On Recalls, Regulations, Beef Tatare and What the Hell Are We Doing to Food?

Let me start off tonight with a confession. It’s only fair.

I eat raw cookie dough. LOVE IT. Can’t get enough since I was a kid. Probably why I’m diabetic.

Now that I’ve got THAT off my chest, let me get on with things.

Nestle has recalled some of its frozen raw cookie dough due to an e-coli outbreak, presumably in the raw eggs, although I didn’t know that eggs could carry e-coli. As I was watching the news story about this, they decided to do an idiot-on-the-street interview. The lady that they spoke to smugly intoned that there needed to be “more safety regulations”.

Really.

What the hell do you want, lady? Someone from the FDA living in your kitchen to slap the raw cookie dough out of your hand before you put it in your mouth? WHO OUT THERE DOESN’T KNOW THAT YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO EAT RAW COOKIE DOUGH? I think that we all know that in this day and age. And those of us who still continue to do it recognize that we’re rolling the dice with every mouthful. Safety regulations would not, for instance, stop me from eating raw cookie dough. As a matter of fact, on my way home I stopped at the store to see if I could get some of the recalled cookie dough just so that I could eat it, but no success.

But then that got me thinking… what the hell are we doing to food?

For instance, think back twenty years ago. Fifteen years ago. Hell, TEN years ago. How many people did you know at that time who had fatal, anaphylactic peanut allergies? Ten? Five? None? NOW how many do you know? I’ve got to tell you, before about ten years ago, I can’t remember EVER hearing about ANYONE with a fatal peanut allergy, and now all of a sudden I can’t count the number of people that I know do on both hands. What the hell did we do to the inoffensive little peanut to make it want to kill us like this? A lot of these people can’t even touch peanut shells, inhale the dust from a cracked shell, or eat food that’s been processed in the same place as peanuts without dying. What have we done? Is it pesticides? Some sort of natural defense of the peanut TO pesticides?

And what about eggs? When I was a kid, I remember being thoroughly grossed out watching Rocky drink a glass full of raw egg for the pure protein in them. My older brother, who fancied himself a bodybuilder used to drink raw eggs. Today, that would be a DEATH wish. Any mother who saw her teenage son drink a raw egg today would FREAK OUT. When did eggs become little time bombs, just waiting to go off and kill us?

And does anyone but me remember a dish called Beef Tartare? It’s basically raw hamburger with spices and onion served on rye bread to absorb all that good BLOOD and occasionally… get this… WITH A RAW EGG ON TOP! Now you can’t even get your freaking steak rare because we’ve made beef into a deadly weapon! If you order beef tatare in a restaurant now, especially with the raw egg on top, you’re required by law to write a suicide note first.

I don’t have answers to any of this stuff, loved ones. Just something that I’ve been pondering for a while that all came to head today. I don’t have enough of a scientific mind to answer these questions, but I tell you… SOMEBODY better…. Because between poisonous eggs, beef and peanuts and all the bees dying off, we’re gonna be on Soylent Green real fucking quick here, and I love my parents too much for that.

Peace.

Randal