The USDA has come up with a brilliant plan to help consumers survive the next salmonella outbreak.  It’s called the Food Safety Mobile.  The goal of this roving banana of knowledge is to bring safe food handling skills to the masses.  Because after all, these constant outbreaks aren’t the result of questionable farming practices by Big Ag companies but rather the fault of the American people for recklessly choosing to eat their lettuce raw.

This is yet another sign that USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and his cronies are completely unqualified for the job.  Vilsack is not a farmer, nutritionist, doctor, chef or scientist.  He is a lobbyist, specifically a lobbyist for Monsanto.  That’s why he and his staff continue to miss or ignore the fact that the problem is not with consumers cross contaminating their food but rather with factory-farming that is more factory than farm.  In short, Vilsack doesn’t get it.

The Food Safety Mobile is the heart of the USDA’s $1.37 billion push to teach Americans how to wash fruit.  In addition to the traveling roadshow the program also maintains a toll-free hotline for your food safety questions providing assistance in both English and Spanish and an online chat.  Both are available from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays.  Oh, and I would be remiss not to mention the youtube channel, food handling demos, coloring books and of course the Food Safety Mobile Discovery Game.

This is such a waste of tax payer dollars.  Hey, Mr. Vilsack, here’s a thought – instead of buying a million dollar lunch truck how about not imposing dangerously lax regulations on genetically modified foods in exchange for campaign contributions for your boss?  That way you could save the over-taxed and ignored citizenry a nickle or two.  Not to mention how it would help clean up one of the most corrupt branches of the federal government.

You can take a virtual tour of the USDA’s Food Safety Mobile HERE but be warned – the decor has been known to trigger epileptic seizures.  You’d think a billion dollars could by an interior that doesn’t look like Walt Disney threw up.