Food Risks, Flight Scams, And Holiday Ethics

Holiday sparkle meets hard choices as we weigh what’s safe to eat, how we treat each other in crowded airports, and whether “Robin Hood” thefts help or hurt. We start with a candid look at what food safety insiders actually avoid—sprouts, deli meats, bagged salads—and why ready‑to‑eat convenience can hide cross‑contamination risk, listeria exposure, and supply chain blind spots. That opens into a practical, no‑panic guide to eating smarter: when cooking vegetables aids digestion, how heat changes nutrient availability, and why older bodies sometimes do better with gentler prep.

Then we taxi to the gate and confront the “Jetway Jesus” trend: using wheelchair assistance to board early and snag overhead space. We unpack the ethics and the ripple effects on travelers who truly need access, and share commonsense travel tactics that keep dignity intact—lighter carry‑ons, under‑seat storage, and the surprising relief of boarding later when you have an assigned seat. The throughline is respect: systems work when we refuse to game them at someone else’s expense.

The final act steps into a snowy moral quandary: costumed “Santa and elves” stealing groceries to redistribute as charity. We acknowledge real pain from food prices and corporate profits, but challenge feel‑good theft that raises costs, invites crackdowns, and risks closures in the very neighborhoods that need stores. Instead, we point to better paths—community fridges funded by donors, surplus food partnerships, transparent pricing reforms, and direct support to food banks. And we end with a warm prompt for you to join the table: What’s on your Christmas menu?

If this conversation made you think, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves a good debate, and leave a quick review telling us your holiday plate and your take on these choices.

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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:29 Holiday Banter And Work Schedule
• 1:34 Food Safety Headlines
• 2:24 What Experts Refuse To Eat
• 3:49 Raw Vs Cooked Vegetables As We Age
• 4:39 The Jetway Jesus Boarding Scam
• 6:24 Overhead Bins And Boarding Priorities
• 6:54 Santa And Elves Grocery Heist Debate
• 10:09 Question Of The Day: Christmas Menu

