Worry is paying interest on trouble before it is due. This was one of my dad’s favorite admonishments to me every time I shared my worries with him. There is enough worry to go around these days for sure, what with all the things wrong with the global economy that are too numerous to comprehend, forget being able to deal with them. For example, should I worry that the FDIC might go bankrupt by the end of this year? I wish my dad were alive so I could ask him, for he’d surely have the right answer for me.

Based on what I have been hearing lately from various people involved one way or another in the business of producing and marketing meat protein for human consumption, the probability of another catastrophic food-poisoning outbreak is a front-burner worry (see my editorial in the March 2009 issue of The National Provisioner).

I am baffled by the plausibility of this scenario given that the U.S. meat industry is fundamentally sound concerning food safety by accounts that matter. Not only that, but the industry’s arsenal is filled with tools and weapons designed for battle and a winnable war against pathogen attacks. For one thing, there is a vaccine on the market to prevent E. coli O157:H7 in cattle. And, we are told, HACCP is still doing a job as a pathogen-prevention system on the plant floor.

So why the worry (translated certainty) that another major recall of meat products is in the offing? I eagerly await your answers and, thank you in advance.