DON’T EAT THE MEAT, IT COULD KILL YOU
If you were under the comforting illusion that your pre-packaged meat products weren’t actively trying to murder you in your own fridge, allow us to introduce this week’s dystopian deli special.
On April 29, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that Smith Packing, LLC, based in Utica, New York—a city not previously known for weaponized lunch meat—is recalling a cool 18,792 pounds of ready-to-eat sausage and sliced meats because, oops, they were seasoned with way too much sodium nitrite, a chemical best known for making red blood cells forget how to make oxygen.
Yes, that sodium nitrite — the “oh-it’s-fine-in-small-doses” yellowish-white powder often used to preserve and flavor meat. Unfortunately, when you dump in too much, it becomes the culinary equivalent of sprinkling your ham with carbon monoxide and a kiss from the Grim Reaper. At very high levels, it can literally kill you. But sure, tell us again how “flavor-enhancing” it is.
So, how did this all come to light? Well, consumers started noticing something was… off. As in: “Why does my sausage taste like a battery?” and “Why does this bologna look like it’s been embalmed?”
To their credit, Smith Packing eventually told FSIS, “Hey, about that meat we’ve been shipping out for two months… we might’ve overdone the nitrite. Like, a lot.”
According to the recall, the possibly-lethal lunch meat was produced between February 19 and April 24, 2025 — which, if you’re keeping track, is over two months of sausages marinating in potential health violations. The products were shipped all over New York State, including to institutions and retail locations. Because if there’s one place that doesn’t need a surprise respiratory collapse, it’s a school cafeteria.
And this wasn’t just one brand or one sausage gone rogue. The recall list reads like a piratical picnic menu:
• As-Salaam Beef Breakfast Sausage
• Honest John Polish Sausage (insert ironic snort here)
• Smith Packing Export Bologna
• Beefland USA Regular Beef Sausage (as if “Beefland USA” doesn’t already sound ominous)
• As-Salaam Hot Roasted Chicken Sausage Garlic (because if the nitrites don’t knock you out, the garlic might)
We asked GM… wait, no, sorry, we asked Smith Packing what went wrong here. Their response? Basically, a corporate shrug wrapped in PR plastic:
“In coordination with the USDA, Smith agreed to a recall… Approximately 90% of the product never left the warehouse.”
Translation: “Only about 10% of the death sausage made it to your kitchen, so like… relax?”
And while most of it may be off the shelves now, the FSIS issued their usual plea for Americans to dig into their refrigerators and freezers, because apparently this is our problem now.
If you’ve got any of the suspect meat, do not eat it, serve it, microwave it, or even look at it funny. Just throw it away or return it, and maybe take a moment to reflect on the fact that we’re still poisoning meat in 2025 like it’s the 1870s and Upton Sinclair hasn’t even been born yet.
Bon appétit, America.
GM Recalls 600,000 Trucks, Decides Engines Shouldn’t Randomly Explode
GM Recalls 600,000 Trucks, Decides Engines Shouldn’t Randomly Explode
After issuing a recall for nearly 600,000 full-size trucks and SUVs because their engines tend to self-destruct spontaneously, General Motors is bravely stepping up to the plate with a bold, inspiring repair strategy:
“We’ll take a look and… well, we’ll see.”
That’s not satire — that’s actually what’s happening. According to GM’s recall documents, potentially defective engines will be “inspected” and then “either repaired or replaced.” That’s corporate speak for:
“We’ll shake the Magic 8 Ball and let you know if your $80,000 SUV qualifies for basic mechanical functionality.”
On April 24, GM issued its largest recall of the year, targeting a hearty 597,630 full-size trucks and SUVs from 2021 through 2024. The usual suspects: Chevy Silverado, Suburban, Tahoe, GMC Sierra, Yukon, and of course, the Cadillac Escalade, for when you want your luxury vehicle to come with a free game of “Will it Start Today?”
