Vert-à-Go

“The frying pan’s too wide…’ –Joni Mitchell, “My Old Man”

I have been posting sporadically lately. In April, my marriage came to an abrupt end and I have spent pretty much the entire time since then dealing with the exquisitely painful unpleasantness that a breakup entails while still trying to go through the necessary forward motions of everyday life with small children.

The final decision came at the end of the entire household’s two-week-long bout with the flu (the worst of my adult life). During the time I was sick, I could barely walk to the kitchen, let alone cook anything. We survived for a week on ginger ale and crackers, soup from the freezer and a cardboard box, poached eggs on toast, grilled cheese sandwiches, and later, takeout Vietnamese noodles. Anything in the fridge pre-dating the flu began to quietly turn on us while we all lay there inert–the neglected vegetables in the crisper, the chocolate milk, the leftovers from our final dinner party.

I didn’t really cook for quite some weeks after the morning of Thursday, April the 9th. There didn’t seem to be an awful lot of point, as I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything anyway. The kids were content enough for the time being with their rather monotonous rotation of 5-minute meals punctuated with fruit and cucumber and yoghurt and baby pita breads, while I ate a cracker here and there and rapidly lost the weight put on last autumn while I was sick with a succession of colds and heartaches. Reluctantly, having been anti-vitamin my entire life, I embarked on an annoying new regime of supplements to boost my decrepit immune system. I can’t tell you what a depressing moment it was to learn that my drastically depleted iron stores would simply never recover just with food alone. Even if I wanted food, it couldn’t help me now.

It wasn’t just that I didn’t have an appetite, however. Along with the music I couldn’t listen to anymore, the movies I couldn’t watch, and the photographs I couldn’t look at it, there were suddenly a huge number of meals and foods that were now off-limits because of the memories they stirred. Seventeen years together, just short of 14 years married–well over 3000 meals shared together. No more. I couldn’t yet contemplate a future of special meals cooked alone and eaten alone after the kids were in bed. I took curry off the menu indefinitely, threw the brown sauce into the garbage and shoved the tiger prawns to the back of the freezer.

Even when I managed to start cooking properly again, the reminders continued unabated. The everyday placemats that were a wedding present had to go. I grimly started separating the dishes: the bowl given by my mother-in-law, the tray made by his friend, the birthday wine glasses and carafe from my parents. Cookbooks were pulled from their cosy alphabetical home and piled into two teetering stacks. His, Nigella Lawson, Gary Rhodes. Hers, Nigel Slater, Mark Bittman. I had almost forgotten how cooking used to be a shared pleasure and how many kitchen items we had given to each other over the years–the pots and pans, the pestle and mortar, the new mixer, the beautiful big salad bowls. Who would take what? Who would start new? Could either of us manage to divorce the memory contained in these much-loved familiar objects and happily go on using them like nothing had ever happened?

I rearranged our table seating so that the empty chair wouldn’t be so obvious, but I still couldn’t seem to prise myself away from the square certainty of number four. I had made and eaten plenty of meals on my own with the kids over the years, but soon realised that there must be a deeper psychological reason for why after 20-odd years in the kitchen, I was suddenly incapable of figuring out how much food to cook for three people. The cold unwanted spaghetti pointed its long thin fingers at me accusingly as I tipped it into the compost hours later. Legions of leftovers lingered long past their welcome. I realised anew that the base amount for most recipes seems to be four people and despaired over the questions, “How do you split an egg in half?”* and “What if two is not enough and four is too many?”

Not quite six weeks later, I’m (mostly) eating and cooking again. I’ve even slowly cleaned out the fridge of the rotten two-month-old reminders of meals gone past. I expect that it will be some time yet before I’m fully up to speed with the new status quo in the kitchen and the table. In the meantime, I’m taking an enjoyably selfish pleasure in eating what I want when I want, and am mainly concentrating on making food to keep us well, make us happy, and create new memories (like my mom’s waffles, which we had this weekend). We’re also all eagerly awaiting the warmer weather that will let us finally get out in the garden and start growing something of our own to eat again. Spring is here, even if it doesn’t feel like it quite yet.

My mother’s waffles

• 2 cups flour (I like to use half whole wheat)
• 1Tb baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tb sugar
• 2 eggs (separated)
• 1-2/3 cups milk
• 6Tb vegetable oil

Mix egg yolks and milk–add dry ingredients–add vegetable oil–then stiffly beaten egg whites.

