Health

Listeria May Contaminate Ricotta Cheese

by Barbara McPherson | December 4, 2008 at 02:55 pm

129 views | 12 Recommendations | 3 comments

The Canadian public should be wary of the products they buy. The Maple Leaf listeria scandal alerted us to the posibility of bacterial contamination of food. The litany of contaminated foods has continued throughout the fall months. Santa Lucia Brand ricotta cheese is the latest to be recalled by the CFIA.

OTTAWA, December 2, 2008 – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and International Cheese Co. Ltd. are warning the public not to consume Santa Lucia brand Ricotta Cheese because the product may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

The affected product, Santa Lucia brand Ricotta Cheese, is sold in packages of 500 g, bearing a Best Before Date of 09JA01 (January 1, 2009) and lot number 477. This product has been distributed in Ontario.

The manufacturer, International Cheese Co. Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, is voluntarily recalling the affected product from the marketplace. The CFIA is monitoring the effectiveness of the recall.

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BuzzNutrition

at 10:46 on December 11th, 2008

My guess is the rampant contamination problems have to do with enormous batch processing... when food was produced by our great grandmas and grandpas, these problems didn't exist. It would be helpful if we could scale way back and produce our food on smaller scales.

Even so, equally responsible is the enormous batch processing of milk... and, excessive use of antibiotics that help pathogenic bacteria become hefty, unstoppable superBugs.

Luckily, nature provided us with some natural foods that protect us: probioitics (as in sauerkraut and kimchee) and coconut.

Barbara McPherson

at 11:41 on December 11th, 2008

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. I think we're on the same page here.It sure seems that when we scale up production, we scale up any problems as well. The issue of antibiotic use and factory farms is an important one to me as I think the practise is not sustainable in the long term. It will depend, ultimately, on the consumer. I see hen eggs advertised in the local flyer at three dozen for $5. You cannot produce good, healthy eggs for that price in my opinion. When shoppers insist on better farm practises by opening their wallets, they will get the better product.