Another month, another food recall. What started off as the summer of the salmonella tomato has turned into the summer of the listeria deli meat. It feels like every time we turn around there's another outbreak of some foodborne illness that is out to get us. The latest recall of meat from Maple Leaf Foods involves over 200 products and it feels like it's lasted almost as many days.

The Muse Asylum is in agreement with me on that one.

So up here in Canada, we have had one news story for the last week or so. Perhaps longer. It seems longer. But maybe that’s just because it is the LEADING story on the news, and has been for, I don’t know, the last hundred days.

Listeria is scary. According to Health Canada, listeria is more likely to cause death than other bacteria that cause food poisoning. And among those that are high risk - pregnant women, the elderly and adults with weakened immune systems - 20-30% of foodborne listeriosis cases may be fatal. It's summer, it's hot and it's the time of year when the idea of slapping together a sandwich sounds a lot nicer than cooking. So does sending your child off to day-camp with a sandwich in their lunchbox. Even though I don't think I came in contact with any of the meat if I suddently started displaying gastrointestinal symptoms I'd be pretty worried, like Mamma Steph was.

Since the "scandal" broke out in the news, I have been wracking my brain to recall whether my family has consumed any of the recalled & voluntary recalled products.
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At the slightest hint of nausea last night...and other gastrointestinal symptoms that I won't mention here, I became near hysterical. Faster than lightening, I was on my laptop trying to get more information, but sadly the offerings came up short.

And if I had kids I'd be awake at 1:30am like Our Furry Pad.

I want to dash into the grocery store and look at the product, to see if it's the one that I fed my daughter, my child, the light of my heart with while she was attending camp. Every day for five weeks. And then this one day, we were out of cold cuts & bread, so I took her to the grocery store and she picked a sub. That sub is on the recall list.

Part of what makes this recall so large and scary is that it's not just been limited to packages of meat you buy in the store. As Miss 604 reminds us, it includes sandwiches like the Tim Horton’s roast beef sandwich, McDonald’s sliced turkey, Safeway brand salami, and Western Family sliced cooked ham. It seems that every day they are finding another prepackaged sandwich that may have used the contaminated meat. I downloaded the most recent version of the recall list from the Maple Leaf Foods website. The list is six pages long.

Depsite all the scariness I have to say, I've been pretty impressed with the way that Maple Leaf Foods has handled the recall. As Lorraine Summerfield says, it's been all hands on deck at Maple Leaf Foods. The initial recall happened before the link to the Toronto plant had been confirmed. They've since recalled everything from that plant and continue to down what other products they've been used in. Yes, it's what they are supposed to do but, call me jaded if you will, I don't have a lot of faith in many companies to do the right thing. I'm used to the posturing, the denial of any blame. That's not what we are seeing in Maple Leaf. They shut down the contaminated plant, they continue to expand the recall, and they went out in print, on tv, and yes even on YouTube and actually said that they failed and they were sorry. It isn't their media relations people doing the talking - it is the President and CEO, Michael McCain.

Abby Martin says that "from a public relations standpoint, this is a textbook case of excellent crisis management."

They took control of the situation and offered what appears to be genuine contrition. (McCain even apologizes in the commercial for the failure of their “culture of food safety”- and actually stating that you’re sorry is something at which most companies would balk. And at which most lawyers would pounce - and they may yet.)

And yes, the lawyers will be pouncing. A class action lawsuit against Maple Leaf Foods is in the works. With the long incubation period for listerosis we will likely be seeing more cases, and lawsuits, throughout the fall.

National Post's Full Comment Blog says that it's not just Maple Leaf that's at fault.

In March, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) introduced a new compliance verification system that imposed more uniform standards, but also created a larger administrative burden for its inspectors, thereby limiting their time performing on-site inspections. When inspectors feel forced to choose between “dropping the paper work” and “dropping the inspection work,” you have a broken system.

No matter how it happened or why it happened, it's scary. Each day we see the number of deaths, confirmed cases and suspected cases rise. Listeria is scary. Nina urges us to check our fridge for recalled items, just be safe. "If in doubt, throw it out," she says. Good advice and I am taking it. I watched all the recalls and thought that we were safe. We haven't been buying much deli meat or eating out often this summer. But then they had to go and find listeria in cheese. But not just any cheese, but the creamy and delicious Riopelle de l'Ile cheese - a half wedge of which is sitting in my fridge right now. It was a kick in the pants reminder that bad stuff can happen with small producers as well, it's not limited to the big guys. Sure, the recall is limited to that cheese that was sold in a small grocery store in Quebec City and my cheese is probably perfectly fine. Nonetheless whatever I (and my cat) have not already eaten will soon be becoming friends with the bottom of my garbage can. TI'll be buying more products from both Riopelle de l'Ile and Maple Leaf... just as soon as all this listeria hysteria is behind us.

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.