The most interesting line is again, buried at the bottom of the press release.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided to inspect the North Carolina cantaloupe grower that tested positive for listeria and then decided to immediately expand the recall. “The recall expansion is based on unsanitary conditions found at the cantaloupe packing shed during FDA’s ongoing inspection that may allow for contamination of cantaloupes with Listeria monocytogenes.”

Who knows what would make individual growers shape up after 37 dead last year from listeria in cantaloupe. Inspection is a mess, audits seem worse, where’s the leadership?

Sometimes maybe it’s better to just rock: you don’t see bass-player-head bobbing like that or a Larry Robinson Montreal Canadians jersey any more. 

Too little, too late.

A New Zealand Hospital at the center of a listeria outbreak that killed two patients has said it now cooked and sliced its own meat.

With the lousy Internet in NZ and Australia, maybe the dieticians who recommended cold cuts to elderly, ill people, had not heard of the listeria outbreak in Canada in 2008 that killed 23, or the 1998 U.S. listeria outbreak that killed at least 15 – primarily the elderly in both outbreaks.

But dieticians are supposed to be professionals and know food safety.

A family member of a Hawke's Bay woman who died said, "It is just a horrible situation. We've only just got over her death and the funeral and everything. It's a horrible situation. We just have to wait for the investigation to run its course.

So why did it take a month before public notification of the deaths, and two months before public notification of two previous cases that appear linked?

The Allegheny County Health Department and Whole Foods Market announce that Jean Perrin Edel de Cleron cheese sold in the East Liberty Whole Foods Market store is being recalled because some samples tested positive for listeria.

The recalled cheese was cut and packaged in clear plastic wrap with a Whole Foods Market scale label, and a code beginning with 293351. The recalled cheese was sold between May 20 and July 3, 2012.

One illness has been reported.

Seasonal eating is easy and a privilege in the sub-tropical climate of Brisbane – it ain’t Canada.

Those sweet purple (red) onions, delicious roasted on their own or in many dishes, were $0.19/kg a couple of weeks ago (something shy of $0.09/pound).

I’m still feeling good about that deal. And an excellent addition to tonight’s duck stew.

So I’m not sure why people get other people to chop up their onions but they do, even in Canada, where onions are a winter staple.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is warning the public not to consume the Gills Onions brand Fresh Diced Red Onions described below because the product may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

The affected product, Gills Onions brand Fresh Diced Red Onions, Product of U.S.A., is sold in 198 g packages, bearing UPC 6 43550 00045 0, Best Before date 05/17/12, and lot code 51RDA1A2119.

This product is known to be distributed in Ontario and may have been distributed nationally.

There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of this product.