic surveillance period. So maybe like hurricane season, they have an explosive diarrhea season. Okay, okay, okay. So May to June, states began receiving unusually high number and of reports. This June 17th, the FDA listed small cyclosporia investigation, including two cases in unidentified food. July the 8th, they published additional cysporia clusters involving identified publics. The 14th of July, they issued the Health Alert Network Advisory, announcing Think this how quick 16 145 domestic cases plus more than 5100 reports under review. The 16th, the CDC and the FDA linked all 16 of those two five states. The 17th FDA traced back named Taylor Farms to Mexico supplier and Taco Bell stopped using the supplier's lettuce in the 18th, and I guess that was what yesterday or day before yesterday detailed the food service recall was released, and the FDA announced a positive cycloporium sponsor in the whole lot. There you go. That's how fast that that it can. But look how quick it went from two to possible 5000,
Ian
crazy,
Stoney
1600 known.
Ian
Yeah,
Stoney
with another 5000 out there, and people are wondering.
Jason
Yeah, this is a a pretty bad deal. But you know, they did have a saw here. I didn't realize this. They said in 2023, an Alabama restaurant outbreak involved 47 illnesses, and it was epidemiologically linked to cilantro traced to Mexico.
Ian
Interesting. Now,
Jason
so you know, it's just like here he says a taco purchased in Ohio may contain lettuce grown in Mexico, processed by a California-based company distributed through a national food service network and investigated by several layers of government. You wonder why it takes you know almost 60 days for the FDA to actually realize what's going on and to actually try to identify where this is coming from, shut it down, and that just tells you how much food has been now put in shelves, and people have bought, and they're eating, and they could still be in on people's refrigerators right now.
Ian
Yeah,
Jason
you know, so
Ian
especially like again because we're in this because of the fact that it take it potentially could take so long for it to affect you, and it could last for so long. That's also the scary thing too. Is again, like, like you said before, you you haven't had a salad in a in a while, out of abundance of caution. Because again, even if you, even if you had a bad salad a couple weeks ago, it could still potentially affect you coming up, and that's scary stuff.
Stoney
Well. Well, but one-I guess one of the other thing is-is that when you go to the doctor, this is not automatically tested for. Most panels, you know, don't even test for this. This should be an automatic test, wouldn't you think?
Ian
Is it-is it hard to discover? Is I don't
Stoney
know.
Ian
Okay,
Stoney
need to look at that.
Ian
Yeah, I guess is there also is there a proper way to clean? I know we've kind of joked around about using alcohol and using some other stuff. I don't think there. I don't
Jason
think there is. I I I mean because of the nature of of of just leafy things or things that have a skin on them, you know. It's just, I mean, it's kind of natural for things to be on plants. I mean, it's just that's kind of yeah,
Jason
you know,
Ian
evolution of things. Evolution of things is
Jason
just unfortunate that this particular parasite, where another parasite, wouldn't do anything to you,
Ian
right? Yeah,
Jason
you know, it's just, you know, how we, you know, some things just hit you hard, and other things are just, you know, nothing happens to you. There's a lot of bacteria and probably things that we eat that don't do anything to us. And your gut contains a lot of bacteria and stuff in there naturally,
Stoney
but from the from day one, we're protecting our children, our babies so much. They say the best thing that you could do for your your your baby is to let it crawl on the New York subway floor, because we're not we're not having the natural antibodies, and we're relying on people like Bill Gates to, you know, solve that. No, we need the natural, you know, antibodies and things. You know, drinking bad water. You know, we we've cleaned ourselves up so much that something like this can come in to disastrous effect.
