The NFP News Story of 2008 - the Food Recalls!

Sunday, 14 December 2008 19:00 GFP Columnist - Trevor Hill
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Yeah, yeah, there are tons of other major News Stories this past year. All kinds of them. The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, soon-to-be Iran, Sudan, or which ever one you’d like to pick. There’s the Economic ‘Meltdown’; like screwed up world economics was ever anything new. How about Obama’s election? Well, that’s something TIME will probably do.

There were many other items besides food that was recalled, but we’ve picked ‘Food Recalls’ as the NFP’s news story of the year because we’ll probably be the only ones to mention the fact that for virtually everyday, a ‘recall’ of mostly food items, including the killer dog and cat food, was presented on the Canadian news channels during 2008.

We also picked the ‘food recall’ category because food is of course, a necessity. Other than two year olds, we don’t normally eat the lead toys we get.

And this year we’ve had it all. E. coli, salmonella, listeria monocytogenes, melamine, botulism, arsenic, staphylococcus bacteria, pathogenic bacteria as well as undeclared sulphites, nuts, egg, wheat, soy, milk proteins and other allergens all stuffed into your favourite munchies. Again, this is just Canada*.

 

Never mind the disastrous infant formula originating from China, it is very apparent that the food corporations are just plainly feeding us whatever crap they can stick into the processed food they’re producing in their plants.

After people started dropping like flies because of the listeria outbreak from the Maple Leaf food factory in Toronto, Maple Leaf went through rigorous cleaning and sterilizing programs from one end of the plant to the other. Who says it won’t return? And why is it there in the first place? Are they mixing in strange brews to the processing that allow bacteria like listeria to gain a foothold? Or are the people at Maple Leaf foods just plain careless? Which one is it?

The lower income group have become the guinea pigs of the food industry. In reality we have no idea what kind of chemicals or other type of hazardous material like melamine are inserted into the processing. Considering the ‘tale or truth’ that McDonalds puts ground up nylon (of the plastic variety) into their milkshakes to make them stay thick, one begins to wonder if such things are true.

Are the producers of processed food (it would appear that most recalled foods are from processed items, since it is during the ‘processing’ that bad and evil things happen to the food) putting recycled, chopped up garbage into the processed foods and in essence, feeding us our own garbage? Has Susie’s Barbie doll come back to haunt us in our food?

What other weird concoctions are shared and traded back and forth from industry to food plants and then packed into the processed meat you just bought? It is no wonder that major health problems exist.

It’s not just the processed food we buy; it’s also at the fast-food places we frequent. Take for example Harvey’s restaurant in North Bay, Ontario. An outbreak of E. coli led to 237 cases of affected people during October 2008. Where did their meat come from and how was it made?

Does the government care? Oh hell no. Why would they? What’s a couple of lives here and there when there are so many other problems to deal with? When the listeria outbreak happened our trusty leader (Harper) had no heart-warming words of action, nor words of distaste that his lowly citizen’s were dying because of the groceries they bought and ate. I doubt Harper is wondering if the sandwich meat, the bread, the condiment, or the lettuce he is about to eat is going to make him sick or dead.

The big shits of the world don’t buy what the rest of us slugs have to because of economics. From continent to continent food recalls are going on almost constantly. Food corporations are so busy cutting corners on all their products that the consumer is paying the end price. Do you people think the CEO’s are buying no-name cheese spread? Or packaged smoke meat? I’m not going to dignify this with an answer.

They’re killing us at our expense. Why? Well, just like everything else that’s happening in our world, the rich have gotten greedier.

And, now we get to play Russian Roulette when we buy food.

This ought to be fun.

*Source: Canadian Food Inspection Agency

2008 Canadian Food Recalls

Jan 08 to Aug 08

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/recarapp/2008e.shtml#a01


Sept 08 to Dec 13/08
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/recarapp/recaltoce.shtml



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