An explosive episode on food recalls!

Mexico warned its own tourists not to eat the lettuce they shipped to the US.

In this episode:

• A cyclosporiasis outbreak traced to Mexican lettuce hit Taco Bell, tanking their sales 30% in a week — and Mexico’s own government warned tourists not to eat the lettuce they’d shipped to the US

• Taco Bell didn’t taint the lettuce, but they bore the reputational hit anyway — and responded by launching lettuce-free menu items and advertising campaigns before regulators even caught up

• There’s a market incentive against poisoning your customers

• The FDA wasn’t created to protect consumers — it was created by large meat packing companies lobbying to impose regulatory burdens that crushed smaller competitors; the first commissioner was cutting deals for his friends

• Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is a work of fiction

• California’s Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner, Xavier Becerra, told voters to skip licensed restaurants and eat from street cart vendors — in the most heavily regulated food state in America, with cancer warning stickers on light bulbs

• The FDA once went after Coca-Cola for not having enough cocaine in it to justify the name

• City food agents have poured bleach on food being served to homeless people because the charitable kitchen lacked proper certification — the alternative being the homeless go hungry

A comedian and an economist walk into a bar...

That’s Happy Hour Econ, where I team up with economist Phil Magness for the Free To Choose Network. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.