This whole thing has me scratching my head. There's been some peanut farms with trouble and one major company with problems. It's almost like there's a surprise when a company that uses a, how to describe it... low quality supplier? for their supplies has to recall products. I was talking to a lady at the store the other day and I commented how well stocked the peanut butter shelves were. I like Skippy and it was on sale for $1.49/jar. She and I agreed on this. I had two jars in my cart and she was getting some. We agreed that there was no need to fear the major brands. Just avoid the peanut butter added items where the companies don't do quality control on the product themselves. As I said, I bought two jars. They'll be on the shelf for a while anyway just in case. But the places that use it as an additive and don't care who the supplier is, to me would be suspect. At this point though, I would not buy a store brand or generic brand of jar peanut butter. Probably safe? Yeah. Worth the risk? Not to me. I found it curious that Target pulled a bunch of items (in their house brand) to be on the safe side. I commend them for being proactive. But then I noticed a number of other items they had on the shelf containing peanuts that they didn't pull. Again, I'm not running in fear, but I found it curious.

One of the reasons that Whole Dog Journal will not put a dog food on their "approved" list without the manufacturer freely giving out the name of the manufacturing plant when asked by a legitimate inquiry is that such full disclosure helps guard against the kind of accident that occurred in 2007. Many of the small dog food companies have their foods made at plants that manufacture for many different companies. Knowing that the precise ingredients that the individual manufacturer specified for their food were used in the manufacture of it is part of the trust that small companies must have in these "batch" manufacturing plants. At least one pet food plant used ingredients not specified by the pet food manufacturers whose food they were making, according to Wikipedia's article on Protein Adulteration in China Having the name of the plant that manufactures your food easy to look up in case of a food contamination event allows consumers to decide whether to buy other foods made at that plant. Given all of that work that WDJ does to get this info for us, it is pretty obvious that the plants that are making these foods are right here in the US and Canada. The protein supplement that was imported from China was criminally poisoned with the addition of melamine plastic in 2006 and 2007 and there is evidence that there was a similar outbreak in 2005 (see the Wikipedia link below). Chinese companies who participated in this in 2006 and 2007 that poisoned our pets were not immediately sanctioned, and the milk industry went on to commit horrific poisoning of baby formula and milk products in China that was not discovered until May 2008 and not made public until August or September. Milk products from China shipped all over the world were found to have melamine in them even into 2009. From Wikipedia: "Two people were executed, one given a suspended death penalty, three people receiving life imprisonment, two receiving 15-year jail terms,[6] and seven local government officials, as well as the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), being fired or forced to resign. Yes, all that had to do with the poisoning of babies and others who drank the milk in China. It only came to light because a New Zealand affiliate of the Chinese milk company kept insisting that something was wrong and had to be investigated. Melamine can be manufactured from urea (a concentrated part of urine), coal, and other sources. Urea and other nitrogen sources are added to the feed of ruminants (multi-stomach animals, animals who chew a cud) to increase the nitrogen level because they can get protein's nutrition from these non-food sources due to their unique digestive processes. THAT is how melamine started being put into food - the waste from making it was used in cattle feed. when it was made from urea. A crude way to measure how much protein is in a food is to measure the nitrogen level. Melamine, urea, and some other non-foods increase the nitrogen level without adding to the nutritional level (except for ruminant feed). So now, they have to use more sophisticated testing methods to test foods for animals and people. Because people cannot be trusted, in capitalist or socialist countries, not to poison each other for profit or to make their expected output! This all goes back to my sneaking feeling that this planet can only healthily sustain a very tiny fraction of the people we have living here. If we can't eat whole foods, or feed whole foods to our meat livestock and pets, then we are going to have this kind of thing happen. I have been discussing the need to change our diets to "no processed foods" with my fellow chronically ill friends online. Most of us had no children. It is turning out that this is a good thing.

heather_on - your husband and I would make quite the pair at the grocery store checking dates. It seems that many of the same customers seem to frequent the larger chains at the same time and I have been asked to check for later dates for a few others as I am already bent over or on my knees reaching for the back. Picking out apples is also a thrill. Heck, I even check the expiry date on my beloved little bottles of Coca-Cola (I don't like flat Coke). These days with perishables travelling from the main plant to central distribution to general distribution for X store and then to X's various locations and then of course sitting in the aisles while staff often (sad to say) go to lunch - well that can really affect the best before date - as in a product has often turned by the next day, even though dated 2 weeks in advance. I carry ice packs in the car - in a cooler and only shop on the way home. We do not eat much in the way of canned or packaged goods so I have to be very careful - especially with meat, milk, eggs and my husband's yogourt. Actually at a well known Ontario food store I saw yogourt and eggs on the shelf dated best before Feb. 1 - and this was in late April. I have returned chicken breasts (free from) dated 1 1/2 weeks in advance that were bad day one. I only buy meat from a butcher now. I need organic milk - and I prefer Organic Meadow or Harmony. If I wanted to buy Neilson, Natrel or PC Organics (double UHTd) I would - so I go elsewhere for it. Then there is a small fruit and vegetable store where they will chop up a squash or melon for you - as you wait - at no cost. I will not buy bagged salads since I have found that despite the date the leaves are often "wet" - and I do know something about how they are kept "fresher". I avoid any foods made in China (this is hard since often the product comes from China (or one of its "affiliates") but is packaged in Canada in something larger than the product itself. Then there is Mexico. Certainly products grown in Ontario can be contaminated but I do try. In Canada we do not have all of the coupons that Americans have and we pay a fortune for dairy, meat, eggs and butter (good thing I don't buy butter - husband almost fainted in shock when I presented him with a free pound of butter given to me by Sobeys based on my purchases). I do go through a lot of olive oil - too much, truthfully.

I have not been all that pleased with soy flour - would rather use wheat or oat flour for baking. Re: soy milk. If you are new to soy stuff - you really have to watch the dates on soy milk and also buy it from stores that have a high turn-over rate. I find that it goes bad quicker than cow's milk. I have found soy milk a month past date on the shelves at our corner grocery store (Tom Thumb). Trust me, a day past expiration and you don't want to open it! Don't even want to think how bad a month past date would be. Soy milks really vary from brand to brand so it pays to try a few out. I buy Silk brand in 1/2 gallon size. I also buy individual serving ones for my son at Whole Foods, their store brand. (Good to take with us when we go out to eat.) Prices at health food stores tend to be all over the map. I shop mainly at Central Market (H-E-B), but also at Whole Foods and two small independent health food stores. My son has terrible food allergies which makes food shopping and cooking interesting. Anyway, the two health food stores are generally cost a bit more, but they are closer if I run out of something. (Central Market is an hour drive, but I try to go weekly.) But the smaller health food stores can have great sales. The other day one of them had jars of pasta sauce, dry cereal, etc. 1/2 off as it was near their expiration date. Each store is different, but worth checking out. Also, I have noticed that Super Target is getting more and more organic products on their shelves. They also sell soy nut butter (like peanut butter, but made with soy nuts in a peanut free facility - important with a nut allergy.) I do not care for soy nut butter (grew up on the real stuff!), but my son likes it. A guy at the health food store told me that the soy nut butter was good mixed with honey for a sandwich or added to a smoothie. ~ Suzie