Food recalls

[chromedome]

Macadamia lovers in BC and Alberta, beware... some Dan-D Pak macadamias are being recalled for salmonella. 

 

https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/dan-pak-brand-raw-macadamia-nuts-recalled-due-salmonella-0

[chromedome]

Another enoki recall, for listeria. So far the only "for sure" market affected is BC, but they've kept the door open to other locations as well. 

 

https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/mushmoshi-brand-enoki-mushroom-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes-0

[chromedome]

Food recalls, "grifter schadenfreude" edition: 

https://people.com/ballerina-farm-halts-sale-of-raw-milk-after-failed-health-test-report-11897521

[Darienne]

2 hours ago, chromedome said:

Food recalls, "grifter schadenfreude" edition: 

https://people.com/ballerina-farm-halts-sale-of-raw-milk-after-failed-health-test-report-11897521

So I looked up the item and then looked up the term and am not sure why you used the term with the item.  We don't drink raw milk but our daughter has in the past and would no doubt do so if it were available to her.

[chromedome]

5 minutes ago, Darienne said:

So I looked up the item and then looked up the term and am not sure why you used the term with the item.  We don't drink raw milk but our daughter has in the past and would no doubt do so if it were available to her.

 

Raw milk has a handful of purported benefits that are poorly supported by research, vs an extremely well-documented history of causing significant illness and death. Pasteurization was/is one of the cornerstone public-health interventions (along with vaccines and improved sanitation) that brought down child mortality in particular from 100 per 1000 live births at the turn of the 20th century, to 0.77/1000 live births at the turn of the 21st (those are US numbers, because they're easier to find, but Canada's tracked pretty closely to the same percentages).  

 

I don't have any particular objection to a billionaire and his former-dancer wife setting up shop as salt-of-the-earth homesteaders, and selling their homegrown meats etc to their Instagram followers. It's a grift, but (shrug) if someone wants to order meat from them at a premium, vs the farmer down the road, that's their prerogative. Nothing to do with me. But I do get het up over the notion of deliberately promoting something that's known to be unsafe, whether as a money-maker (again, the dude could live very comfortably on his trust fund without needing to do this), or from ego, or whatever. The "schadenfreude" comes from knowing this guy could definitely have budgeted to hire a consultant and gotten it right the first time, but couldn't be bothered. 

 

I guess you could say that "putting lives in danger for fun and profit" rubs me the wrong way (anti-vaccine grifters also set me off badly, which probably will not be a shock to you given the foregoing). 

 

As it happens I'd just finished reading this article from Ars Technica when I came across a link to that People Magazine piece on social media, so the timing was especially apt.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/newborns-death-spurs-raw-milk-warning-in-new-mexico/

 

I've written a number of articles about outbreaks of foodborne illness during the time I've been freelancing, and there's been a pretty big body of research to pull from where raw milk is concerned. I'll drop a couple here, just 'cause, but this is one of my big hobby-horses so I'll exercise a bit of restraint. 

https://marlerclark.com/pdfs/raw-milk-jeh.pdf 

 

(The farm mentioned in this piece is especially influential, and has largely driven the rise in visibility for raw-milk consumption)
https://www.livescience.com/health/viruses-infections-disease/new-report-details-one-of-the-biggest-raw-milk-related-outbreaks-in-recent-us-history

 

...and while this one isn't about people knowingly consuming raw milk, a mechanical failure allowed raw milk to mix with pasteurized milk, causing at least 12 known deaths, over 16,000 lab-diagnosed infections, and (after tracing the milk's distribution pattern) estimates of over 160,000 probable illnesses overall. 

https://theconversation.com/contaminated-milk-from-one-plant-in-illinois-sickened-thousands-with-salmonella-in-1985-as-outbreaks-rise-in-the-us-lessons-from-this-one-remain-true-254036 

 

Please understand I'm not dunking on you, here. A lot of people are promoting the stuff, whether for mercenary reasons, or rote contrarianism, or because they've become True Believers; and obviously I don't know your daughter or her beliefs/influences on the matter. If you're interested, you can reach out in a private message and I can find some more links for you that either emphasize the science or actively debunk the main handful of bad-faith arguments that favor raw milk. 

[Darienne]

6 hours ago, chromedome said:

Please understand I'm not dunking on you, here. A lot of people are promoting the stuff, whether for mercenary reasons, or rote contrarianism, or because they've become True Believers; and obviously I don't know your daughter or her beliefs/influences on the matter. If you're interested, you can reach out in a private message and I can find some more links for you that either emphasize the science or actively debunk the main handful of bad-faith arguments that favor raw milk. 

Now that's really something.  I had to Google how you were "not dunking on" me.  Never heard that one before.  No, I'm not dunked upon.  

 

Actually Ed lived on a farm until he was 6 or 7 and was raised on raw milk.  I lived in an apartment in Montreal and have always loathed drinking milk.  Still in his mid-eighties, Ed could not have a cookie or a piece of cake without a glass of milk (always pasteurized).  Yuk, I say.  

 

Our daughter lives as far off the grid as she can in downtown Toronto....she'd much rather live on the farm...and we actually live as far off the grid as possible in the middle of nowhere.  And now Ed actually drinks oat  milk.  Again I say yuk.

 

So I did read all the source material and have never tasted raw milk and have no intention of ever doing so.  Thanks for going to so much trouble on my behalf.  

Edited 1 hour ago by Darienne (log)