Serve with syrup, berries, jam, and vanilla ice cream. Personally, I like a bit of bacon on the side. You may think this is rather weird, but hopefully we can agree to disagree.

Serves 4–or a family of 3 with leftovers. Who doesn’t like leftovers?

* To split an egg in half, whisk it gently together and divide it that way. If the yolks and whites have to stay separate, just try using the smallest egg that you have. It really probably won’t make that much difference to the final recipe.

This is being posted very late; apologies. If you can possibly come out to the meeting, please do–the show of support tonight will be instrumental in whether the garden goes ahead or not! Even if you don’t want to take a garden plot yourself, if you support the plan, please come along anyway to show you are still in favour of the proposal in general.

Agenda: Park Programming change in Ashworth Holmes Park

7-7:10 pm Welcome and Introductions:
Presenters, topic, agenda

7:10- 7:30pm City of Saskatoon: Marieke Knight, Community Consultant
• Purpose of tonight’s meeting
• Review of the community garden Approval Process (use of City of Saskatoon park land)
• Purpose of a community garden? Recreational Programming change: What does this mean
• Why the Ashworth Holmes Park location?
• Garden Regulations and guidelines
• Sign in sheets to express the following: your support for the garden/your support and interest in having a plot/your objection to the garden as proposed

7:30-7:50pm Presentation: Garden Collective Representative
• Discuss site and possible design
• Potential costs involved for gardeners and why a cost
• Community use of the garden
• Why a garden?
• Next meeting for interested gardeners

7:50-8:05pm CHEP (Child Hunger and Education Project)
• brief description of CHEP’s work
• possible support CHEP could offer to the Community Garden Collective

8:05-8:20pm Power point: Operating Community Gardens

8:20pm Questions/Comments/Sign up

Caswell Community Garden/Ashworth Park site public consultation meeting

When: Monday 11 May, 7pm

Where: Caswell Hill School gym, 204 30th Street W, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

For more information: Elizabeth Bekolay, garden committee/Marieke Knight, City of Saskatoon (975-3381)

The 4th annual fundraising gala for CHEP (Child Hunger and Education Program) will be held this Saturday, 4 April. Entitled “Think Global: Eat Local”, this lively gala will include a delicious dinner featuring unique international cuisine, live music, student entertainment, door prizes, and silent auction. In keeping with the global theme of the event, the dress code is creative international or business casual–prizes will be given out for Best Dressed attendees.

All proceeds from the evening will go towards programs helping to break the cycle of poverty and fight root causes of hunger. CHEP’s programming includes Children’s Food & Nutrition Programs and Family Food Security Initiatives such as collective kitchens, the Good Food Box, community gardening, and senior stores.

This is a great opportunity to support CHEP and its vital work in helping people living in Saskatoon. I would be there in a flash if I wasn’t completely flattened by the flu right now!

When: Saturday, 4 April, 6pm (reception, cash bar, silent auction), 7pm (dinner and wine bar), 8pm (program, music & dancing)

Where: Hilton Garden Inn, 90 22nd St E, Saskatoon (Google map)

Cost: $50 (including $15 tax receipt), or $35 for students (with no tax receipt)

For more information: CHEP web site, or call Dana on 655-5322 or email dana@chep.org

This event is presented by Health Everywhere, students from the College of Medicine, and CHEP.

A doomsday email about proposed US food safety legislation (H.R. 875) has been making the rounds, scaring a lot of people and making a lot of unfounded and rather hysterical claims. Here’s the beginning of it, which will give you the gist:

House and Senate are about (in a week and a half) to vote on bill that will OUTLAW ORGANIC FARMING (bill HR 875). There is an enormous rush to get this into law within the next 2 weeks before people realize what is happening.

Main backer and lobbyist is Monsanto – chemical and genetic engineering giant corporation (and Cargill, ADM, and about 35 other related agri-giants). This bill will require organic farms to use specific fertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by the newly formed agency to “make sure there is no danger to the public food supply”. This will include backyard gardens that grow food only for a family and not for sales.

If this passes then NO more heirloom clean seeds but only Monsanto genetically altered seeds that are now showing up with unexpected diseases in humans.

…etc, etc

I have not read the bill myself, but there have been rebuttals to the email’s extreme claims from a number of well-respected sources. Here are a few:

Tom Philpott at environmental news blog Grist asks, “Would new food-safety legislation criminalize organic farming? No.”

