Leadership Quote by Dan Glickman

"Meat and poultry is safe. It's safer than it's probably ever been" is the kind of reassurance that tries to win a public argument by leaning on the invisible machinery of the state. Dan Glickman, speaking as a politician and former Agriculture Secretary, isn’t selling you a cut of chicken; he’s selling trust in the regulatory system that lets modern Americans eat without thinking about slaughterhouses, supply chains, and pathogens.

The intent is stabilizing: tamp down fear, keep markets from wobbling, and signal competence. The phrasing is deliberately plain, almost folksy, built for repetition on TV. "Safe" is a moral word as much as a scientific one, and repeating it turns the claim into a calm mantra. Then comes the comparative hedge: "safer than it's probably ever been". It’s a rhetorical seatbelt. "Probably" acknowledges uncertainty without conceding vulnerability, a politician’s way of promising confidence while leaving room for the next headline.

The subtext is more complicated. When officials have to say food is safe out loud, it’s usually because people suspect it isn’t. The line implicitly competes with vivid counter-narratives: outbreaks, recalls, investigative reporting, the unnerving fact that industrial efficiency can also scale risk. Glickman’s bet is that a long trend line - better inspection, improved refrigeration, microbial testing - will feel more convincing than any single horror story.

Context matters: late-20th-century food politics were increasingly defined by mass production and mass anxiety. This is crisis language that pretends not to be, a confidence statement aimed at preserving the everyday illusion that dinner is just dinner.