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Simple, eh?

Fixing Class Action lawsuits, and other similar torts would be easy.

1) All Punitive damages are given to the state, to set up a compensation fund for victims, or to the General Fund.
2) Lawyers fees are not generated by Punitive Damages, 100% of all Punitive damages goes to the Compensation or General Fund
3) Actual Damages goes to the victims. 100% of them.
4) Legal Damages/Fees goes to the lawyers. These can be based on either/both Actual Damages, or Punitive Damages, but shall not exceed a certain percentage (10% suggested) but could be less.

Point 1: How about NO money goes to the state unless they are one of the plaintiffs? Seriously, they'll get their cut when die, spend, as income tax. Fuck man, think. This money ought go to plaintiffs.

Point 2: There is no place for the gov here unless they are a plaintiff as might be the case for like an EPA fine or something. Repeat of point 1, except the lawyers will need a cut as will be explained...

Point 3: Actual damages is a fiction. It is an estimate and it will vary from victim to victim. Some get too much, some too little. You can't fix that without wasting too much money and just enriching more parasites.

Point 4: Now you feed the lawyers? If the expected payout multiplied by the likelihood of success is too low, nobody is going to go after the corporations. Not the victims, not the lawyers. The world doesn't need more John Edwards but it also doesn't need more Fen-fen?:

Here is a key point:

According to the national law firm Parker Waichman Alonso LLP, drugmaker Wyeth settled the case, involving more than 125,000 former Fen-Phen users, for $3.75 billion in 2000. An additional seventy thousand users opted out of the suit to pursue individual cases against the company; Wyeth set aside $16.6 billion to resolve these cases.

http://www.divinecaroline.com/life-etc/career-money/brockovich-and-beyond-five-famous-class-action-lawsuits

In the class action, 125,000 get $3.75 billion (with lawyers getting a huge cut, no doubt).

Set aside for 70,000 is $16.6 billion. About 8-times as much. Maybe the real victims opted out of the class action system.

I'd prefer reform. E.g., if swallowing things.

Was the swallowed item - say a magnet - intended to not be swallowed? NO WIN!

Was the swallowed item - say a pill - intended to be swallowed? MAYBE!

What are the odds of all those events? Anyway, I wonder why in a country where so many people bet a lot of money in games where odds against them are astronomical are so easily convinced that the high odds of this aren't worth worrying about. But i suppose that should be a normal human bias to only fear the spectacular with very improbable odds over the boring that are almost certain to happen (and that you could do something to avoid them in a lot of cases)

The poisonous parts tend to be the leaves, not the fruit.

My understanding is that there are plenty of poisonous fruits / berries, many in the same family as human-cultivated varieties that we now eat. But I don't really know the distribution. Also, not all poisonous leaves taste bad or bitter (e.g. hemlock), but I do believe those are the exception to the rule.

Humans, and primates generally, don't often graze on random leaves.

Well, I don't know about gorillas, but humans have plenty of leaves in our diet and they had to have gotten there somehow--lots of trial and error, I'm guessing. Why can't the same be applied toward creepy crawlies? (Again, I'm guessing it did, given the prevalnce of bugs in some cuisines.) So I don't see "there are some poisonous ones" as being a unique feature. Maybe there are more poisonous / unsanitary bugs overall so that made it not worth the effort? Maybe there are more look-alikes that made it harder to catalog (though if you've ever tried to use a mushroom key that factor doesn't seem to have dissuaded us either).

From your wikipedia link: The first reliable evidence of mushroom consumption dates to several hundred years BC in China. The Chinese value mushrooms for MEDICINAL PROPERTIES

Also from the link (the following two sentences in fact): "Ancient Romans and Greeks, particularly the upper classes, used mushrooms for culinary purposes. Food tasters were employed by Roman Emperors to ensure that mushrooms were safe to eat." There's nothing modern about eating mushrooms, we can just learn a lot more about the toxins with modern techniques.

Mushrooms are neither sweet, nor salty, nor slightly sour. Those are hallmarks of "food".

I just don't know why that necessarily means it's an acquired taste. Why is umami, whether in its own right or in combination, not equivalently "naturally attractive" as any other taste sensation? Glutemate is found in meats and veggies too. Conversely, plenty of things may not be perceived as pleasant upon first try; a hypothesis I've read regarding this is that kids have higher sensitivity to different tastes so many common foods for adults are overwhelming and therefore somewhat aversive (e.g., here but that's just a random link I found on this topic). I just don't see where you're basing some of your statements from.

Umami (glutamate) is debated as to whether it's a basic taste

I thought it was pretty accepted at this point that it was a basic taste in its own right. Wikipedia points to several references claiming so at least. Maybe it doesn't elicit a specific perceptual response on its own (I don't know), is that what you mean?

Lastly, non-mushroom fungus we eat includes blue-cheese cultures and cuitlacoche

Here's such an actual list: I’m Under Arrest for What? Fifty Bizarre U.S. Laws

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that PETA kills animals. Not a handful of animals. Thousands.

Perhaps it also has to do with calling feeding kids meat child abuse.

Maybe it could be with this not so tactful ad.

Or maybe he's offended by PETA's ads that make mothers out to be murderers.

Then PETA goes on to say that dad's a psychopathic killer.

You've touched on two very important (and largely marketing-obscured) points there:

1) Soy has issues. There's the phytoestrogen problem and a few other compounds in it that simply aren't good for humans (although it's an awesome rotation crop for renitrifying soil). This is a problem with with straight beans and tofu (not sure about soy milk), but fermented soy products, namely miso, tempeh and natto, are AFAIK safe and healthy. Miso is hell tasty and easy to prepare. Tempeh takes some getting used to but I like it in strongly flavoured stews and such. Natto is fucking nasty IMO but if you happen to like it then more power to you.

2) Apologies in advance for yelling on the internet but YOU DON'T HAVE TO FINISH EVERYTHING ON YOUR PLATE! That guilt trip your mother put on you about starving Ethiopian kids was well-intentioned but utterly misguided and the start of a bad habit for a lot of people. If you're capable of recognising when you actually have enough food in you instead of hoovering everything in front of you until it's all gone, then your weight will be much, much easier to keep in check.

For those that haven't seen it, Portion Size: Then and Now is a bit of an eye-opener.

I guess these girls are happy to be blurred.