Let me be frank with you, I am not a vegetarian and I don’t think I ever could be. By that same token, I love beef.
Having just come back from New York, an article in the New York Times rcently caught my eye that rang some alarm bells as it relates to ’my’ local Whole Foods (in my particular case in Kistilano, the store formerly known as Capers here in Vancouver).
As I said before, I love beef. However, the story got me thinking that I should be a little careful how much I love the beef at Whole Foods going forward.
Essentially, the article talks about a humongous recall of beef across the US by Whole Foods that is centred upon poor quality controls at the store level. In short, they accepted beef from packing plants that hadn’t been approved.
I think that this quote from the article sums up what a lot of people think (or maybe ‘thought’):
The assumption is that for the extra money that you pay for most Whole Foods products, in return you’re getting something that’s safer, fresher and more nutritious, said Gene Grabowski, head of the crisis and litigation practice at Levick Strategic Communications, who has handled several food-recall cases. And this damages that perception a great deal…
The beef in question, which has been linked to illnesses in several states, came from an Omaha company called Nebraska Beef. The same company had, earlier this summer, processed the 5.3 million pounds of beef linked to nearly 50 cases of infection with a disease-causing strain of the organism E. coli.
Although the recall is US-based…it got me a little worried being situated on this side of the border. Thankfully, I don’t often buy beef from Whole Foods all that often…and will likely be doing even less going forward, regardless of geography!
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