Jason
Yeah, they said the Government Accountability Office issued a report in January of 2026, concluding that the FDA has not fully implemented all requirements of the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act. Among its findings, some preventative guidance for growers remains unfinished. The FDA has not fully evaluated whether its prevention framework is reducing foodborne illnesses, and additional oversight and performance assessments are still needed. You know, we've all talked about what's going on with a lot of cuts in government. I know when the Trump, you know, came in, there was layoffs and and such, and of course that kind of happens. But they say some lawmakers and public health experts argue that recent staffing reductions at federal health agencies have slowed outbreak investigations. Well, the problem is they were still having those problems when they had all those people there. So I, I don't know if I really buy that. Which is, I mean, I get it, but I, I don't know if there's really you could say that is the problem. I just think it's the nature of the food supply. There was
Stoney
a list of states that received recalled market-side iceberg products: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia; those are the states that actually received some of the recalled lettuce.
Jason
Yeah, I'm going to use it. I have not heard anything here yet in Louisiana. No, there's
Stoney
been a couple. I've I've heard there was a couple of possible cases. Okay, because yeah,
Jason
right. The CDC doesn't count unless it's confirmed laboratory, you know, in the laboratory. But there could be a lot of people going seeing the doctor, going, you know, this is what's going on. Um, so I don't know. I mean, this is a they said the agency said it was aware of more than 5100 additional reported cases that were require that require more you know for them to look at so
Ian
yeah
Jason
they said U.S. Senator Amy Club Clubbuchar. club of Minnesota urges CDC and the FDA to reinstate funding and staffing for federal and state safe food safety programs to fight the outbreak. He basically said this is an active and evolving investigation, so this thing is it's it's ongoing. I'd be very curious how extensive this ends up being. How many actual states total that that when it's all said and done that were affected by this event? They said they said I know. The company it removes certain ingredients at select restaurants for precautionary. U.S. health officials have not confirmed a link, but you know how that goes. So that you know, I'm sure the the hospitals have probably received guidance from the CDC regarding if they see any patients that are exhibiting these sort of symptoms, that to be aware that that could be what could be what the problem is. Yeah, they said bigger staff told reporters that the CDC expects case reports will continue to increase potentially through the end of August,
Ian
of course,
Jason
he said. The agency said there was a roughly six-week lag between the onset of the illness and the reporting of cases, which means more infections will likely be identified as additional data is received.
Ian
Everyone's got to be oh man, you got to be real careful if you had try because we said it earlier in the episode too, any bags marked between like the middle of July up until the beginning of August, throw that stuff away. Throw it away. Throw it away.
Jason
Yeah, I'm not touching anything right now. I wouldn't
Ian
eat any leaf of green stuff until the middle of August. Yeah, I'm not eating any
Jason
salads until then. Yeah, I mean, I'm just, I'm just not. I mean, I hate do that because salad's so good for you. Yeah, maybe I need to start growing my own. Okay, maybe I need to start. You say
Stoney
that.
Ian
Okay,
Stoney
you say that. When's the last time you went into any store and bought some fruits or vegetables
Jason
today. Okay.
Stoney
And how many of them were seedless?
Ian
I don't know.
Stoney
Everything is seedless now. Yeah. Seedless lemons and oranges. Seedless watermelons. Seedless tomatoes. Seedless everything because they don't want you to be able to grow your own, because once they control the seeds, then you're going to have to eat by subscription. Is the way I feel it's coming. You want a tomato get on our subscription list where you can get monthly tomatoes or potatoes or whatever. I did
Ian
some looking into this. Technically, some of the seeds from the fruits are actually copyrighted, so like they are, yeah, yeah. You're infringing upon copyright by planting a seed in
Stoney
yeah,
Ian
which is crazy. Farmers have
Stoney
been sued. Oh yeah, for using their own seeds. Yep,
Ian
exactly. That's it's crazy because
Stoney
I think, and we've talked about subscription services before. I think you're going to have to eat on a subscription based thing Now,
Jason
yeah. So this kind of this kind of just reassures what I what I thought regarding all these you know people talking about all these cuts. They say even before the cuts of 2025, we've known that our public health surveillance systems and our food safety safety systems leave a lot to be desired. Says Amira Roas, a professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University, and a former CDC epidemic intelligence service officer, says Barrett says responding to disease outbreaks is a complex process that involves lots of coordination between states and the federal government,
Stoney
but you see, we could get we could solve this whole problem, and I'll probably get arrested or assassinated. Oh, by the way, okay. If listeners, you find out that I have committed suicide, please contact my law enforcement friends because I didn't do it. Somebody did it to me by going back to the local farms and the local ranchers and just buying your stuff locally sourced. We could solve a lot of these problems.
