The best — with respect to the superlative — line I’ve ever read on nutrition came from Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food,” that I discovered after reading an article he wrote in the New York Times Sunday Magazine last February: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” The next best was, “Eat food, not too much, and mostly plants.”

Follow that advice and you might not have to worry about the Food and Drug Administration’s stepped up effort to ensure food safety for Americans. Food safety is back on the FDA radar after years of being criticized for it’s lack of concern about germs, poisons and food quality for Americans. It’s nothing new, the complaints began three decades ago when the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture backed off of meat inspections after dialing back grading on meat quality back in the 70s.

Now, in recent years, we’ve had poison spinach, poison baby formula, poison peppers, poison cherries, mad cow disease scares, fear of raw chicken being washed in sewage — and anything that can be contaminated by e coli bacteria and other cooties from the large intestines of humans and animals both foreign and domestic.

In response, the agency is trying to increase it’s scrutiny of reports of food poisoning at restaurants and in grocery store prepared foods, especially with global reports of food poisoning in countries such as China, as well as stepping up its scrutiny of imported produce. Indeed, in recent months, more ground beef has gone down the garbage disposal than through a McDonald’s kitchen.

In the effort to protect yourself, reading the FDA’s main food safety site, The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, requires an advanced degree in double-speak to see what you government is finally doing to ensure food safety — at the risk of irking congress people who depend on big agriculture for campaign donations.

I suggest you go to the friendlier site, FoodSafety.gov where the language is more consumer-oriented and you can learn how to protect yourself from cooties even if the feds are falling down on the job. Ironically the site is produced by the feds.

Some sites you might trust more:

Home Food Safety, sponsored by the American Dietetics Association.

Ensuring Food Safety, a primer for food service businesses so you can see what they’re supposed to do, like not put their thumb in  your plate on the way to the table or grab the lip of the glass while setting it down.

Food Safety Information Center, from the USDA, but it’s pretty vast.

Help, the USDA’s Q&A and FAQs of food safety issues including where to go for information.

Nevertheless, the long-term secret, according to Pollan is, don’t put anything in your mouth that you can’t wash first and looks about the same after you cook it, and if you don’t understand the words on the food label, don’t eat the contents of the package. The same goes for drinks and snacks.

As for eating out? Don’t accept luke-warm food and if the server resists, leave and find a safer place to eat.