In Grist’s Food Fight series, experts, pundits, and an elite cadre of Grist readers don their aprons and hairnets to debate hot-button food issues via a — what else! — virtual roundtable.

Our most recent topic is the food safety legislation pending before Congress. Our participants have debated — passionately, articulately, and at great length — whether there is in fact a food-safety crisis, whether the bill’s provisions will improve food safety for most Americans, whether in so doing it will harm small farms or producers, and whether the Tester-Hagan amendment designed to mitigate that harm puts more consumers at risk. And lastly, does the bill give the FDA enough power — or too much?

In August, we debated whether locavores — those who prefer to eat food grown nearby, versus that grown thousands of miles away and trucked or flown in — are misguided in thinking their food choices are helping to save the planet.