Ian
Yep.
Stoney
Because how healthy was life when we did that? It wasn't until we started mass producing these things and needed needed to keep things on the shelf longer, so we started adding preservatives because we stopped doing it at the local guy and girls, and we needed it from you know more nationwide source type things, bread used to have four ingredients. Now it's got 3935, of which are petroleum based chemicals, because we need to keep it on the shelf for two to three weeks. What if you just went to the you know people used to the neighborhood market? You had a neighborhood market with the the the ranchers, with the farmers, the baker, etc. and just got your stuff right there. You know, when I lived in the French Quarter, you could go down to the French Market and get the fresh loaf of bread, and you could get this, and you could get that, and it was right there. Boom. And it was convenient, and you knew it was real, and you know who made it. You talked to him. You had a nice conversation. You talked about life. You talked about love, and you created a bond and a trust with people that I think we we've completely lost in today's society, I mean,
Ian
yeah.
Jason
Well, what do we?
Stoney
What can we do to get that back?
Jason
I don't know if you can. I, you know, I've kind of often thought about what it would take to go back to people, in essence, becoming their own supply chain for food, and you know I've just kind of bantered this this kind of thinking in my head, and I tell people you know there's right now there's kind of this movement of getting back out to the country
Stoney
and
Jason
having land and growing their own gardens and stuff, but to go back to a time when you basically are your food. You are your food supply, which means you butcher your cows, you butcher your pigs, you butcher your chickens, you grow your own vegetables.
Ian
Yeah,
Stoney
but then there was the barter system where you may have just been the farmer, and your buddy down the road was the rancher, so you traded meat for you know your produce and you know your chickens and you got the eggs from the other guy and and I would love that
Jason
yeah but the the thing is I mean for for to go back to that which I don't I don't know how practical that would be in in modern times you're just you know the amount of time in a day that you would have to devote to just food production. Oh yeah, there's no time. There's no time for anything else. So I don't think that's realistic. Now I do see maybe advances in agriculture where maybe people start growing their vegetables through hydroponics,
Ian
yeah,
Jason
you know, in hydroponic greenhouses and stuff like that, which to me is a very viable way of doing things. Where
Ian
my friend's grandma had like a big hydroponic thing, and she did the she sprouts and other kind of like
Stoney
herb garden. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I had a friend that had this huge hydroponic garden. Yeah, well, it wasn't for vegetables. Won't go into that. Well, and for yeah, I mean, a lot of people, a lot of people, a lot of people do
Jason
grow, you know, marijuana via via you know hydroponics, which is common. But I mean, it's. I know a lot of people that grow vegetables and grow very good vegetables through hydroponics. And I'm
Ian
pretty sure you can keep it safe from pests from and from animals. And I mean,
Jason
depends on how much you're willing to spend on on a green on a proper greenhouse with proper hydroponic system. It's a good. He
Stoney
did have vegetables too. Okay, he he did both. I was just kind of making the joke, but you know what he had in the vegetable water in the the water that that's the
Jason
solution. Yeah.
Stoney
No, no goldfish.
Ian
Really?
Jason
They pooped. They fertilized. Yes. Okay. And so it
Stoney
was completely off grid.
Ian
Yeah, yeah.
Stoney
You didn't buy the solution from somebody else. You had the fish in there.
Jason
Natural fertilizer. Natural fertilizer. Buy fish food. Yeah. Put fish food and let them just let nature take its course. You know.
