Hightower Lowdown

How's this for a tombstone? "Here lies a guy/ Killed by a pie."

The actual killers are food conglomerates that scavenge the globe in a constant search for ever-cheaper ingredients from low-wage nations that have practically no food-safety protections.

Consider the case of ConAgra Foods, a massive conglomerate that sells more than 100 million pot pies a year under the Banquet label. Its pies contain 25 ingredients, though sometimes they contain an extra one not listed on the label: salmonella. Poisoning customers is bad for repeat business, but even when ConAgra finds a pathogen during spot checks, it has been unable to pinpoint which ingredient is responsible.

In fact, as the New York Times has reported, such food giants concede that their supply chain is so far-flung that they "do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes." The makers of Banquet, Swanson, Nestle, Hungry Man ,and other brand-name foods have admitted they can no longer ensure the safety of their products.

So, you might assume they'd be changing their suppliers to get better ingredients. Nope, they are simply shifting the responsibility for the safety of their products to you, the consumer. The Banquet pot-pie package, for example, now instructs you to cook the pie to exactly 165 degrees "as measured by a food thermometer in several spots."

Hello--this is supposed to be a convenience food, not a science experiment. Forget the thermometers, which most families don't even own, just put safe ingredients in the pies!