Food recalls are occurring more frequently. The reasons behind the increase and why it’s not all bad news.

Pig Head deli meats. McDonald’s onion. Costco baby carrot: It’s not your imagination: The number of food recalls has been steadily increasing over the past few years, especially for fruits and vegetables.

These problems have very real consequences. Nearly 48 million Americans have become ill and nearly 3,000 have died from the disease foodborne illnesses every year, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. Listeria outbreak linked solely to Boar’s Head meat It cost the lives of 10 people.

But are the recalls a sign that regulators are catching more contaminated food, or a warning that food manufacturers are being too lax and allowing more unsafe products to reach the market? Here’s what we know.

Recalls dropped amid Covid-19 and have been rising ever since

So far this year, 211 food and beverage products have been recalled, withdrawn from the market or subject to safety warnings, according to data from the Food and Drug Administration. data. Meanwhile, US Department of Agriculture USDA, which regulates meat, poultry and egg products, announced that it was recalling 50 people. According to Ar, last year the number of food recalls increased to 313, compared to 289 the previous year.Report from the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

This trend may be due in part to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with fewer than 4,000 FDA inspections of food manufacturing facilities in the United States, compared to more than 7,000 in 2019, according to a research report. Environmental Working Group (EWG) report. “We had a decline in inspections by both the FDA and the states that were complicit in the pandemic,” when in-person inspections were not available, “and they still haven’t gotten up to speed.” Thomas GremillionThe Consumer Federation of America’s food policy director tells Yahoo Life. According to the EWG report, inspection numbers increased again in 2021 but have not yet met the pre-pandemic standard.

Amid COVID-19 fears and warnings against non-essential medical visits, “people had to be really, really sick, or think their whole family was sick, to go to the doctor or hospital.” food poisoning“he adds Teresa MurrayHe is director of consumer monitoring for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. As a result, there were likely fewer reports of foodborne illnesses, prompting food investigations and recalls.

Darin DetwilerDr., a food safety expert and associate professor at Northeastern University, suspects that in this relatively lax era, food manufacturers have become complacent about what they can “get away with” and allocate less funding for food safety. “The prediction at the time was that we would see an increase in issues (in the coming years) because these issues weren’t being addressed a few years ago,” he tells Yahoo Life.

Is the increase in recalls an expected consequence of lax food safety enforcement finally coming to a head? Or does this just show that regulators are now more careful in increasing inspections? Experts say it’s a bit of both.

There is a water problem in US products

While the number of recalls for meat, poultry, and fish has remained mostly steady (and is down so far for this year), recalls of fresh produce are on the rise (think last year’s melon outbreak; this year’s recall of cucumbers, onions, and baby carrots).

Both Gremillion and Detwiler say part of the problem likely stems from the proximity of farms that grow crops like baby carrots or lettuce to cattle farms. “Huge manufacturing and livestock production operations are running nose to nose, and lo and behold, there is cow poop, which is their natural reservoir.” coli Gremillion says the bacteria contaminated these fresh produce and were shipped all over the country.

Detwiler supports one of the FDA’s theories about how the “poop” got there: “It’s groundwater,” he says. “Irrigation water is not tested and treated, and a lot of that comes from cattle operations.” Grimmway farms, which produce the baby carrots recently recalled from Costco, Whole Foods and other retailers, have water quality problems, Gremillion says. coli.

In 2016, Food Safety Modernization Act It was enacted with a requirement for better irrigation safety standards. However, Detwiler explained that farmers and food lobbyists backed down, saying this requirement was too burdensome and expensive. They were given extensions and now there are big farms You have until April 7, 2025 to comply; For smaller farms the deadline is April 5, 2027. Detwiler suggests that these additional times to meet standards may be partly responsible for contamination problems. “Would we be in those situations (meal recall and illness) if we didn’t delay these things?” he asks.

Most recalls are due to packaging, not pathogens

Some relatively good news: Undeclared allergens — unlabeled ingredients that are common reaction triggers, such as peanuts — It accounted for nearly half of all recalls in 2023, according to analysis by US PIRG. In comparison, dangerous bacteria, such as coli and Listeria was the cause of more than a quarter of the recalls.

In fact, the main driver of last year’s high recall numbers was a single ingredient. As of January 1, 2023, sesame was added to the list of major food allergens that the US requires to be labeled in packaged foods and dietary supplements. US PIRG estimates that sesame was responsible for about 39% of the increase in recalls last year. However, according to PIRG’s report, only 10% of serious allergic reactions to ingredients on the must-label list were caused by sesame.

Takeaway: Things aren’t as bad as they seem

Experts say there are, of course, many problems with our food system. But the recent increase in recalls also seems larger than it actually is for a few reasons. First, food inspections and recall numbers are returning to pre-pandemic levels (though Murray notes that there were actually around 400 recalls in 2020, when there were numerous product problems in the first three months of the year, followed by a steep drop-off). Additionally, companies’ failure to label allergens has increased the number of recalls more than problems with foodborne illnesses.

And perhaps most importantly, “I think it’s the reality of a lot of high-profile recalls,” Murray says, citing disease outbreaks linked to Grimmway, a major producer of baby carrots, and household names like McDonald’s and McDonald’s. Pig’s Head. “There is a perception that there are more recalls when there is (not) a truly dramatic increase,” he says.

Moreover, Gremillion underscores the importance of eating fresh produce, noting that poor quality diets and obesity are much broader and worse problems in the United States than food pollution. Even Detwiler, whose son died in 1992 epidemic coli rare Jack in the Box burgersHe acknowledges that it is impossible to avoid any food hazard. “If I had avoided anything that raised suspicion of an outbreak or a recall, there would be nothing left,” he says.

But you can reduce your risk by doing the following: basic food safety precautions: Clean your hands and surfaces frequently; separate food to avoid cross-contamination; cook food at appropriate temperatures to kill germs; and immediately refrigerate all foods. And of course be careful fda And USDA recall notices and suspend these products until it is safe again.