Nobody promised...this would be easy.

Open Thread below...

I just can't get over how well that self-policing policy has worked for our national food supply!

Federal officials have released a tidal wave of fresh recalls in the past 24 hours as they connect the dots in the supply chain of tainted peanut-related products.

The latest recalls by 25 companies listing dozens of items include Walgreen's chocolate candy with peanuts, Best Brands peanut butter cookie dough and Hain Celestial's frozen pad Thai dinners, including one made for Trader Joe's.

On Saturday, Harry and David of Medford joined the recall, pulling Olympia Delight Trail Mix products, and Berkeley, Ca.-based Clif Bar and Co. pulled eight more of its protein bars.

The recall has reached a fever pitch since it was expanded to include all products - from roasted peanuts to peanut butter -- from Peanut Corporation of America's plant at Blakely, Ga., where Food and Drug Administration investigators found two strains of salmonella and evidence that on 12 occasions in 2007 and 2008 the company sold food even after it had tested positive for salmonella.

In a startling revelation on Saturday, the Atlanta Journal Constitution said the president of Peanut Corp., Stewart Parnell, serves on an industry advisory board that helps the U.S. Department of Agriculture set quality standards for peanuts.

From the same administration that claimed they kept us safe, more good news:

WASHINGTON -- The government said schools and agencies in at least three states were shipped possibly tainted peanut products that have been recalled in a nationwide salmonella outbreak. The products were shipped as part of the federal school meal program.

A spokesman for the Agriculture Department's Food and Nutrition Service said schools, daycare centers and group homes in California, Idaho and Minnesota received roasted peanuts and peanut butter from Georgia-based Peanut Corp. of America. The USDA had said previously that school meal programs were not affected by the large-scale recall.

Stores have already pulled more than 430 kinds of cakes, cookies and other peanut-containing foods from shelves in what the Food and Drug Administration is calling one of the largest product recalls in memory. The outbreak has sickened more than 500 people in the United States. As many as eight deaths may be linked to the outbreak.

The government has opened a criminal investigation into the outbreak.

Stephen Sundlof, head of the FDA's food safety center, said Friday the Justice Department will investigate possible criminal violations by the Blakely, Ga., peanut processing plant that shipped tainted products to dozens of other food companies.

You see what the Republican non-enforcement policy did to the FDA? Their reliance on inspiring ideals like voluntary self-reporting of problems with the food and drug industries? Things like this:

The Georgia food plant that federal investigators say knowingly shipped contaminated peanut butter also had mold growing on its ceiling and walls, and it has foot-long gaps in its roof, according to results of a federal inspection.

More than 500 people in 43 states have been sickened, and eight have died, after eating crackers and other products made with peanut butter from the plant, which is owned by the Peanut Corporation of America. More than 100 children under the age of 5 are among those who have been sickened.

The plant sells its peanut paste to some of the nation’s largest food manufacturers, including Kellogg and McKee Foods. As a result of the contamination, more than 100 products have been recalled, mostly cookies and crackers.

Officials from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention traced the outbreak to the Peanut Corporation of America plant in Blakely, Ga. On Jan. 9, investigators descended on the plant for a thorough inspection, which was completed Tuesday.

The report from the inspection, first posted on the Internet by Bill Marler, a lawyer, cites 12 instances in 2007 and 2008 in which the company’s own tests of its product found contamination by salmonella.

In each case, the report states, “after the firm retested the product and received a negative status, the product was shipped in interstate commerce.”

It is illegal for a company to continue testing a product until it gets a clean test, said Michael Taylor, a food safety expert at George Washington University.

The Washington Post reports that it's serious enough to expand the recall to all products the company produced in the past two years:

In one of the largest food recalls in history, the Food and Drug Administration asked retailers, manufacturers and consumers yesterday to throw out every product made in the past two years from peanuts processed by a Georgia plant at the heart of a deadly nationwide outbreak of salmonella illness.

I'm running this extraordinary mashup simply because it cracked me up.