Top 3 Biggest Food Recalls of 2010

Food recalls happen more often then any person who eats would like. They happen for a variety of reasons including bacteria contamination, lack of ingredients on nutritional labels, failure to put allergy alerts on labels, and if foreign materials have been found in the product. 2010 was no exception to the rule when it came to food recalls. And they happened on massive scales.

Coming in at number #3 on the biggest food recall list was the recall of organic beef issued on December 30th, 2010 by the U.S. Food Safety and Inspections Services. The recall was due to possible E. Coli contamination and it affected over 34,000 lbs of beef products sold in six states across the country. 16 oz packages of organic beef patties and bricks were recalled due to the possibility of E. Coli contamination.

#2 on the list of recalls took place in Italy with 70,000 mozzarella balls being recalled for turning blue. The mozzarella balls came into question after turning blue when exposed to air. This led to the recall of over 70,000 mozzarella balls and an investigation into why the cheese turned blue. It was found that the cheese was contaminated in a German production plant by a "harmless germ" that has since been filtered out of the water although the cheese maker still claims to not know how the mozzarella became contaminated in the first place. The German production company also claimed shock when the Italian government issued a seizure for all the mozzarella that could have been contaminated.

And number #1 on the list of food recalls for 2010 is the massive egg recall which the world wide web watch increase from 280 million eggs to well over 500 million eggs. The eggs were recalled after found to be tainted with Salmonella, a bacteria that causes fever, diarrhea, vomiting, and possibly death in elderly people, those with compromised immune systems and young children. The tainted eggs were found after hundreds of people who ate the eggs became sick. The eggs that were found to be tainted came from Wright County Egg, Company based out of Galt, Iowa.

We can only hope that 2011 won't have recalls on such a large scale or as many as 2010 did.