Hooray, the one meat that I can usually afford will get even worse! And they want to do the same thing for beef? Perfect.

Even better, "USDA officials confirmed they have no plans under the new system to test for salmonella" and "The hog plants also will no longer be required to test for E. coli".

Farmer's market pork here doesn't go much lower than $7.50/pound (bone-in pork shoulder/"boston butt", usually the cheapest cut short of buying a whole/half pig), versus frequent $1.50/pound sales at the grocery chains. Sure it's better quality, more humane, and probably creates fewer pig waste lagoons to wash into the rivers when there's a hurricane or two. That's (seriously) all great, but I haven't had a real job in almost a year and there's not really anything filling the gap between Smithfield CAFO pork and pasture-raised fancy pork - so cheap pork it is... or has been.

Most likely, climate change + hiking habit will mean another tick bite, making pork even easier for me to avoid (first bite was good for two years of mystery anaphylaxis risk after eating something with pork before it eventually cleared up) - just nature's way of saying "go vegetarian".

I should probably clarify that my sarcasm wasn't necessarily a Don't Eat Meat, more of a We're All F***ed, Aren't We?

Watched a documentary about how many stalls at farmer's markets are just people who go to the nearest food terminal and get a van or truck load of standard grower's group food and put it in cute little baskets and mark it up a huge amount. So not really a solution.

But hey self inspection worked out well for the Boeing 737 MAX right?