If you have a young child using a crib which was made before September 1986, destroy it.
Crib design has changed a lot since '86. Even with the improvements one still hears of recalls of poorly designed or poorly made cribs.
What is wrong with the picture on the left? The side bars on the crib are too far apart. The maximum space allowed by law is 6 cm (2 3/8 in.). Also, it is possible for an infant to trap a small hand in the space between the bottom and the side.
Health Canada has a crib safety booklet online. If you have a baby, or a crib in your home for that matter, please take the time to read this booklet.
You have to very diligent when it comes to buying products for a young child.
Consider the Amby Baby Motion Bed which Health Canada is advising parents and caregivers to immediately stop using. This is a hammock advertised for use with infants up to 12 months of age.
Health Canada and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (US CPSC) are aware of two infants suffocating in the United States while using these products. In the United States, along with the two fatalities, there have also been three other incidents reported.
The product's inclined sleeping surface increases the risk of the infant rolling and becoming wedged in a position where they can no longer breathe.
Sunday evening I caught a PBS special on the evolution of comedy in the United States over the past decades. There was Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and others, such as the Smothers Brothers. This sent me to YouTube searching for a Smothers Brothers clip. I found one of the brothers doing their yo-yo man routine.
Did the yo-yo man visit your school when you were a kid? Yes? No? If no, that's too bad, a shame.
In the '50s the yo-yo man would wander school yards at recess, but only once or twice a year, performing those oh-so-impossible yo-yo tricks. He made it all seem so easy; Anyone could do them: Walk the dog, rock the baby, round the world. Ah, the memories . . . and the frustrations.
We all fell for the yo-yo man's spiel, year after year. He was just so cool with pockets bulging with yo-yo's. The girls always bought pink yo-yo's circled with rhinestones. The boys favoured the black yo-yo's or the dark blue ones. At first the yo-yo's seemed to work. We all could make them sleep; waking them up was another matter. We could all walk the dog, but only a few of us could make rover return.
Soon all our yo-yo's had tightly tangled strings. If you could get your yo-yo to drop to the end of the tangled mess, it would simply sit at the end of the extended string and slowly twirl. Its yo-yoing days were over. Some of us would buy replacement strings but they too would soon fail.
We all took responsibility for the destruction of our yo-yo's. We never blamed the yo-yo or, even more unthinkable, the yo-yo man.
Now, watch this YouTube video of the Smothers Brothers doing "Yo-Yo Man." (It takes a moment to get into the fun but be patient. Tommy is one heck of a yo-yo man. He could have performed in my school yard anytime.
While I search for more answers on the food we eat, how about some food for thought?
As I searched the Web for stuff on food, a pattern emerged. There are an awful lot of recalls. Today I am going to start this post and then add to it until it contains the food recall information I have bookmarked in my Internet travels.
This is not a recall and so technically should not be here. On January 4, 2010, Perfection Packers Inc. pleaded guilty to labelling meat in a misleading manner. The use of the meat inspection legend is approved for persons who are licensed to operate registered establishments with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Perfection Packers Inc. is not licensed but used an official symbol or something that was likely to be mistaken for one. Perfection Packers was fined $24,000.
Perfection Packers: What's in a name?
2 --- Company: Eat More Spouts
On January 10, 2010, Eat More Sprouts recalled two different products for E. coli 0157:H7 contamination: mung bean sprouts, and certified organic bean sprouts. Isn't it interesting that one of the products being recalled is certified organic.
This is a class I recall indicating that there is a high risk that eating or drinking the product will lead to serious health problems or death. The CFIA issues a public warning for all Class I recall when the product is available for sale or could be in the consumer’s home.
1 --- Company: Olymel l.p.
Olymel l.p. is a leader in the slaughtering, processing and distribution of pork and poultry meat products in Canada, with facilities in Québec,Ontario, and Alberta. The company employs more than 10,000 persons and exports nearly half its production, mainly to the United States, Japan and Australia as well as some sixty other countries. Its sales stood at $2 billion this year, with a slaughtering and processing capacity of 160,000 hogs and 1.7 million poultry every week. The company markets its products mainly under the Olymel, Lafleur, and Flamingo brands.
Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued the following "Expanded Health Alert" on January 5, 2010. It warns that "Certain processed meat products may contain listeria monocytogenes." The manufacturer, Olymel S.E.C., Montreal, QC, is recalling affected products.
Pregnant women particularly at risk: According to the CFIA, food contaminated with Listeris monocytogenes may not look or smell spoiled. Consumption of food contaminated with these bacteria may cause listeriosis, a foodborne illness . . . Pregnant women, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems are particularly at risk. Infected pregnant women may experience only a mild, flu-like illness, however, infections during pregnancy can lead to premature delivery, infection of the newborn, or even stillbirth.
It must be noted, there have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of these recalled meat products: Olymel cooked ham extra lean, Olymel cooked ham extra lean family pack, Olymel mock-chicken meatloaf family pack, Royal bologna and mock-chicken meatloaf duo pack, Royal chopped cooked ham and mock-chicken meatloaf duo pack (two sizes of packaging), Lafleur cooked ham extra lean and Roma pepperoni family pack. For more info to this link to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency bulletin.
According to a 2005 post, Foodborne Illness, by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States) there were 37 people hospitalized in the States every hour, with one person dying from food poisoning every one hour and 46 minutes when this report was released. 76,000,000 Americans were being made ill every year from foodborne pathogens.
Those numbers would be unbelievable if they were not from the CDC.
I'm not a vegetarian. I eat meat. I like meat or should I say I used to like meat. I'm having second thoughts. As I continue my investigation of our food supply I am shocked to discover that it is not just meat that can carries pathogens.
