“4 People Hospitalized as Blueberries Reach Highest FDA Recall Level” was NOT the headline I expected to see today.
According to The New York Post, a recall of organic frozen blueberries has come after the berries were linked to a potentially E. Coli outbreak. Sadly this is hardly “news” anymore.
Hazardous lettuce has dominated summer headlines after a multistate outbreak of cyclospora infections has sickened nearly 9,500 people across 17 states. There have been 398 hospitalizations and at least two reported deaths. It’s heartbreaking that something as essential as fresh food can be so frightening.
Now I’m told that even my beloved frozen fruit bars are on the watchlist. Frozen fruit bars are a vice of mine that I inhale like they are going out of style. I had a childhood obsession with popsicles. In adulthood, frozen fruit bars convince me that I am eating “fruit” and that makes it almost a salad anyway — health adjacent if I may. Now they have been recalled over potential foreign material contamination involving glass. Et tu, fruit bars?
Last week the government recalled eggs. Eggs! Now we cannot eat eggs safely? Well actually I can because I buy them from our neighbor and I feel sure her chickens are living their best lives and providing excellent eggs. I feel for everyone else though.
I’m not kidding when I say that my summer menu is basically salads, hard boiled eggs and frozen fruit bars. I also really love blueberries. So far, watermelon, another vice of mine, seems safe but I worry that it is only a matter of time.
I know that overall our food supply is still very safe. I was assigned Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” as required reading in middle school. As a result, I didn’t eat a hotdog again for over a decade. One only needs to look back a century or more to shudder in horror at what USED to pass for “food.”
Even with our modern issues, I’ll take my chances in today’s grocery store over what our ancestors faced a century ago. I was taught that during the Spanish-American War when poorly preserved canned meat reportedly killed more troops than actual combat did.
Moreover, lacking any federal food quality laws, brick dust was mixed with cinnamon, milk was often diluted with water, plaster and chalk, and lead and toxic copper were considered perfectly fine for coloring candy to make it more appealing to children. I think anyone would still take a chance with lettuce today over any of those horrors.
I understand how tempting it is to tell everyone to grow their own or only buy from local food sources. I live in a rural area where that is actually possible during the summer months. I’m not sure how that works in, say, New York City or most suburban neighborhoods. Does the HOA even allow chickens? I’m trying to imagine my friend who lives in a west coast high rise doing a little crop farming on the side?
In the meantime, we watch the recall list, wash everything, and hope that this too shall pass. I do wonder if I will eventually be forced back down the cookie aisle when only Oreos are safe to eat? Sticking to the packaged pantry snacks suddenly feels like a top-tier life choice!
Meanwhile, I’ll pass on the salad and please pass me the potato chips.