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Well, hello, good morning. It is Christmas week. I just put on Twitter I'm wearing my uh mob wife wig to work today. Christmas week be damned. These people are gonna stay in line this week. You know, I'm just kidding, I work by myself. I mean I work with other people and I have bosses. I'm not in charge of anybody, so but my bosses are gonna stay in line. Alright. Um, let's see. I have some stories for you. I think two, fingers crossed, that we're only gonna work Monday and Tuesday this week. And I think they're giving us Wednesday and Friday off because the president signed something. I wish somebody could tell me what it was because they were debating whether or not to pay us. I'm like, well, if Donald Trump signed something, they have to pay us and they have to give us off. There's no ifs, ands, or buts around it, right? Government workers anyway. Federal workers. And I'm not really a direct federal worker, but I'm a government contractor who works for the federal government. Okay, whatever. Too much information. We need to move on. Let's see. What do I have going on over here? I tried to pick some light topics for you today. Oh, we'll see. Um, let's see. Oh, the let's talk about the food first. New York Post and let's see. Hopefully, it won't come up with any advertisements. Uh, okay, what food safety experts say they won't order when dining out at restaurants? Now, but then it goes on to talk about grocery store items. So what's the deal? Even foods most Americans consider healthy can pose serious foodborne illness risks, expert warned, and several say salads, sprouts, and deli meats are among the everyday items they personally refuse to eat. So you're not going to Jimmy John's or you're not going to Subway, you're not getting a public sub. We get public subs a lot. And guess what else we get? We get bag salads all the time from publics. All right. Uh, one Seattle attorney who has spent decades litigating some of the country's worst foodborne illness outbreaks recently told the Washington Post that his well-done burger and steak order are prompted chefs to come out and ask what's wrong with him. Oh my gosh, really? You're ordering a well-done steak or a well-done burger and the chef comes out and asks what's wrong with them? That's I love it. Because look, I'm ordering a medium rare steak all the time. Just pass it over the grill. Okay, maybe a little longer. Uh, I explain what I do for a living, Bill Marler told the outlet. It's an occupational hazard. He said he no longer touches bagged salads, uh-oh, fruit cups or trays, deli meats, ready-to-eat meals, or raw sprouts, which are often served raw on sandwiches, salads, and wraps. I'm not touching the sprouts either. I can't stand them. I've mm-mm, I've never had a sprout, and I know I never even had them, and I know I don't like them because they look disgusting. He said the item has have been repeatedly tied to cross-contamination and major listeria, E. coli, and seminella, salmonella outbreaks. While most diners view greens as a safe choice, Marlar said he avoids them entirely when eating out. And you can go figure out why and all that. I mean I understand, but uh, and I don't eat we used to eat a lot of salad. I'm trying to back off of the raw vegetables. I would eat uh for a long time I would eat uh raw red, yellow, and orange bell peppers for lunch. Just sliced up and eat them for lunch because I thought that was healthy for me. I thought I was getting my vitamins or my vegetables in for the day. Well, come to find out, when you get older, raw vegetables is not the best for your digestive system. And no wonder I was feeling all bloaty and everything. I quit eating raw vegetables and I eat cooked vegetables now. Much better. I don't know what I was thinking. I just thought raw vegetables were good for you. It was good for like fiber and stuff like that. Well, nope, not when you're older. Okay, moving on. Inside the Jetway Jesus travel scam, flyers are getting away with to board first and dodge long gate lines. This ought to be a crime. Um, I mean, I really don't care. We're all getting on the plane eventually. Does it matter if you go on first, really? Does it really matter if you're getting on first? I'd rather get on last, quite frankly. Because normally, I know it's gonna sound snobby, but when we travel, we travel business class. So why not? I mean, get on last, we're up the front of the plane anyway. I don't get it. I don't know why people are in such a rush to get on the plane. You're because you're gonna get on there and then sit and sit and sit and sit. I mean, and you have assigned seats, it's not like you know, you're gonna beat somebody to a better seat on the plane. Whatever. How are they getting away with that? It's an oddly familiar scene. You're waiting for your boarding group to be called at your flight's gate, watching a wheelchair-bound passenger dodge lines and board the plane first. Yet what and I think they should go first because they need extra time to all that. Yet, once the plane lands, you're scratching your head at the same flyer walking unassisted off the flight. No wheelchair in sight. You're see you're not seeing things. It's supposedly a sneaky little travel scam that social media users are nicknaming Jetway Jesus or Miracle Flight. Ask for a wheelchair, get escorted to your gate, bored oh, so you don't have to walk to your key. Oh my god, how embarrassing. Uh uh, I mean, because if you don't need it and you're need you know what I'm saying, bored before the rest of your flight and snag an overhead bin before everyone else does. It sounds like a traveler's dream. Not really, because I don't use the overhead bin. I don't want my crap up there with everybody else's crap. I want it down between my feet where I know where it is. Okay? It's staying under the seat in front of me. And if I'm sitting in the front front, then it's going in this in the seat behind as going, it's gonna stay down there. It's not going in the overhead bin. I don't I I gotta think about that. So it seems that many get Gutsy travelers are getting away with this because they're not asked for proof of any disability by an airline, and I can, you know, who does that? Yeah, I need to see proof that you're handicapped. Come on. Uh, to get this VIP treatment, a flyer simply has to ask their airline for assistance, either a few days before their scheduled flight or once they're checked in at the airport. Well, when else would you do it? As stated on the US Department of Transportation website, when a passenger okay, whatever. You you know what you know what's going on here. I wonder if this says anything else down in the article later if anybody's gotten caught. Or I don't know. I haven't I didn't read the whole thing. I just thought that was a good off-the-wall article to read about, talk about. Um, let's see. The last one here. Oh my gosh, I want your thoughts on this. I have thoughts, and you probably are not gonna like it. All right, this is something that Jeffy, I think, would talk about. And Jeffy would be on the side of the Santa here. I am not on the side of the Santa in this case. Ready? All right, Robin Hood style thieves dressed as Santa and elves steal 3,000 worth of goods from Canada grocery store. And they don't keep it for themselves, they do disperse it to the needy, but I mean, just go buy the stuff. Why do you have to go steal? I don't think that's right. They were claws for a cause. A group of masked thieves dressed as Santa Claus and his elves was caught on camera storming a Canadian grocery store and stealing carts of food, according to a report. Well, it's Canada, so fine. Whatever, do what you want up there. Several masked and disguised individuals entered a Metro grocery store in Montreal and began snatching items off shelves around 9.15 p.m. on Monday, blah, blah, blah. On social media, a Robin Hood style activist group called Robins the Rules, I don't even know because it's spelled weird, R-U-E-L-L-E-S, whatever, over my head. Or Robins of the Allies, ah, there you go, claimed responsibility for the seemingly festive heist, the outlet reported. The stolen food worth roughly$3,000. I know that's probably not a lot. You think it's probably not a lot for the grocery store. But they were in there a long time then for to spill that to steal that what'd they do? Just rush in, just slam everything in the carts and leave? Whatever. Was redistr so here it was, it was redistributed under a Christmas tree in a Montreal neighborhood. Leftovers were also placed in various community fridges, according to the publication. The group described a shoplifting spree as a great food drive, justifying its actions by claiming supermarket chains have been using inflation as an excuse to raise prices despite breaking in record profits. This is still wrong. You don't steal. I don't care if you're calling it Robin Hood saying whatever, it's still wrong to steal. You're thinking$3,000, well, that's not a whole lot. But you let's say you're you're this article is praising this. That means it's gonna cost more people to go do it. And you're gonna have a then, then your your grocery store is gonna have to shut down because people are just walking in stealing crap. Then what? Then where are you gonna get your groceries? Huh? A handful of corporate okay, so that's my thought on that. We need to move on to the question. I want your thoughts on that too. Question of the day. Okay, question of the day. What is on your menu for Christmas meal? That's it. Gotta go. Thanks for listening, bye.