Food and Water Watch has a background page to H.R. 875 that tells you exactly what the bill does and does not cover. And a blog post on the subject.

Professor and author Marion Nestle ‘debunks 6 viral myths about H.R 875′ at The Daily Green.

Factcheck.org also has a great post dealing with a differently-worded email, from a decidedly non-panicked backyard organic gardener.

To sum up: although it looks as if it could certainly do with an amendment to protect small organic farmers from the worst expense of new food safety compliance rules, H.R. 875 will NOT force organic farms or backyard gardeners to use specific fertilizers and sprays, nor will it outlaw heirloom seeds. If you receive this email, please reply to the sender with the above information to reduce unnecessary panic.

The very first meeting of the parliamentary sub-committee dealing with food safety in Canada has ground to a halt because of a Conservative filibuster.

The Conservatives on the committee objected to an NDP amendment, which proposed adding more meetings to the committee’s schedule and which would also limit it to examining last summer’s deadly listeriosis outbreak. Tory MP David Anderson then got up and spoke for over half of this Wednesday’s meeting, while Conservative committee chair Larry Miller denied repeated opposition requests for Anderson to sit down:

Anderson defended his tactic after the meeting: “We wanted to work with these folks. This is a very serious issue. It seems like they’re playing games with this, and we’re not prepared to do that.”

But New Democrat MP Malcolm Allen, who proposed the amendment, scoffed at that.

“If we wanted to do the work, Mr. Anderson wouldn’t have filibustered for the last hour and fifteen minutes,” Allen said.

Opposition MPs noted there are already 47 names on the proposed witness list, and they argued there isn’t enough time to hear them all unless more meetings are scheduled.

Miller said it’s doubtful Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz–who is expected to face tough questions over his handling of the outbreak–will appear as scheduled next Tuesday.

Miller added it’s not clear when Ritz’s schedule will next allow him to be there. (Canadian Press)

Canadians need to tell Stephen Harper to put a stop to the political game-playing and let the committee get on with the vital work of ensuring a safe food supply. Food Safety First (the action campaign started by Canada’s food inspectors) has a sample email that you can send:

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

Perhaps you don’t know that your MPs on the food safety committee hijacked the very first meeting and prevented the committee from getting anything done.

I hope you agree that playing politics with food safety – as your MPs have done – is despicable.  I urge you to order the Conservative MPs to allow the committee to do its work, and quickly.

Please get back to assure me that you do not condone the behaviour of the Conservative MPs that prevented the committee from getting on with the job of making our food system safer.  I’d also like to know what you have done to ensure the committee can get on with its work.

Yours sincerely,

YOUR NAME HERE

Let Prime Minister Harper know that you care about ensuring a safe food supply and the 21 people who died from eating contaminated meat last year.

Today, 22 March, is the United Nations’ World Water Day. This year’s theme deals with transboundary water–the lakes and rivers that cross political and geographical borders. This theme is a timely reminder that when it comes to water, we’re all in the same boat. We all need it every day, and we’re all vulnerable to the same problems that can affect our water supply: drought (as climate change reduces snowpack and rainfall) and contamination (by factories, transportation, agriculture, and individuals). We may live on a large and  (for now) seemingly abundant river here in Saskatoon, but that water has to travel a long way to get to us. What happens if and when something happens to the water supply upstream? Forget oil–it’s a water shortage that’s the real concern.

Most Canadians take clean and easily accessible drinking water for granted. But worldwide, 1 in 7 people do not have access to safe drinking water, and a child dies every 8 seconds from drinking contaminated water. It’s not just a problem in developing countries, however. No one is immune from the dangers of unclean water, as the deaths and illnesses in Walkerton and North Battleford tragically demonstrated. Last April there were nearly 1,900 “boil water” advisories in place in small communities across Canada. First Nations communities in particular are vulnerable to contaminated water supplies, due to environmental pollution and lack of proper treatment facilities.

Water supplies are also a giant concern. Although the earth is covered water, most of it is salty and only 1% of it is fit for drinking. Canada has a large share of the world’s fresh water, but we are also gluttons when it comes to water usage. The average Canadian uses an average of 329 litres of water per person per day, which is twice as much as Europeans. In Mozambique, the average person uses 1.3 litres of water per day–that’s less than one flush from a low-flow toilet. We seem to think that we can simply go on using as much as we like of it while dumping whatever we like into it (chemicals, fertilisers, animal waste, and other pollutants) and that it will just keep flowing, clean and pure, from the tap indefinitely. This is a profoundly deluded viewpoint, and it will come back to haunt future generations unless we smarten up and start treating water as the incredibly precious resource that it is.

