What's in the Beef?

Between the Lines

   This article informs us about a recent issue that is extremely important, and could affect us all. We rely on the government agency called the “Canadian Food Inspection Agency” (CFIA) to determine whether the foods we eat are safe and clean or not.  We also rely on the  “Public Health Agency of Canada” in cases where the food is maybe infectious or contaminated and emergency and prevention measures need to be undertaken to control and kill dangerous bacteria.  Both of these government agencies play a very important role and we need them to ensure we are not going to get ill from infected foods.  Without these agencies, the chances of people becoming sick in our country would increase.  This could even result in some deaths.  

   It’s because of the CFIA’s timely testing for bacteria and contaminated foods are quickly discovered.  Once they find this, they act quickly to ensure that the food is not distributed to stores and sold to consumers.  The agency finds out the plant or facility where the contaminated food came from and then inspects their facility and investigates the cause.  Once the cause is found, the agency ensures that the facility corrects all “deficiencies” and “sanitizes” the plant.  The plant has to comply otherwise the agency can close them down and they don’t want that because they would suffer income losses and the employees would lose their jobs. 

  In the worst cases, if the foods have already reached the consumers and a bacterial outbreak has occurred, the Public Health Agency of Canada, is responsible for stopping further spreading of infections and providing help to the people affected.  In order to stop the spreading of the disease, all affected foods are quickly “recalled” (taken off the stores shelves).   
 
 The existence of the agencies and their efficient work not only ensures public safety, but also maintains public confidence.  Anyway, my point is, we need the government food inspection agency, and without them, it would be terrible.  I think the agencies have a good system of inspection and enforcing correction and helping during health emergency situations.

Just Talk About it

   After reading this article, I do feel mostly reassured about the safety of Canada's food supply, because I know the government food inspection agency are always carefully checking foods before packaging them and sending them to food stores. Despite the E. coli 0157:H7 incident in the beef, I feel safe about the foods we eat. Besides, it was the XL Foods of Brooks fault, in Alberta. And I believe that the government food inspection agency will work even more carefully from now on, to prevent any further incidents like this.

   I also do feel a little bit uncertain of the food we eat, because there is always a small chance of there being bacteria in the meats we eat. The government food inspection agency found, "leaky pipes, clogged water nozzles, and smelly drains," (1^st page) at the Brooks facility. The thing I'm mainly worried about is that the XL Foods "supply 35 percent of the beef Canadians eat. The meat is processed at three facilities in Alberta," (THE XL FOODS RECALL), (including the Brooks facility). That's a fairly big percentage, and all those meats go around the whole country. It comes to us too, so there still may be a chance of getting meats with bacteria, from the Brooks facility.