Who wouldn’t want to wake up to Paralytic Shellfish Toxin?

A while back, I signed up to receive the Health Hazard Alert emails from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. They alert consumers to specific food products that have things in them, say NUTS, that shouldn’t be there. Of course I was in the deal for the nutty notification (though I would later learn that in most cases of mislabeled nuts there is a mix up of nut types and because I am allergic to ALL OF THEM, it’s never really helped. Plus everything says it has traces of nuts anyways, but that’s another story).

Annnnways. I have to say that these emails are pretty funny. You know, in a scary-funny way. Today I got three emails; one about paralytic shellfish toxin (its slightly less alarming and better known name is red tide) in New Brunswick softshell clams; another was about Botulism toxin in some No Name canned French beans and finally Salmonella in bags of sesame seeds sold around Alberta and in London, Ontario. Good to know, eh?

The only time I was really terrified, however, was about a month back on June 28th when I saw in my Inbox the announcement of the recall of Robert’s American Gourmet Veggie Booty snack food, which had seemingly been tainted with Salmonella. And yes (yes!) I had just eaten an entire bag of the stuff (or maybe two who’s counting? I am addicted).

Obviously, I wasn’t dead or sick or vomiting out my ears, so all was okay. But, see, Veggie Booty - which is like puffed corn, rice, soy all covered with delicious salty veggie powder and has a strange aftertaste of, well nothing - costs about 4$ at my local store. Which for some spinach powered corn pops is a bit much. So all I could think was, how much will it cost to feed my addiction now?