Everybody doesn’t like something

Another day, another recall. On the tail of recalls affecting Thomas the Tank Engine wooden trains and Castleberry Chili (should we be concerned that pet food ran off the same line as the chili? Or that some of the product is over two years old?), we now have Sara Lee (nobody doesn’t like her, remember?) recalling bread that may contain bits of metal that broke off a sifter.

I am compelled to click through to the Sara Lee site to get the corporate take on this. I’m especially curious because I’ve never been the least bit tempted to sift flour when making bread. Granted, I use mostly whole grain flour for my breadmaking, but even when baking using cake flour, I don’t sift: I whisk to mix ingredients. It’s much more efficient, and helps the dry ingredients absorb the moist ones more evenly. And that’s not just an old wives’ technique, there are a couple of published studies out there that prove it.

So I click away, to Sara Lee land, which proudly exclaims, “Our mission is to simply delight you… every day.” The illustrations are of two women, obviously great friends, enjoying a cup of tea together on a sunny day, a freckled kid eating a hot dog with mustard artistically squeezed on it, a Douwe Egbert coffee machine, a loaf of Sara Lee Soft & Smooth whole grain white bread, and an Ambi Pur 90-day plug-in air freshener.

I know I’m not a typical housewife, but none of these images delight me: the women are obviously having a great time with their Douwe Egbert tea, but seeing the name reminds me of the hundreds of tins of Douwe Egbert Amphora pipe tobacco that my father burned up coating his lungs with black gunk. I dig a bit and discover that Sara Lee sold off the tobacco division in 1998, a full 20 years after it acquired the Dutch brand.

The other brand, Ambi Pur, is one I have never heard of, but I readily admit that I have never bought air freshener. My idea of fresh air is the stuff you get when you open the window, and I think that a kitchen that smells of cooking is a good thing. In spite of the studies linking the usage of highly scented products to increased asthma attacks, Sara Lee boldly states that its Ambi Pur products actually improve “the quality of air in the home.” I am delighted that the report on the hazards of household cleaners issued by Women and Environment has garnered a good deal of press, but am less than delighted to note that Ambi Pur products are being marketed in over 30 countries. Having increased asthma levels by 160% in this country, it seems we’re off the conquer the world.

But back to what brought us here: our daily bread. It is an unfortunate choice for the flash animation that fills the home page for the company, but it’s probably too expensive to slip a different image in, and the company is probably hoping it will blow over soon. And it probably will, because it is of limited scope. Well, limited in the context of the American food distribution system. The affected bread comes from a single plant in Mississippi, and was only shipped to “the entire states of Mississippi and Alabama, most of Arkansas, far southeastern Missouri, western Georgia, southwestern Tennessee, southeastern Louisiana and the panhandle of Florida.” This may sound like it's pretty far-reaching, but it’s relatively localized—think of how far and wide the tainted spinach of last summer spread.

The complexity compounds when I start reading the list of products. Of the 27 products affected by the recall, only seven are Sara Lee brand. Products include such wholesome-sounding loaves as Earthgrains 100% Natural Wheat Berry and Golden Bake Wheat Bread, as well as store brands for IGA and Piggly-Wiggly. I chuckle at the name “Shurfresh Split Top Wheat," which has a two week window on freshness.

However, I am concerned that the AP article I read makes mention of only two of the off-brand products. If someone reads the article and assumes they are safe because they bought Piggly-Wiggly Wheat bread instead of Sara Lee; if they do not bother to find the producer’s site and wade through the press release, they will be none the wiser.

Once again, protecting ourselves and our families boils down to knowing the source of our food, and buying locally. Bread, when we buy it instead of baking it ourselves, comes from the shelf at the co-op: We usually reach for the locally baked Old Mill Bread spelt sandwich loaf and crusty loaves from The Essential Baking Company over in Fremont, which makes a rosemary diamante that was destined to hold up a piece of brie. I am particularly fond of the notion their name implies, that essentials include things like pain au chocolat and chocolate chip cookies. Oh, and their loaves, like mine, are made by hand using organic ingredients.