Take a bowl and put some yogurt into it, and then a scoop of granola (homemade) and then wander out to the garden, where just inside the gate there is a row of fraise des bois, or Alpine strawberries, and pick the softest, ripest, most aromatic ones and drop them into the bowl. Eat. Tender, sweet, juicy contrasts with nutty crunch. Good heavens, what a privilege to eat like that.

Even the chickens are privileged characters around here. They can reach the berries nearest the fence and routinely peck-pick them all. There’s almost enough for everyone.

Or out in the hoop house, I graze on cherry tomatoes%u2014garden snacks%u2014while looking for tomato hornworms, which, if you catch them when they are tiny, and the frass looks like black pepper sprinkled on a leaf, don’t do too much damage.

Then there is the old fresh, raw corn gambit. Like a giant raccoon, my friend Jamie used to go down the corn row, leaving behind the shucked leaves of corn cobs, having eaten fresh sweet corn straight from the plant, no cooking required. I’ll open pods of peas and inhale them fresh, raw, sweet. It is a privilege to eat like that.

It used to be that eating venison in old England was a privilege accorded the elites, the nobles. Some early travelers to colonial America marveled at the amount of deer meat ordinary people could eat. Still do; anyone with the patience to sit in a tree stand in the cold waiting for a deer, or the moxie to get one in the headlights, can stash away enough for winter eating.

It’s easy to forget, while pulling weeds, or battling insects, what a privilege it is to eat wonderful, fresh, flavorful food, straight from the garden or from a neighbor’s garden, or even from a farmers market.

It isn’t until you watch the news and see poor, benighted souls who have spent days, or even weeks running to the john, anxious about what food is safe enough for them to buy or consume, that you realize what a privilege it is.

So it turns out that the cyclospora outbreak in the Midwest back in late July probably stemmed from prepackaged, prewashed salad mix served at Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants. The stuff came from a place called Taylor Farms de Mexico. Lots of people in Nebraska and Iowa ended up with the runs, and felt lousy for days and days. Ditto people in Texas, Florida, Wisconsin, New York City, Georgia, Illinois, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Ohio. But no Maine islands, nor I guess, anywhere in Maine.

“Bagged salads and all other vegetables are safe to eat,” Nebraska’s health department said, apparently in denial of reality. But the lady interviewed on TV who was found to have cyclospora, a parasite, which causes the intestinal illness Cyclosporia, described herself as skittish about what food to buy or where to eat.

I have some advice. Unless you have a cast iron gut, eat at home and/or at local diners and non-chain restaurants whose owners you can meet personally and whose hands you can shake. Plant lettuce in your yard and grow it yourself, or buy your lettuce at a farmers market or farm stand. Or at the very least, buy whole heads at the grocery store, wash them yourself at home, and tear them up in pieces with your own hands.

Sure, it is a pain to wash lettuce. Certainly not one of my favorite jobs. But, if you want to be dead certain that you are eating safe food, it beats the risky alternative of trusting that it comes to you clean.

It is astounding to me that having clean, safe food is a privilege these days. Don’t ask the government to provide enough inspectors to give you safe food. Just don’t buy anything that has a “safe handling instructions” label on it.

Why American consumers meekly accepts the big meat producers foisting the responsibility for protecting themselves from the producers’ products by following those instructions baffles me, even though I know it is because it is cheaper than locally raised, locally processed food. We ought to open those packages of meat and dump the contents on the floor by the meat departments. If a huge mass of people did that, the stores would make darn sure that the food they sell was safe. Or we could just stop buying it.

I can sort of “get it” about meat and dairy products having health safety issues, but salad? Good grief.

Sandy Oliver lives on Islesboro.