A Lesson In Produce

Good morning, Ms. L here,

Apparently, there are contaminated cantaloupes that have been sold recently.  A lot of people have gotten sick, and several have died.  So, here is the gist of what the news says.  If you bought a cantaloupe between July 29th and September 10th, you could possibly have a contaminated melon.  These melons are contaminated with Listeria, a disease which presents with flu-like symptoms.

My first thought, "Hmm.... that's no good.  I mean, I did buy a cantaloupe 2 weeks ago, but none of us got sick, so I guess we are in the clear."   (Insert annoying buzzer sound here).  WRONG!  Apparently, this Listeria disease can lay dormant for anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months!!!   So, here we are, headed into flu season, with a possible contaminate that you could have contracted up to 2 months ago that presents itself just like the flu. 

So, then I had my second thought, "Well, let me check the list and see if any were sold to the store that I bought said cantaloupe from."  WRONG again.... there is no such list.   What?  No such list?  So, we are just now being told about this, 18 days after the last contaminated melon was shipped to the stores.

Why were we not notified sooner?  Why isn't there a list of stores that could have purchased the bad fruit?  Are we, those who have eaten cantaloupes within the last 2 months, really expected to just sit and wait to see if we get sick?  I mean, is that really the best way to handle this situation?  Don't we have entire Administrations to monitor our food? 

Oh, well, there's nothing I can do about it now.  If our cantaloupe was one of the diseased, at least it was tasty!  

So, here's to hoping you haven't ingested any bad cantaloupes recently!