At the heart of this recall is the much-hyped 6.2-liter V8, an engine that can generate 420 horsepower — or, if it feels moody, zero, as it suddenly fails without warning. And we’re not talking about the occasional lemon. According to GM, there are 28,102 field complaints. Over 14,000 of those involve what’s known in polite recall language as a “loss of propulsion.” In regular English, that means:
“The engine blew up. Real good.”
And let’s not pretend this problem just popped up like a stray check engine light. GM has now completed four — yes, four — investigations in three years.
• One in early 2022
• Another in 2023
• A third wrapped up in July 2024
• And a final one launched in January 2025, after which someone finally said, “You know what? Maybe we should do something about this.”
These investigations revealed a modest 28,102 field complaints, with 14,332 of them listed as “loss of propulsion,” which is recall-ese for “your engine did blow up real good.”
And the best part? GM closed some of these investigations without action. Just let that sink in:
• Customers: “My engine failed and I nearly died.”
• GM: “Interesting. Let’s put that in a folder.”
• Customers: “It happened again.”
• GM: “Let’s open a new folder.”
One might think, after a century of building vehicles and enough engineering PhDs to populate a minor sci-fi convention, the concept of “make engine go, not explode” would be pretty well sorted out. This is crankshaft and connecting rod failure, aka the internal organs of your engine deciding to go full Jackson Pollock under the hood.
But fear not! GM says they’re working on “special diagnostic tools” to test for bearing damage. Yes — they’re still developing the tools now, in 2025, after shipping over half a million vehicles with potentially defective engines.
Because who wouldn’t want to beta test their engine scanner after the recall?
So, what changed between Investigation #3 and #4?
Good question. We asked GM directly. Their response?
“The safety and satisfaction of our customers are the highest priorities for the entire GM team…”
Translation:
“We’d rather not answer that, but here’s a generic word smoothie.”
What really happened? The NHTSA — that’s the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for those not fluent in bureaucratic acronyms — got tired of watching GM investigate itself into a coma and opened its own investigation. And miraculously, that’s when GM suddenly remembered how to issue a recall.
And just in case your engine miraculously passes the Mystery Meat Inspection, GM has a backup solution:
They’ll swap out the oil.
That’s right — if the engine seems okay, they’ll ditch the factory-recommended 0W-20 oil and top you off with thicker 0W-40, hoping that maybe more viscous sludge will hold things together like emotional duct tape.
It’s the mechanical equivalent of saying:
“Your roof’s probably fine. We’ll just use thicker paint.”
Let’s recap this masterclass in corporate accountability:
• Multiple years of complaints ignored ✅
• Four investigations later, recall finally happens ✅
• Engines burst into flames ✅ Yes — actual fires. Flames. Burny things. The kind you hope to see in a fireplace, not under your Cadillac Escalade while picking up groceries.
• Repair strategy? “Look at it, maybe fix it, probably just add thicker oil” ✅✅✅
But hey, at least they’re doing all of this in the name of “customer satisfaction and safety.”
Nothing says “we’ve got your back” like rolling the dice on catastrophic engine failure and sending you off with an oil change.
It really makes you wonder:
If Ford can build an F-150 that can power your house, why can’t GM build a Silverado that can make it to Costco without bursting into flames?
FLOSSI STARS IN TOTAL RECALL
Tesla's recent recall of approximately 46,000 Cybertrucks due to the potential detachment of exterior panels is significant for the company but relatively modest compared to the most extensive automotive recalls in history.
Notable examples include:
Takata Airbag Recall: Over 65 million vehicles were recalled due to defective airbags that could explode upon deployment, causing injuries or fatalities.
Ford's 1996 Recall: Approximately 22.7 million vehicles were recalled due to faulty ignition switches that posed fire hazards.
General Motors' 2014 Recall: Around 30 million vehicles were recalled because of defective ignition switches that could unexpectedly shut off engines and disable airbags.