Recalling the recalls of the week

stlrick sent in news of yet another beef recall, this time due to e. coli contamination, which is a scientific sounding phrase that makes the 7 people who got sick (including 3 who were hospitalized) feel a little better than being told “you ate cow poop.” This isn’t to say that vegans are immune to this kind of mishap – on the very same day that this story came in, Magic Stones advised us of a tahini recall due to salmonella. The difference is that the tahini recall didn’t mean the absolutely meaningless deaths of whatever 117,500 pounds of cow works out to, and in theory, if animal product production were to drop, contamination problems like “you got salmonella in my tahini” would be relegated to the “stupid things that used to happen/worst Reeses advertising sequel ever” file.