Barfblog ( Don't worry; this isn't a blog about barfing just about a website on barfing

Cheese with listeria that can harm pregnant women. Yum. A catering company for kids that gave their customers salmonella. Great. Just when I thought that food couldn’t get any shadier after reading Fast Food Nation; there it went. Barfblog, where all this wonderful information came from uses an interesting mix of statistics  and stories  that not only inform readers but scare them into reconsidering how safe their food is.

            To be completely honest, some of the statistics and stories Barfblog used completely scared me out of my mind. For example, after reading some of their blog post I found out that “gastroenteritis-associated deaths from all causes increased from nearly 7,000 to more than 17,000 per year.”, and that even rain could be a factor in causing salmonella. Nice. I have to worry about the rain getting me sick. But on Barfblog that wasn't the fact to shock. Stories of students getting violently ill due to salmonella at a New York restaurant and people barfing after getting sick at a Detroit High School hockey game all added its unique brand of nauseating but informative information.

            While I had been aware of some of these issues before hand I never knew that

they were to such a great extent. Even though the news reports about these

microbial outbreaks, they only report the major things such as the listeria in

cantelopes or mad cow disease. With Barfblog I was able to see the things that

affect others and I everyday like that restaurants may not be as up to code as

they should be ( celebrity Aubrey o day was able to put her TWO dogs on a restaurant table in LA). Most importantly it drilled into me that these bacteria that I only heard about and never thought twice about were mostly affecting my grandmother, my little nieces and nephews and I and others like us because these bacteria like the young and elderly. Although a bit scary to think about; it’s true.

            In sum, there are germs and bacteria on fruit, there are germs and bacteria on meat, there are germs and bacteria in our lunches, there are germs and bacteria everywhere. For the most part you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. Barfblog gives everyone an incentive to remember that fact just when we think our food is completely safe. I just know that as long as the gears are still turning in my head I will never look at food the same after Barfblog. For the better… possibly; for the worse… definitely not.

                                              Citations

"Food Poisoning, Foodborne Illness Information and Research | Barfblog." Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/barfblog>.