Food inspectors miss 99 percent of imports

The tiny fraction of food imports to the United States that the Food and Drug Administration does inspect are often found to be contaminated. The quality of the vast majority of imports is never assessed. The Government Accountability Office has labeled the American food safety system broken and in need of repair. The FDA's dismal record on inspections, unfortunately, is only one of the problems. News like this always reminds us here at The Daily Green that eating locally grown and produced foods, whenever possible, is preferable. If you can look your farmer in the eye, and shake the hand of the guy who owns the local market, you have gone a long way toward defining your own standards for food safety.