What are food standards?

While I find it abhorrent that anyone should care in the slightest for Bernard Matthews's blood-smeared profits, I find myself equally reviled at the Food Standards Association's abiding message to the public.

On BBC Breakfast earlier this morning, Dr Andrew Wadge of the FSA wittered soothingly about his 10 years' experience of bird flu around the world.

"At the moment, our investigations do not suggest any illegal movement," he told the ever-eerie Kate Silverton. "There's no real risk from cooked food, provided that you cook it properly."

Thanks Wadgey. Good to know you're watching over us — animal, vegetable, mineral all.

Christ. Far from advising that "it's still OK" to nosh down on the battered carcasses of tortured birds, perhaps the so-called Food Standards agencies should be striving to illegalise the horrific conditions in which our unhealthy luxuries are constructed.

The shameful practices that industrial agri-business visits on animals are comprehensively condoned by focusing solely on the risk of human infection. In terms of shameless inhumanity, the process dwarves the product — and that's some achievement.