Ian
Crazy.
Stoney
I thought that was interesting. Yeah, yeah. You know when you close the system. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason
Yeah.
Stoney
Completely off grid. That's
Ian
fun.
Jason
Well, they say the the the the FDA did establish a dedicated cycle spore task force in 2019.
Ian
In 2019,
Jason
yes.
Ian
What?
Jason
And released a multi-year cycle spore prevention, response, and research action plan. Well,
Ian
they're falling short in 2026. You know, now you know
Jason
it says it's you know why is it taking you know you know back on this other deal I mentioned they said why is it taking 15 years to fully implement the Food Safety Modernization Act? Probably because it's going to require money to be you know spent by the actual producers and these companies, and they probably are resisting some of that. I'm just speculating. They said the you know the FDA adequately funded and staffed to oversee nearly 80% of the U.S. food supply because the food supply is all over the world. So you imagine if you're an FDA investigator, you're you're traveling all over the place. Yeah, you're going to these foreign countries and seeing how they they do everything, and yeah, I mean it's.
Stoney
But there was a study done, and and the corruption in the FDA officials.
Jason
Well, that doesn't surprise me,
Stoney
even in like the meat markets and and butcher. Shops and things like that-it's beyond what we could even truly imagine. And they're supposed to be looking out for us. But guess what? Follow the money. Yeah,
Ian
you're right. It's all about the money, especially when it when again there's other countries that are willing to undercut and do it a lot, a lot of cheaper.
Jason
I mean, it's you know. As I said, if you're trying to if you're trying to make more money for your invest your investors, I mean, if anybody has stocks, you know, I mean, they may bitch and holler about one thing, but the reality is, as long as they look at their their portfolio and they make their their their financial guys call them, say, "Hey, stocks are doing good.
Stoney
Yep,
Jason
you're not going to probably complain. That restaurant
Stoney
that kept getting hit a couple of times. Um,
Ian
I don't know.
Jason
Well, there was a
Stoney
Chipotle. Chipotle, they got hit, and then they kind of recovered, and then they got hit again, making people sick. And I think two or three times they got popped, making people sick. So you know, eventually you got to do the right thing, right?
Jason
Well, I think eventually you get sued. Just like I said, that guy from Ohio is suing Taco Bell.
Ian
Yeah,
Jason
for for that, you know. So
Stoney
do you blame him?
Jason
No, at all. But I don't know. I mean, Taco Bell. I mean, you know, Taco Bell is relying on. Well, then you know what?
Stoney
Taco Bell can sue
Jason
the the supplier. The
Stoney
supplier, right? You know what? Hey, we got we got tag for this. Now you gonna pay up? You you caused this? It's on you now.
Jason
They said before the the the Food Safety Modernization Act was was was implemented. They said it was signed into law in 2011. The FDA largely responded after outbreaks occurred. This act required prevent contamination before it happens. Regulate farms that previously had little federal oversight, require preventative control plans, create importer verification programs, establish new produce safety standards, and build a nationwide food traceability system. They said that meant writing entirely new regulations rather than simply updating old ones, which that's a very difficult process, and it's very time-consuming to do because everything gets challenged. They said since 2015, the FDA has issued nine major implementing rules that form the backbone of the FSMA. Sma,
Stoney
I just I think it's funny now that people are they're they're cutting out processed foods, and now all of a sudden eating fresh produce is causing a cyclosporine outbreak. Yeah, like you know what I'm saying. I mean, come on, wait a minute. Look at this. You know,
Jason
many growers, processors, and grocery companies and trade association argue that some of the rules here you go expensive, technologically difficult, and particularly burdensome for small farms and small businesses. And I can understand that there is truth in all of that. The question is, is what's the balance?
Stoney
Right.