Here are some links/petitions/events to help you learn more about the ‘hidden water’ you’re consuming, and which can also help you to reduce your water consumption:

• GOOD magazine’s illuminating table of typical daily water usage can show you exactly how you can cut your water footprint. Hint: pick chicken much more often than beef, and grains and vegetables much more often than meat.
• Waterfootprint.org can help you calculate your personal water footprint, and also features a product gallery showing how much water goes into what, complete with case studies.
• Inside The Bottle, a campaign against bottled water, is asking you to sign a petition today supporting public water systems in Canada and around the world. Pour yourself a glass and count yourself in as one of the many people who are choosing tap water over bottled, which is more expensive and uses far more energy and resources to produce.
• Core Neighbourhood Youth Co-op sells rain barrels–catching rain water for your garden can make a really satisfying dent in your summer water bill.
• Rethink that trip to Las Vegas–Lake Mead could be within a few years of going dry, which could literally leave Las Vegas high and dry (and Los Angeles too).
• Oxfam Saskatoon is showing two films on Tuesday, 24 March in honour of World Water Day–Sisters of the Planet and Refugees of the Blue Planet. These films will be shown from 2-4pm at the Neatby-Timlin Theatre (Arts 241) at the University of Saskatchewan.

The 10th annual Seedy Saturday seed exchange & eco-fair is today! Seedy Saturday is a fun and informative event promoting heirloom seed-saving, biodiversity, and sustainable living. Come along for lunch (soup, salad and bannock!), check out the many interesting information booths, and join in on the free presentations on several topics of interest. There will also be children’s activities running throughout the day.

See you there!

10th Annual Seedy Saturday

When: Saturday 14 March, 12-5pm

Where: Princess Alexandra School, 210 Ave H South, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

Admission: $2. Lunch $2 or whatever you can pay

For more information: Seedy Saturday events (Seeds of Diversity), Dana (dana@chep.org or 655-5322)

The Environmental Working Group has just released the 5th edition of its Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides. This handy cut-out-and-carry card lists which fruits and vegetables have the highest (and lowest) levels of pesticides so you can see at a glance when it’s most important to buy organically-grown produce and when the benefits of organic are less dramatic.

An EWG simulation of thousands of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets shows that people can lower their pesticide exposure by almost 80 percent by avoiding the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated instead. Eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person to about 10 pesticides per day, on average. Eating the 15 least contaminated will expose a person to less than 2 pesticides per day. (Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides)

Living in Saskatchewan, it’s much easier to find organic versions of some of the Dirty Dozen than others, especially if you prefer to buy more locally-grown produce. For instance:

• I don’t remember ever seeing organic BC peaches, nectarines,  pears, or cherries–I have seen Washington-grown ones at Safeway, but their taste was disappointing (I’ve eaten amazing organic soft fruit while in Washington, so freshness is obviously the issue, not inherent quality!). Most times, I would really rather eat something else entirely rather than risk spending a lot of money on imported out-of-season fruit that turns out to be sour or woody.
• Grandora Gardens (at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market) and other vendors sell bell peppers treated with biological controls during late-spring/summer/early-autumn. You can grow your own in the summer.
• It has become much easier to buy organically-grown strawberries in the supermarket–both Safeway and Extra Foods often have Driscoll’s organic berries for sale during the spring and summer (imported from California). Local u-pick strawberries are not organically grown and although they certainly try to minimise chemical application, I am unsure about the level of pesticides involved. It’s pretty easy to grow your own–they are perennials and like all berries, taste a thousand times better picked straight off the plant.
• Organically-grown celery is easily found at (most/selected branches) Safeway, Sobey’s, and Extra Foods–let me know if you have trouble tracking it down.
• I’ve not seen organically-grown kale, but suspect it would be available at Dad’s–this is not really something I ever buy as there are so many other options for locally-grown greens (buy grow, freeze, or sprout your own year-round).
• Lettuce, again, is available from Grandora Gardens and other farmers’ market vendors in season. It is also ridiculously easy to grow your own from early May-September.
• Chilean grapes are often treated with up to 17 different pesticides. If you can’t find organic ones, US-grown grapes use fewer pesticides.
• Organically-grown carrots are available in grocery stores, but the ones from the farmers’ market are far superior in taste. I don’t know if conventional Saskatchewan carrot growers need to use as many pesticides on their carrots as those grown further south–our drier climate and colder winters can help reduce the need for many fungicides/insecticides.

