Food Safety Concerns Begin At Home

by Jane
(Canada)

Food safety concerns begin at home for me, and in a much more direct way rather than from what I have read or heard. Having seen first-hand the results of coming into contact with contaminated meat, I choose to concentrate more on how we conduct our habits of cleanliness and sanitization right in our own kitchen.

My brother-in-law who is a Butcher by trade, knicked his finger with a meat-cutting knife at work, and by the end of the day, his hand was the size of a balloon. Bacteria from the knife had entered his bloodstream and he had to undergo a series of nightly antibiotic drips at the hospital for a week in the attempt to cure this condition. The doctors were quite concerned, but in the end, the antibiotics worked finally and all was well. Though food safety concerns and precautions were always taken seriously at home by my brother-in-law, after this incident he doubled up on his own routine of cleaning procedures when working in his own kitchen with all types of foods, and needless to say, the handling of knives.

In terms of what is broadcast on the news and what can harm us, this changes daily. I believe consumers, myself included to a degree, have become numb to some of these concerns, and many of us tend to think "well, I've been eating this item for years, and nothing has happened to me." I do remember reading about an item suddenly not being good for us and commenting to a co-worker "well, next it will be the mustard on my sandwich I've been eating for years that's going to kill me."

The fact that one report will say a certain item will kill you today, and tomorrow it's been discovered that this same item is actually good for you afterall, (and I've seen this many times) can certainly confuse consumers. How can it not?

Remember when Oprah Winfrey made a negative comment about beef years ago, and immediately suffered the wrath of the beef industry for it? Meat is such a staple in everyday living for so many, and negative comments just won't be tolerated obviously by the masses.


It's very easy to turn a blind eye to the "general" conclusions about certain products. Human psychology though has a way of playing with our emotions, and once we've heard that something is bad for us, it tends to stay in our minds in a subtle way.

Of course, when a specific item has been withdrawn from a grocery store shelf for whatever reason, that's a different story, and it would be foolish to ignore warnings such as these. This is a food safety concern that needs to be taken seriously.

I believe in "organics" and the value in the concept.

I believe it is important to know where our products come from, and what was done to them before we get them.

I believe people need to be open-minded to what they hear and at least pay attention, not just dismiss a negative report without giving it some intelligent thought first.

In the meantime, directing our food safety concerns and a little common sense in our immediate environment at home is half the battle I think.

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