Jason
You know what? What is the balance? I I think we could do better than what we're doing now. You just can't simply say, well, it's too expensive to do. I mean, we have to come up with a way of preventing people from getting sick. I mean, just simply say, well, that's just the way it is. Oh well, I just don't think it's acceptable. I mean, it is one notable example is the food traceability rule, which requires more detailed electronic records for certain high-risk foods. They said after industry concerns, the FDA extended the compliance date to July of 2028, saying additional time was needed for companies to prepare.
Stoney
Oh, remember when Mad Cow came out and they found that one cow that caused
Ian
it?
Stoney
You know, wait a minute.
Jason
Yeah, they said it's they hopefully by July of 2028. So this time, this month in two years, hopefully that they'll work out the kinks on this stuff. But you know, I mean, it's like anything to me. This kind of reminds me of the of the the the mess that is the the National Firearms Act and trying to get things registered and the time and the the inadequate systems that they utilize to to basically check backgrounds and stuff. This is all typical government BS stuff. Yeah, that just they just can't. They can't seem to get it together. They just they can't. So the FDA is no different. From any other governmental entity, you know. So
Stoney
no, I think they're worse. I think they're one of the worst ones. Food and Drug Administration is supposed to protect the American citizen, and they've done very little of that in any history that I can remember now since the brain damage. I got less memory, but even before that, I can't remember a time that the Food and Drug Administration really took care of the American citizen. Think about this: everything that they allow, Europe and other countries in this world have made illegal. You can't sell American bread in another country because of those other 35 chemicals that I described earlier,
Jason
right?
Stoney
Think about all the candies and the ice creams and the things that you can't sell outside of America because other countries had just said, "Hey, that's illegal.
Jason
Well, right now they just FDA's got they've got some problems right now. They really do. That the government accounting they've very one of the strongest criticism. It's not even established a comprehensive performance management process to determine whether the new prevention framework is actually even reducing illnesses. So basically, they haven't even built in the measuring metrics to determine if you know we're accomplishing what we need to accomplish. So they said it's tough. It says it it really takes years to train experienced food investigators making workforce turnover a long term challenge, which I can imagine it is because as soon as some guy probably gets trained up really well and is doing really good, guess what? Some company probably coming along with a big check,
Ian
yep,
Jason
and he's gone, and and and that's the problem. I mean, it just is, which I don't necessarily blame them, but I mean,
Ian
yeah,
Jason
you know, the government trains you, and now the private company is paying you big dollars for that knowledge.
Stoney
That's right.
Jason
You know, so or
Stoney
to let something slide.
Jason
Well, I mean, if you're paid, I mean, this kind of reminds me of the whole deal with with cigarettes in the tobacco industry. Yeah, remember all that? Cigarettes are, you know, they all went there and raised their hands and said they were going to tell the truth in front of Congress. And cigarette smoking had nothing to do with, you know, with carcinogens and the cancer involved with it. But you know, it's money makes people do weird things.
Ian
Yep, it really does.
Stoney
Yes,
Jason
especially if it's going to cost me me living. You know, I won't have to live in the big house, and I won't have to bed and press press the ladies with how much money I can throw around. And families and kids are in private school and driving expensive cars, huh? You know, got to. And
Stoney
you need that $1,800 iPhone. Yeah, all that takes money, you know, $60 haircuts and you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Ian
Oof, that's it's
Stoney
crazy.
Jason
I don't know. I mean, this I'm saying, Congress passed this law in 2011, and we're still 2026, and they still haven't worked it out. Yep.
Stoney
What's what's the quote? The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is the crap. Oh, there's a quote. The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is yeah, good.
Ian
Yeah, yeah.
Stoney
Looking it up for
Ian
us. I'm looking it. Sorry
Stoney
about my brain damage, guys. I'm doing the best I can. I'm
Ian
not a very fast typer. That's all right. Yeah, faster
Stoney
than me.