And as far as the Clean 15 goes?

1. I tend to buy onions either from the farmers’ market, but I have no qualms about buying conventional Manitoba-grown ones from the grocery store.
2. I don’t buy a lot of avocados but will likely continue to get the odd regular one from the grocery store.
3. I tend to buy fresh corn in season from the farmers’ market, and then conventionally-grown frozen.
4. I generally have a greater concern about whether pineapple (and other tropical fruit) is fair trade and what the working conditions are for the farm workers than whether it’s organic.
5. I’m not a huge mango fan!
6. I buy asparagus in season from the farmers’ market. I never buy it from South America as the food miles are just too appalling.
7. I buy fresh peas from the farmers’ market and am still trying to find a large-enough, sunny-enough patch to grow my own. Otherwise, frozen conventional.
8. Kiwi fruit gives me an anaphylactic reaction, so I never buy them! It is very high on the list of allergy-inducing fruit, so be careful before giving it to children or serving it to guests.
9. I buy cabbage from the farmers’ market is so fresh and delicious and economical, but good to know that the grocery store is an acceptable backup.
10. I have personally never figured out how to make eggplant edible, myself! I’ll happily eat someone else’s.
11. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a papaya!
12. I never buy watermelon out of the summer season because it comes so far and tastes so dreadful, but will feel more comfortable about buying it from the grocery store when I do (now, if I could just find a fool-proof method for choosing a good one! Any advice?).
13. Interesting that broccoli rates so highly. I would have thought it would have ranked much worse because of all the tiny flowers that are vulnerable to pests! I like to buy it locally when it’s in season because it’s so beautiful and fresh, and bought organic when it’s on sale. But I will feel much happier about picking up a bag of regularly-grown from the bargain bin in future!
14. Again, interesting that tomatoes rated so highly. I would have thought they’d be worse, although I suppose if they’re grown in a greenhouse, pests are not a huge problem. My main issue is that grocery store tomatoes taste vile, and conventionally-grown tomatoes can be vulnerable to salmonella due to bad growing practices. Avoiding pesticide residue is not the only reason to buy organic! I grow my own in the summer, and buy from Grandora/other farmers’ market vendors during late spring/summer/autumn. (it takes a *lot* of energy to heat a greenhouse in Saskatchewan, or even BC, in the winter–very possibly moreso than growing them in a hot southern field and trucking them north). Seasonality is my main consideration–I haven’t bought a fresh tomato for months (and yes, I am missing them A LOT).
15. Sweet potato is something else that I’d usually get at the regular grocery store.

Here are the lists of the best and the worst–you can get a printable version of the EWG Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides that you can put in your wallet here. Remember, avoiding pesticide residue is not the sole reason for buying organically grown produce–organic practices can help improve soil, reduce water usage, improve environmental conditions for animals, birds, and insects, and may (but certainly not always!) go hand in hand with better working conditions for farm workers. It often (but again, certainly not always) may have a lower risk of disease or contamination. Conversely, local conventionally-grown produce may in fact have a better environmental footprint than imported organic. But reducing pesticide exposure is a pretty major concern for most organic consumers, and so it pays to know exactly what you’re eating.

The Dirty Dozen (always buy organic)

1. peach
2. apple
3. bell pepper
4. celery
5. nectarine
6. strawberries
7. cherries
8. kale
9. lettuce
10. grapes–imported (this is a US guide, so this would mean non-US-grown grapes)
11. carrot
12. pear

The Clean 15 (lowest in pesticides)

1. onion
2. avocado
3. corn
4. pineapple
5. mango
6. asparagus
7. peas
8. kiwi
9. cabbage
10. eggplant
11. papaya
12. watermelon
13. broccoli
14. tomato
15. sweet potato

On Friday, 20 March, the College of Medicine will hold the latest lecture in its Global Health Series. Dr David Waltner-Toews will discuss the topic “Chickens, Sex and Salmonella: Why our food is making us sick”.

David Waltner-Toews is a veterinarian, epidemiologist, teacher, international researcher, essayist and poet. He is a professor in the Department of Population Medicine at the University of Guelph and the founding president of Veterinarians without Borders and of the Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health.

