{Surprisingly, not about human relationships, mostly. This one is about food.}

Somewhere in between going off the grid altogether [raising chickens, living in the woods, etc.], and blindly trusting everyone and everything is the space in which I operate.  In fact, I vacillate to both extremes.

Last week, organizing some papers, I found an anti-globalization ‘zine I did with some friends for a school project: a tool to assist kids in understanding the evils of the IMF; why they shouldn’t listen to The Man; what they could do to stand up for their beliefs. I made it about 10 years ago. Back when I wouldn’t go to McDonalds, or Wal-Mart. Back when (well, a couple of years after that), I participated in the anti-Iraq war march in London.

Today, you might find me shopping at Wal-Mart, once in a while. I sort of work for The Man. Today I don’t feel like I have the time or the head-space to be much of an advocate. Today I’m making decisions based on speed and cost and both resources are limited by a number of factors – overwhelmingly the children.

And so I trust. I trust that when I purchase something, I’ve made the best decision I can in that split second, whether I remembered to check the expiry date or read the label or not. When pre-prepared or processed foods make it in my cart, I’m looking for reduced sodium and no/low nitrates and hopefully a few vegetables in there and will the kids actually like it, even.  Or sometimes, I just buy it knowing it’s not the healthiest thing, because it’s not a big deal that they won’t eat one unhealthy meal once in a while (I’m looking at you, Kraft Dinner). I know that overall, we feed them pretty well. As I’ve said before, I do most of the cooking myself, from scratch, for dinner.

For lunch, I’m doing what my family has done forever – serving a lot of luncheon meats. Ham, turkey, Montreal smoked meat infrequently. And yet, I know that there is so many reports coming out right now that processed meats increase the risk of cancer, of heart disease. Again, it’s not every day, but it’s enough for me to worry about. So I’m happy when a company comes out with ham and turkey that reduces sodium, takes out the unknown/un-pronounceable ingredients, and doesn’t use nitrates.

But for all this worry about nutrition, I’ve not been worrying about food safety.

Twenty-two Canadians died in 2008 after consuming tainted meat produced at a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto. Many other people got sick. Of course, I remember exactly when this happened. I remember looking in my fridge for any of the related products. We didn’t have any. We did have uncooked Maple Leaf chicken in the freezer – but I felt confident enough in my cooking ability to be able to kill any listeria lurking in there.

If you’re Canadian, and you own a tv, you will remember the commercial that the company issued soon after the outbreak, where CEO Michael McCain took responsibility for the actions that lead to the deaths, and promised change. I remember being struck by his honesty.

I happened to be struck by his honesty again last Thursday night – except in person.  Parent bloggers from around Toronto were invited to meet Michael and some of his colleagues at the company’s’ ThinkFOOD! Innovation Centre in Mississauga. The event was organized by Matchstick, which is a word of mouth marketing company that I have worked with before.

We were welcomed, informally greeted by the Maple Leaf staff who’d been reading our blogs (gulp!), and lead into the kitchen area for a more formal discussion, with questions and answers. The message from the company was to outline just how much they have improved their monitoring and cleaning of any food-borne bacteria, of how they had re-focused and re-trained staff. Of the new corporate staff brought on board for more accountability. Of their Maple Leaf Food Safety Pledge.

We also learned a lot about our own responsibility regarding food safety. This is probably my biggest take-away from the night – I realized how much I’m taking it for granted. I let my lunch sit on my desk all morning before I eat it. I often don’t have very clean counter tops in the kitchen. I use in-store delis, which are apparently major listeria breeding grounds. I usually hit the produce and meat sections in the grocery store first – so if I get distracted by those Joe Fresh clothes, there’s raw or frozen meat sitting in my cart longer than there should be.  We already kept our meat at the bottom of the fridge, and we already do lots of hand-washing, but those were good reminders too.

Lots of the other bloggers (some I knew, some I didn’t) asked some very tough questions of Mr. McCain and his staff.  I appreciated their honesty and openness. I ended up making a summary comment that was sort of something like this: that my life is like a house of cards, that it’s precariously standing up, ready to be blown over at any second. By a sick child, by a broken down car. I rely on many, many pieces coming together to make it work. And I realized, that evening, how much I rely on companies like Maple Leaf Foods (to be honest, there’s a store brand that I rely on SO MUCH more even) to provide my family with safe and nutritious food. That I have an hour to grocery shop every week, and I need to make a quick decision. I don’t want my kids to get sick; I don’t want to be buckled with worry that they are going to get sick, either from food-borne bacteria, or the wrong kind of additive. I was grateful for the opportunity to tell a major food producing company how important they really are.  There is no room for them to take short cuts.

And I, we – as parents, obviously have the biggest burden of the decision-making and choices here.  There needs to be less short cuts on my part, too, and more thoughtfulness.

If you’re interested in trying some of the Maple Leaf Foods products that we were able to try on Thursday night – and you might be, because they were quite yummy, head over to my review blog.  There’s a giveaway for Canadians only.

Disclosure: For my participation in this event, I was provided with a bag of samples of Maple Leaf Food products to try at home, coupons, a meat thermometer, an apron, and gas gift cards – as well as the bag to give away to my readers. I was provided with dinner at the event itself.

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