Jason
The FDA officials told the Government Accounting Office they prioritize implementing the rules. Get this before evaluating their overall effectiveness. So let's just throw a bunch of word garbage on paper, so we can go to Congress and show look what we've done. But in all reality, it's just an exercise in futility because it's not accomplishing what
Ian
yeah
Jason
it's supposed to accomplish. So I mean, it's they got to figure things out. I mean, the
Ian
quote is from former U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy, the full quote is: "The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is inefficiency, and efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
Jason
It is. It is. You think about it; makes a lot of sense. Sometimes people don't want things to work
Ian
the
Jason
way they need to work because now it might actually impinge on my what I want to do. You know, I mean,
Stoney
that's a great quote. I could, I knew it. I just kind of yeah. You need you
Jason
need to you need to place that quote as part of the episode under the link. How about use
Stoney
that as the title? Yeah. That's a little probably a little long for a title, but yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ian
yeah. Okay,
Jason
so I mean, this is so yeah, 2028. Need to be the title.
Stoney
That would be a good title for another episode, though.
Ian
Right? Yeah,
Jason
the FDA is they they really got to. I'm a believer. I know a lot of people hate the FDA. I mean, unfortunately, one of those.
Stoney
I don't think. I think it was one of those things that started off with great promise and a great idea, but it turned into something else. Yeah, a great intention, but
Jason
they were having problems back. I saw a John Oliver had a nice episode. He came out on his show a couple years ago that I was able to watch, and they've actually been having problems with the FDA going back to 60s. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you name it, 60. I mean, these reports go back a long way. So the idea that people, so when people say, which is typical, you know, the minute you cut something, then it's you know, oh, it's the world's coming to an end because we don't have. They've been having these problems for a long time, so it's not about people; it's about processes. I think the the food system has become so complex. The web is so just little little strands going everywhere. It is very difficult to respond, at least in the current framework, to respond to these things from you know before you know this kind of stuff happens, I I don't know a way. I honest with you know this few this food traceability rule maybe maybe that might help if they can
Stoney
have that. We already have gun control laws. We don't want to enforce them. We already have rules and restrictions for immigration. We don't want to enforce them. Welfare. We have rules and restrictions for who gets welfare, but not everybody wants their draw. I need my draw. Don't mess with my draw. I need my draw. So we don't want to enforce what we have. If we just enforced what we have, things would be a lot better and a lot easier and simpler. Welfare was not multi generational payment to keep buying your vote, but that's what it's turned into now.
Ian
Right,
Stoney
immigration. There are laws for immigration. Yeah, enforce them.
Ian
Right,
Stoney
you know, like this woman from Canada, you seen this thing? She she comes down. Her her visa expired in 2024. She's here illegally, and then all of a sudden she sees this other young lady who has a MAGA hat on or MAGA stuff on, and she reaches up and knocks up, just piss out of her. And now she's my butt hurt because you're arresting me. You can't arrest me. That's my First Amendment right. Number one, you are not an American citizen. You do not have a First Amendment right. You have no rights in America. You must be an American citizen to have American rights given to you by a higher power, not the government. It's that simple. You want those rights? Become a citizen. Yeah, just like my wife. Everybody, oh, you hate immigrants. No, I don't. I love immigrants. I married an immigrant, but how much money? And it cost her 11 years of her life to become a citizen. Yeah, she did it right. She is an American. Yep, and I love her very much. There you go. Well, this
Jason
this this food traceability rule. This is I'm very interested in this thing because I'm trying to figure out what really what is driving this right now. And they said before this rule, investigators often relied on invoices, handwritten records, emails, and phone calls to reconstruct where food came from. That process could take weeks, during which contaminated food might continue to be sold. This rule requires businesses handling certain high-risk foods to maintain standardized records, so the FDA can quickly answer questions such as where was the food grown, who processed it, which distributor shipped it, which grocery store or restaurants received it, and which specific lot or shipment is involved. Yeah. So if an outbreak occurred, the FDA can request these records, and businesses must generally provide them within 24 hours or another agreed-upon time.
Ian
Yeah, yeah.
