I’m sure things were probably worse in the past but….what’s up with all of this defect/recall nonsense? The whole Boeing 787 battery fiasco is just a tear in a bucket when it comes to trends in recent years. I feel like I can’t trust anything anymore.

It’s seriously nerve-wracking to know that nothing is safe when it comes to recalls and defects. I seriously can’t even enjoy a PB&J without thinking about the slight chance that I could get sick from Salmonella poisoning. What scares me the most about food recalls is that there’s a regulatory administration that has the sole responsibility of overseeing this stuff. I thought it was crazy that the FDA only reports these things when people start to fall ill. That’s when I read the FDA’s handbook for acceptable defect levels in food, something I strongly advise against if you ever want to look at food the same again. You’d be surprised at the amount of “insect fragments” and “rodent filth” the FDA deems acceptable to be in your chocolate.

While food may be the nastiest defect problem we have, it isn’t necessarily the most dangerous. Remember a few years ago when the iBook chargers actually caught fire? Or the defect in Toyota’s vehicles that transformed them into vehicular manslaughter-bots? Try to walk into a Toys ‘R’ Us and not seeing a wall of recalls for cribs, strollers and…..other things that infants go in. I’m not the biggest fan of kids or babies but that just seems mean. How are these companies still allowed to make products that potentially haven’t been adequately tested?

I understand that we are just a number to most of these companies. That makes sense. There’s no way they can account for every user that buys their products. Fair enough. But I just want to say that I am a number that deserves to live! I am a number that enjoys eating Peanut Butter based snacks. I am a number that gets behind the wheel of a car and expects it not to kill me or anyone else within reason. I am a number that wouldn’t mind waiting longer or paying a bit more for something in order to avoid dying. I’m a number that is desperately pleading for companies to stop cutting corners.

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