Dr Waltner-Toews is an expert in the epidemiology of food and waterborne diseases, zoonoses (diseases animals share with people), global environmental change and emerging diseases, “one health”, and ecosystem approaches to health. He is the author of The Chickens Fight Back: Pandemic Panics and Deadly Diseases that Jump from Animals to Humans, and Food, Sex and Salmonella: How our Food is Making Us Sick.

Chickens, Sex and Salmonella lecture

When: Friday 20 March, 12:30-2pm

Where: B450 Health Science Building, 107 Wiggins Road (next to the Dental Clinic), University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

Admission: FREE (light lunch provided)

*Sponsored by the COM Internationalization Committee, Health Everywhere, International Research Office, IPU Arts & Science, College of Veterinary Medicine, Global Health Research Interest Group*

Tomatoes, spinach, peppers, processed meat, cheese, hamburger, peanuts…sounds like a fairly average shopping list, right? At various points over the past few years, however, each of these foods has been sold with a heaping secret helping of salmonella, listeriosis, or e. coli. Thousands of people have been made sick by these contaminated foods, dozens have died, and many innocent food growers, producers, and processors have been caught in the economic fallout caused by the outbreaks.

The latest exciting poisoned food saga involves peanuts contaminated with salmonella (677 made ill, 9 dead). A peanut processing plant in Georgia linked to the outbreak was found to have dead rats and cockroaches infesting the facility, not to mention big holes in the roof right above piles of peanuts waiting for processing (fyi: salmonella just loooves it damp). Another Peanut Corporation of America plant in Texas was later shut down after a crawlspace was found to contain dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers and that particles from these delightful items were being sucked through the building’s ventilation system. The kicker? Well, there’s at least three kickers:

1. PCA’s in-house inspectors knew that their peanut butter contained salmonella and yet knowingly went ahead and shipped tainted products on at least a dozen occasions since 2007–at the repeated urging of CEO Stewart Parnell.
2. The PCA was certified organic and its certification was completely up-to-date. I guess rats (and rat feces) are, technically, ‘organic’…
3. One of the PCA’s major customers, Kellogg, hired private food safety inspectors who had no experience inspecting peanut processing facilities and who were given insufficient access by plant managers to do their job. Oh, and they weren’t required to test for salmonella. So they didn’t.

One of the most horrible aspects of serious food-illness outbreaks is that so many people are made sick and die before the cause of the infection can even be found (overwhelmingly, children, the elderly, pregnant women, and those with compromised immune systems are those who fall victim first). This is due in large part to the incredible complexity of the modern industrial food production, processing, and distribution system, which means that contaminated food outbreaks are no longer limited to a single company or product, or even to the same area of the world (as the melamine-tainted Chinese milk scandal proved).

You’ll remember how meat products from that one Maple Leaf plant in Ontario quickly found their way into dozens of different stores and food outlets, killing unsuspecting people across the entire country last summer. As another example, the Peanut Corporation of America provided peanut products for about 85 different companies who used them in their own processed food products. So although most people would be wary of peanut butter, it might not occur to them to be concerned about energy bars, crackers, or ice cream cones. None of these products come with a huge Peanut Corporation of America logo (or skull and crossbones) on them, so we have to rely on the food recall updates provided by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to find out what we should be avoiding.

Sad to say, it’s important to diligently keep abreast of these alerts in order to protect yourself and your family. An easy way to keep on top of the latest information is to sign up to receive email notification of food product recalls relevant to Canadian consumers straight from the CFIA, and check out the food safety resources below. It’s also vital to ask questions about where your food is coming from and find out how it is produced. Too often, the consumer is expected to bear the majority of the burden of preventing food-borne illness (don’t mix up your cutting boards! never undercook your turkey!), while unscrupulous growers, producers, and processors are left free to play Russian roulette with our health by selling us their dirty and dangerous food.

Food safety resources

• CFIA’s consumer centre Food illness fact sheets, up-to-the-minute information on food recalls and allergy alerts
• Barf Blog Dr Doug Powell bluntly dishes the dirt on all things related to food safety
• Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education Advice and information to help Canadian consumers improve food handling practices
• Food Safety First A political action site sponsored by Canada’s food inspectors, urging greater government investment in food safety
• Health Canada’s food safety resources (many the same as on the CFIA site)
• Provincial restaurant inspection contacts Alarmed by a dirty restaurant? Find out who to contact about it here.