Relax, If Food Is No Longer Safe to Eat, Just Eat Cake

It seems like food safety is all anyone has been talking about this summer, whether you found out about these problems the easy way (reading an article your mom texted you about the latest recall) or the hard way (weeks-long explosive diarrhea because you ignored your mom’s text messages). As an FDA spokesperson, I’m here to assure you that we’re on top of it.

Admittedly, lots of pantry staples are currently unsafe to eat—everything from fresh produce (because of cyclospora) to eggs (because of salmonella) to bread (because there are literally bits of glass in it). Other foods, like ground beef, have gotten expensive thanks, in part, to infections like New World screwworm. Pretty much everything on RFK Jr.’s food pyramid is either contaminated or cost-prohibitive:

But there is one food that hasn’t been recalled: cake.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying cake is healthy. Birthdays in the RFK Jr. household are always celebrated the MAHA way—with a heaping portion of fermented whale meat, which has way more protein and probiotics than funfetti. That said, for a limited time, we’re suspending FDA nutritional guidelines. If families can’t find fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, or dairy that won’t sicken them, we’re committed to ensuring there’s an adequate substitute.

Thanks to simple, shelf-stable ingredients and high-temperature baking, cake remains relatively safe to eat (as long as you don’t eat carrot cake made with actual carrots—they’re riddled with E. coli). Who cares if everyday Americans can no longer eat bread without chipping a tooth or bleeding internally from all those shards of glass? They can eat cake. The same goes for fresh greens. We have it on good authority that a layer cake is considered a salad in most of the Midwest.

Liberals can grumble all they want about “affordability” and “access to food that doesn’t leave them doubled over on the toilet begging for death.” This is what America voted for—gutting the federal government so that corporations can self-regulate the way God and Project 2025 intended. They’re nostalgic for an America of the past, specifically Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.

Our current state of unbridled free market capitalism—where food might kill you, but taxes are slightly lower—is the best version of society we can hope for. Trust us, America doesn’t get any better than this.

Sure, theoretically, if we got all of the nation’s brightest minds together, perhaps they could design a system more ideal than the one we have now. But all of those people are currently working for McKinsey, helping private equity firms structure leveraged buyouts, which is far more important.

The truth is, whether through unchecked capitalism, authoritarianism, or both, all of the great civilizations throughout history eventually wind up being run by one powerful man and a small inner circle of elites. And everyday people end up better for it. Just look at Russia. That country has been run that way for centuries. When Americans think of Russia, they think “a place America should be more like.” That is why we are making America great again by making it more like Russia.

Whatever we do, we cannot let America become like France. They overthrow their ruling elite every few decades, and now it’s a hellscape where nobody works for the entire month of August, and the government babysits your kids for free.

That’s why the best thing Americans can do in this time of food-safety uncertainty is relax, pull out a large mixing bowl, whip together some flour, sugar, oil, and baking powder, and bake themselves a safe, delicious sheet cake that will sustain them through the fall.

Just don’t use any eggs. They’ll absolutely wreck you.

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Carlos Greaves and Ginny Hogan’s new book, Obey in Advance: How to Survive (and Thrive) Under Authoritarianism, is out in September, but is available to preorder now from our store.