The award for the most silly statements in one media report that I’ve seen today – and I see a lot in one day – goes to North Carolina’s Asheville Citizen-Times.

In the context of the on-going Salmonella outbreak, with 971 confirmed illnesses and at least 189 hospitalizations, Charlie Jackson, director of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, says people should not be too concerned, adding,

“In the whole scheme of things, we have the safest food in the world. There is more danger in driving to the market than eating a tomato that is going to make you sick.”

How compassionate. If someone in industry or government said that they would be rightly skewered.

Jackson also said local food is inherently safer than food shipped in from far away, adding,

“The big and astounding problem is that they don’t know where it (the salmonella) came from. That doesn’t occur when you buy the product right from the farmer who grew it.”

Wrong. The big problem is poop on food, wherever it came from, along with bullshit statements from hucksters.

Renay Knapp, a family consumer science agent with the N.C. Cooperative Extension in Henderson County, says

“Probably the most important thing is to keep hot food hot and cold foods cold. That’s where it all starts.”

Nope. It starts on the farm and keeping poop away from the food.

And these are pictures, for no particular reason, of Wellington, New Zealand, where Amy and I are currently camped out, and yesterday’s lunch. We don’t get mussels like that in Kansas.