Glencairn,I have been patting myself on the back for returning to the 'old' ways and making everything from scratch. Mostly it was to avoid the MSG,GMO soy and corn, preservatives/chemicals etc. found in every pre-packaged food, like instant pudding, cereal, cake mixes and all my favorite 'convience' (junk) foods.
Ten million pounds of flour being recalled by General Mills sucked the smug attitude right out of me!
A healthy person isn't likely to suffer too greatly from ingesting contaminated food, but our youth, elderly and those with health conditions aren't going to fair as well.
We were walking around the grocery store tonight and I was trying to remember all of the different things that I have seen that have been recalled lately and I got to the point that I was making myself paranoid about grabbing anything. "I can't remember if this was one of the things on the list, but we need some of that and I think it was okay, and I can't get the granola snacks or the frozen fruit, so what else is okay..." I am sure I was making Russ crazy.
Glencairn, I know what you mean! Cooking frozen items will kill listeria, so that doesn't concern me. It's the convience foods that pose the biggest threat, and with contaminated flour I can't even feel safe making my own snacks!
I could sure think of a lot better use for all that money being wasted on government oversite of food manufacturers!
Hostess says it is recalling 710,000 cases of its snack cakes and donuts. The foods in the recall were produced using the Grain Craft flour, which has now been recalled. As a result, Hostess says these products may contain low levels of undeclared peanut residue. Hostess says the amount of peanut exposure from use of the flours is considered to be low and is not expected to cause adverse health effects to those with a peanut allergy.
Sorry; as the grandmother of a child with very severe peanut allergy, 'low' does not cut it.
What are people supposed to do when the entire food chain is proven to be a potential death sentence?
Is this going to become a survival of the fittest?
The incidence of severe health problems is extremely minute in the grand scheme of things, but I'd have a hard time justifing it to a victim. I also find myself wondering why MSM is shifting our focus to a problem that really affects realitively few people. link
Don't go thinking you can give up fresh or frozen produce and just take vitamins to avoid contaminated food!
Check your Nature Made dietary supplements. Giant Food Stores and Martin's Food Markets announced on Tuesday it has removed several Nature Made dietary supplement products from shelves due to possible contamination with micro-organisms. These may include Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, yeast and mold.
I'm not known for my 'healthy' eating habits and have relied on a multi-vitamin for decades to ballance things out. This wasn't very comforting.....if Nature Made has this lack of oversight/quality control, I'm guessing other manufactures do too.
For goodness sake! It seems like every day there is a new recall. I think at this point it might be a shorter list to list the things that are safe to eat and don't fall under a current recall. Luckily, my vitamin that I take is the Equate brand women's one-a-day multi vitamin and it looks like it isn't under a recall as of the search that I just did after reading this.
Clif Bar Joins Growing List of Recalls Amid Listeria Concerns At least 39 separate recalls have been announced since May 3 by companies that use sunflower kernels, the meat of the sunflower seed, supplied by SunOpta, in products distributed throughout the U.S. These include an array of salads, trail mixes and snack bars. Multiple products are included in each of the recall announcements.