Jason
So which
Ian
I've seen that before with other things like sodas or other like bottled drinks or or milk or whatever. Like you get like batch numbers or lot numbers, so again, in case there's an outbreak or ice cream, I think I heard the same thing. There was like a handful of years ago where like ice cream had like a big thing about it. Where like again, if you have like a certain lot number, they were like throw it out if the if the number on the on the bottom was like this or whatever, throw those away because that's being recalled because of a contamination or whatever.
Jason
Yeah, they say the the rule identifies specific moments when records must be created. So this is where you start getting the pushback from certain entities. So the growing, harvesting, cooling, initial packing, shipping, receiving, and transforming, such as chopping or repackaging, each of these events is called a critical tracking event. That's pretty interesting, actually. I find well,
Stoney
basically, I did a little thing here, and the the the clean explanation to this is the government wants food industry to maintain a standardized chain of records, so investigators can trace contaminated salad, melon, fish, egg, or cheese backwards to its source and forward to every business that received it. And what's driving it is these outbreak investigators regularly lose the trail. Okay, and then again, each company may use different lot numbers, product descriptions, computer systems, invoice formats, location codes, and date formats. I mean, looking at just the little the codes on stuff can be confusing at times. Maybe they want to standardize that too.
Jason
Yeah,
Stoney
and the the thing is, American food supply is global and highly centralized. That's what they want. Food can be grown in Mexico, packed by one company, processed in another, distributed through several warehouses, and served under multiple restaurant or store brands. Which is kind of what I said earlier. Yeah, you know, you got the lettuce company packaging it for four or five different you know retailers. So
Jason
yeah, so just two scenarios. So just kind of let people know: without this rule, investigators interview patients, restaurants search old invoices, distributors contact suppliers. Farms search shipping logs. Investigation can take weeks. With full traceability, the investigators identify the traceability lot code. The lot code reveals the processor. The processor identifies the farm. Retailers identify exactly which stores receive the shipment, and only affected products are recalled instead of broad categories of food.
Stoney
What what they're saying is not to interrupt you, but a lot of this is geared toward healthy foods that are often eaten without a kill step.
Ian
What's a
Stoney
steak can be cooked: lettuce, cilantro, sprouts, watermelon. You're not cooking that, so the you know cyclosporia, the E. coli, the Salmonella, the Listeria, and other biological contaminates. They want a direct line, so they can quick you know quickly trace this.
Ian
Yeah. So there is a there is a like a a function that happens, there is like there is some order.
Jason
Well, it's like it's like anything where you get more efficient. And he says, you know, why is this controversial? And supporters will say it would speed outbreak investigations, it reduces illnesses, makes recalls more precise, and saves businesses from broad unnecessary recalls. Critics increases compliance costs, especially for small farms and businesses. I get that. I can understand that. Requires new software labeling and record keeping systems can be difficult to implement consistently across complex supply chains, and still leave some ambiguity about how different businesses should comply with this. So basically, instead of saying avoid iceberg lettuce, with this system in play, you were saying earlier, it says avoid lot X Y Z 123 harvested on june 14 from Farm A. Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah,
Stoney
they gave a list of things, and I hope that I can say this with a straight face. But they gave a list of things. What this will include: leafy green vegetables, you know, fresh cut greens, herbs, cucumbers, tomatoes, a lot of the oysters, clams, some of the fish, shrimp, clab, lobster, smoked fin fish, fin fish, and this one I got no clue. Nut butters.
Ian
Okay. Yeah, yeah, like almond. I hope I can. I was going to say. I hope I can say that with a straight face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stoney
But nut butters is in that. So wow, a lot of your refrigerated, ready to eat deli salads, because that would have some of the same packaged.
Ian
Yeah,
Stoney
stuff that got repackaged for something else, right? And like you
Ian
said before, I didn't realize there was like a kill step or whatever they call that, like it's like a cooking element for it.
