Safe Eating Or Not

Dining out just isn’t the same since the Maple Leaf food scare. Every where you go, you have to wonder if the food is going to kill you.

Back over a month ago now, Maple Leaf Foods – one of the largest processed meat producing companies in Canada, had a major recall, spanning several weeks. The recalls just kept coming, and people just kept dying.

At last count, 19-people across Canada died because of tainted food products.

Cold cuts make up a lot of lunches across the country – I’ve taken cold cut sandwiches to school when I was a kid, and I’ve taken such luncheon meats to work too. When you are rushing in the morning to get to where you have to go, making a sandwich is one of the quickest routes to take.

But even when you don't make a sandwich, someone else may still use infected meat. Or at least that's what everyone is thinking or must be thinking because everywhere I go I see signs. Signs at restaurants boldly declare that they do not use meat from Maple Leaf Foods, or that their products have not been infected.

How do we know this to be true? Oh yeah, the sign says it, so if it is printed in big, bold lettering, it MUST be true! Signs don’t lie.

And the stork brings babies . . .

I can understand restaurant owners concerns over lost business, it’s how they make their living. But how do we really know that these restaurant owners aren’t just saying what we want to hear, so that we don’t go elsewhere for our meals?

How can we be certain that all the spoiled meats were pulled off of store shelves? Those sandwiches that are in vending machines could have quite easily been infected – who checks those?

When our food supply is in question, no one is safe – even though the signs say so. Eat at your own risk, it could be your last meal.