Today a Nestlé USA plant in Danville, Virginia, which was producing cookie dough was closed after the Toll House product tested positive for E. coli bacteria. Flour is the suspected source of the contamination.
It is important to note: The tainted dough did not leave the factory; No recall was necessary.
This was not the story last June when Nestlé issued a huge recall of the refrigerated, ready-to-bake cookie dough. It was linked at the time to an outbreak of foodborne illness in which at least 72 people in 30 states became ill after it is believed they ate raw dough.
All this made me think about sprouts, a food that I loved for decades. Then in 1996 an outbreak of foodborne illness in Japan sickened 6000 and killed 17 after they had eaten radish sprouts contaminated with E. Coli O157:H7. The same bacteria was also implicated in outbreaks involving sprouted seeds in several U.S. states between 1997 and 2004.
Sprouts! When I first read about contaminated sprouts, I thought how is this possible? According to Health Canada, Risks Associated with Sprouts:
"Scientists believe that the most likely source of contamination is the seeds that are used to grow the sprouts. Seeds may become contaminated by animal manure in the field or during storage, and the conditions required to grow sprouts (e.g, warmth and humidity) are ideal for the rapid growth of bacteria."
Since many sprouts, such as alfafa sprouts, are only eaten raw, they are not exposed to the high cooking temperatures necessary to kill dangerous bacteria if present. But even sprouts, such as mung bean, that are cooked are not heated sufficiently. An outbreak of salmonellosis in Ontario in 2005 was linked to lightly-cooked, stir-fried mung bean sprouts.
Health Canada takes this problem so seriously that it has a site devoted to Sprouted Beans and Seeds.
What initially attracted my interest in doing a take on food was a couple of articles in The New York Times examining a little know ingredient in much of the ground beef sold in the United States - ammonia.
It seems a rather creative fellow, Eldon Roth, devised a way to turn fatty slaughterhouse trimmings into what a U.S.D.A. microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called 'pink slime.' Roth's product is used as a ground beef filler in much of the hamburger sold throughout the United States. It was, at one time, even found in Big Macs.
As I read the article, I wondered, "What's in Canadian ground beef?" The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) lists Canada as the second biggest consumer of American beef and veal.
"Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) has ground beef down to a science. A top US provider of boneless lean beef, the company grinds more than seven million pounds of meat a week. Its customers include fast-food chains, restaurants, food service operators, meat packers, food processors, and the USDA's school lunch program. Its 60-pound blocks of frozen meat chips are used in hamburger patties, ground beef, hot dogs, beef snacks lunch meat, sausages, meatballs, and frozen entrees. The company touts food safety as a priority. It uses two metal detectors to scan beef before and after processing at its Sioux City, Iowa, manufacturing facility. Outside of the US, Beef Products' customers are located in Canada, Mexico, and Japan."
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As the lawsuits concerning some of the food products mentioned mount, I have edited all my posts on food and food production.
Years ago John Miner, a fine reporter at The London Free Press, and I flew to St. Louis to visit the Monsanto plant. They were still developing their genetically modified seed at the time. We were there to investigate FrankenFood.
There have always been questions about the safety of the Monsanto product and now two online papers are carrying stories casting serious doubt on the safety of the Round-up Ready corn seed. At least, I believe this is the corn seed under question.
I wonder if The London Free Press will be able to find the staff to investigate this latest FrankenFood story?
I would write more but I have no time. My little sister, she's older than I but I always had a protective brotherly attitude towards her, has taken a fall and broken her hip.
She fell last Thursday evening and was taken to the nearby hospital in the big city - my sister lives in a small town. Friday they operated. Now, she is in a facility focused on rehab. Why some Americans are so against a Canadian-style medicine is beyond me.
I joked with my sister that she is lucky the death panels didn't refuse her treatment on account of her age. Sarah Palin would be surprised.
Cheers,
Stay away from ground beef if you're a Yank,
We may all have to worry about corn,
And carry a cane if you totter,
Rockinon
I'm playing with the "citizen journalist" stuff that seems to have the MSM all in a kerfuffle. The other day I posted a story on Digital Journal and now I am sitting back and seeing how it does. I'm counting hits and checking its earnings.
I had to make two trips to the UWO to gather the information, conduct the interview and obtain some art. This cost me at least four litres of gas and more than four dollars in parking. It will be interesting to see if I even break even on the story.
The story concerned research at the UWO calling into question the way foot injuries are handled. If you injure a shoulder, the physio does not tell you to brace the injured joint, refrain from using the affected muscles and do this indefinitely. No, you exercise the muscle and joint and encourage healing with strength and mobility.
But with foot injuries, it is another story. We bind them up in shoes, fit othotics to brace and support them, and we prevent the foot muscles and joints from moving freely. We weaken the feet; We don't strengthen them.
The above, by the way, is a much better summary of what is being done than what I wrote in my Digital Journal piece. (Maybe I can do some rewriting later.)
One difference, out of many, between the DJ and the MSM, say a paper like The London Free Press, is that the reporter can add images to the story itself. If something would be best illustrated with a photo, a graphic, or some other piece of art, it is easy to do. No separate from the story slide show.
Also, going back and changing info is easy. Notice an error after publication and click, click and you have corrected it. I notice that errors made in the paper make their way to the online site and then stay there forever. I find this very odd.
If the talented people who gather the news for the MSM today ever found a way to write for an online paper that could pay them adequately for their work, the debt-heavy monsters ruling the news roost now would be plucked.
It's late and I'm going to bed. But first a quick note. We spent too much at Christmas and my wife is on her monthly food budget kick. She says she can get through the month on less than $150 for the two of us. (She may have a harder time this year as I've already bought some organic ground beef. It was sold by folk who had never heard of Cargill and I liked that.)
It looks like I'll be eating a lot of stuff like the pizza on the right.
