2007 July 31 | Healthy Living

Costco Tracking - Health Saver or Privacy Invasion?

Here is an interesting side note to the recent recall of canned food manufactured by Castleberry’s. As I wrote earlier this week, we recently received a letter indicating we had purchased a batch of recalled Cattle Drive Chili. The mailing was from Costco. The letter, however, was on Cattle Drive letterhead. The mailing was addressed to me personally, the letter to “Valued Costco Member”. Obviously every time any of us shop at Costco and have to give them our membership card, detailed records of our purchases are being permanently recorded. I can’t say that this surprised me, but it did make me pause to think it over.

There is no way to make purchases at Costco without registering those purchases to your Costco membership. At most other stores, if you want to you can purchase with cash and remain anonymous. Although I usually use a check or debit card and don’t worry about privacy issues, I do wonder if this is a kind of slippery slope. Even if you shop at a store with no membership requirements or “rewards” programs, if you pay by check, credit or debit card, certain information is probably being stored. In Costco’s case, depending on what Costco does with this information, it might be a little disturbing. On the other hand, as the recent letter warning us about our chili purchase proved, there are positive uses the collected information can be put to.

I am about as non-paranoid about this stuff as a person can get. I think this is because I lead what I perceive to be a quite boring, normal, life. Any information collected about my buying habits is certainly not going to make anyone rich or embarrass me. I think this attitude is why I don’t find myself opposed to Britain’s use of cameras on every corner of London to reduce the risk of crime and terrorism. I have also not lost much sleep over the issue of RFID chips being in many of the items we purchase. Is this the right attitude to have? Or, am I neglecting my civic duty to question how data about our everyday lives is being collected and used?

July 31st, 2007 Posted By: admin | Leave a Comment |

Categories: Technology, food safety
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Food Recall Hits Our Family With No Ill Effects

All the while the Castleberry food recall has been in the news these past couple of weeks, I have been sort of relieved that it did not affect us. When I heard about the recall, I just thought, here we go again, but because we eat virtually no commercially canned foods, I never really gave much thought to what might be hiding in our cupboards. Then yesterday we received a letter from Costco informing us that we had recently purchased an 8 pack of Cattle Drive Chili. Anyway, so much for my smug confidence that we were not affected by the recall. Out to the storeroom I went and indeed there it was on the shelf! Four of the eight cans were gone, but the last time I checked all the kids were healthy. The letter stated the product had been recalled because of possible contamination, but that no contamination had been found as of the date of the letter. Hmm, erring on the side of caution, I guess.

It seems to me that these food problems are getting out of control. I do plan a future post on the safety of our food supply as a whole, but, when it comes to commercially prepared and canned foods, I wonder if the problem is really any worse than it has been. Perhaps, as with many other issues, the publicity surrounding individual problems is just better and more widespread. In any case, our brush with the poison chili points out that even whole food eating folks like us need to pay close attention to the food recalls and news stories. You never know what someone else in the household might be purchasing! I know my initial thought that we would not have any of that type of food in the house proved wrong this time. Fortunately the batch of chili the kids had eaten seems not to have been contaminated.

Still, I do think I will toss the remaining four cans!