Pringles: Tasty Treat or Salmonella Slider?

Growing up, I never really ate many potato chips and they were
rarely purchased for the home. My mother always said that they were unhealthy and led to weight problems — and had no nutritional value of their own. With Proctor & Gamble issuing a limited recall on some Pringles because of possible Salmonella poisoning, we have to ask ourselves how far we are willing to go to enjoy a tasty treat.

It seems healthy snacks are not immune to this sort of poisoning — the popular healthier snack Veggie Booty was tainted with Salmonella a few years ago, and Healthy Valley Granola bars were also recalled for the same reason.

I believe that the problem extends far beyond simply figuring out how to eliminate salmonella in our snack foods. We need to completely rethink what it means to eat food in general.

We know that it cannot be a coincidence that the average weight of people in the United States has spiraled upwards in the last fifty years. Michael Pollan has come up with some excellent suggestions for eating.

While it is true that there have been cases of salmonella that have been found in vegetables — here, too, it seems to have come from a packaged product rather than a vegetable purchased at a farmer’s market.

While I am on the subject of farmer’s markets, I would like you to take any opportunity you have to buy your groceries at farmer’s markets.  Farmer’s markets are overflowing with real food that should be the sort that you put on your plate, not pre-packaged overproduced highly marketed non-nutritious garbage.

When you pay more for the packaging and advertising of your food than the food itself, you know there is a problem — one that sometimes has lethal repercussions.