Silk, Great Value plant-based beverages recalled across Canada | Hacker News Reader

Silk, Great Value plant-based beverages recalled across Canada

cbc.ca

21 pointscolinprince12 comments

I've noticed a number of wildly different products recalled for listeria recently. I wonder what's going on.

Off the top of my head; yogurt, spinach, chicken, ice cream, and now almond* milk?

I'm somewhat concerned.

None of the products in the article are soy milk.

“Wang added there is some research that suggests pathogens, including listeria, grow better in plant-based milk than cow's milk.”

Maybe (!) this is one factor, with this products becoming more popular.

Almond and oat milk, not soy

Thanks, I didn't notice that. All the fake-milks are basically the same to me, I'm not a big fan. Soy milk is the most tolerable, so I suppose it was internal biases on my part hehe

It's just the frequency illusion at work. According to the CDC database [1], there have been 99 listeria outbreaks in the US between 2009 and 2021 with as many as 16 outbreaks in a single year (2014). These listeria outbreaks aren't as common as E coli outbreaks with over 1,000 in the same time period, but they happen all the time. (I'm using US data because I'm familiar with the CDC tool, but I'm assuming they're relatively common in Canada too since listeria is a cosmopolitan species)

[1] https://wwwn.cdc.gov/norsdashboard/ (add Listeria to etiology to see the stats)

Thanks for the hard facts, quite comforting.

If you're a healthy adult, listeria won't likely make you sick. Lots of raw milk cheese contains listeria. The story is different for old people or pregnant women. For those groups its more dangerous.

Isn't that pretty much always the case? Produce and product gets recalled every month for possible contamination.

Also, a strain of bacteria is not what makes you sick. It's exposure to overwhelming amounts of that bacteria, its toxin, and/or compromised immune system.

We have a lot of pathogenic bacteria in our guts, and a healthy flora keeps them in check.

Dumped out the last bit of almond milk we had that was within the recall notice, fortunately we're not feeling sick (yet?).

As with almost every food recall, your chances of getting sick or noticing anything is close to zero.

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