Stoney
And they're not, and because of this, they're not saying that every food is contaminated. It's just saying that the FDA believes these food categories warrant stronger tracing and accountability. Yeah, yeah. So okay. Hey, you know.
Ian
Yeah, there is a process, even though it, you know, it has its flaws. Which oh wow, they and they have a
Stoney
very specific list of what businesses will have to record: harvesting, cooling, initial packaging, first land-based receipt of seafood or said products shipping, receiving, transforming, mixing, cutting, repackaging, packaging, or relabeling the food.
Ian
Wow!
Jason
Yeah, you basically are breaking down the process to its very individual components. Because
Ian
at that point, once you got oh, there's a lot of money involved, and the second some some part of that that flaw, some part of that process is flawed. You got to be able to point out the one person and say it is your fault. It almost seems like
Stoney
a lean six sigma. It is. Yeah, it almost sounds like it's like you start lean six sigma in the beginning, right, and go all the way to the end. That's where
Jason
they're trying to get this down. Which you, I can understand if you're not if if you're going to reduce, it's like it's sort of like what the state of Louisiana went through under certain governors with the idea of doing more with less. Yeah, we we have less people, but on but vice versa, you have to make the investments on the on the on the efficiency sides of computer systems, software systems, hardware, to be able to kind of compensate for the lack of people, and I think in this particular case, it's if you're going to have less FDA inspectors, then we need to make it to a point where less can can actually do more. So, which means you got to implement all this other stuff. Yeah.
Jason
So that's there's only two ways of handling: either do it that way, or hire a bunch of people and just flood people into, you know, you double and triple the amount of FDA inspectors. Well, the amount of
Stoney
87,000 armed tax agents that the Biden crime family put in, hey, we can redact, you know, redirect those to the FDA.
Jason
To me, that should have been maybe I would have been more happy with 80,000 more FDA investigators than actual IRS people, but I understand why they were trying to do that. Well, yeah.
Stoney
Well, the the rollout was supposed to be in 2022 for this thing. Okay. So, but they they've missed that by a few days. It's
Jason
been
Ian
days pushed
Jason
back. So, yeah. so yeah guys this has been a you know here we are again another outbreak you know be careful be careful what you eat out there
Ian
yeah watch it double check it and I again I would try and stay away from a lot of that stuff until maybe well they've moved it to
Stoney
July 2028 as the next moving, you know, the compliance that they bring,
Jason
and I'll be very curious if they actually.
Stoney
And the question is, is the current cyclosporia outbreak driving this to oh
Ian
yeah push it out
Stoney
there? You know, so
Ian
because I, I mean, again, as we talked about before, there's a lot of money, and when no one wants to buy lettuce anymore. There's no one. Anyone who has investments in lettuce, they're like, okay, let's get this stuff working, guys. But yeah, for anybody who wants to share their experience, I mean, obviously, if you're explosive pooping,
Stoney
please do not send us pictures, but let us know.
Ian
We have comment sections on YouTube and on Spotify where you can leave some short form responses, and we also have an email address, getoffendedtogether@gmail.com, where you can send those long form responses. Be sure to like and subscribe on whatever platform you listen to a song, because it really does mean a lot. And share with somebody if you think they would like this, or if they wouldn't, or if they hate it, or if they hate it. Not to
Stoney
interrupt right quick, but I want to throw something. Does anybody else remember Dumb and Dumber in the bathrooms? Yes. Does this not remind y'all of that? This is the first thing that popped in the face. I'm sorry, guys.
Jason
I'll remember that movie.
Ian
And until next week, thank you so much for listening. Bye bye.
Jason
Goodbye, everyone, and God bless.
Stoney
So let me get this straight: meat ticks trigger alpha gal. Healthy produce carries parasites, and actually, exercise can make the symptoms worse. At some point, you have to ask: Is this really bad luck? Bad food safety? Are we slowly being trained to fear everything that once made us strong? You're the best. Thanks for hanging out with us today. Peace.