If businesses in the Baltics want to be taken seriously by the rest of Europe and the world 's and by extension secure some badly needed foreign direct investment to keep the ball rolling 's then they are going to have to start taking themselves more seriously.
In any normal, Western country, if a food product was found to cause cancer if cooked in a certain way, it would feature a prominent warning label explaining how the food should be prepared.
Here in the Baltics, companies push the envelope to the limit and hope their customers don't die off before the producers can make a quick buck.
Meat producers admitted that they have known for years that their processed meat products could cause cancer if grilled. Yet not only did they continue to churn out sausage after sausage, they packaged them in little plastic containers with pictures of fire and the words "weekend sausage" or "picnic sausage" prominently displayed.
Some even said the sausages had been pre-smoked for flavor, raising questions over whether they might already contain carcinogens.
Then, when pressed on the topic by the countries health board, they said that they were completely in line with the law because they never directly encouraged their customers to grill the meat. They only implied that they might be good if cooked over a fire, and let the customers draw their own conclusions 's an excuse that could be described as weak, at best.
It is time for this society to take a good look at itself and decide where the buck stops 's should the consumers have to fend for themselves, or should the people paid to protect them in this so-called civilized European country have to start doing their jobs?
Meat producers need to take responsibility for their products and grocery stores need to take responsibility for what they stock.
It is unacceptable for every link in the chain to claim that the carcinogens found in the meat products are simply "not my problem." The fact that none of the companies involved are willing to take relatively simple measures to make sure that consumers don't kill themselves is not only dangerous to the general population, its bad business 's it makes the company, and the entire country, look ridiculous.
But the producers and vendors of the products are not the only ones to blame for the poisonous produce 's the government watchdog should have stepped in and clamped down on the practice a long time ago.
How can the watchdog possibly claim that it is properly doing it job if it allows producers to keep selling meat products that cause cancer without even demanding they print a proper warning label?
That these products are still being stocked on shelves is beyond unbelievable, beyond unethical, it's yet more proof that Lithuania is just a European country on paper, and still living with its deepest and darkest legacies of Soviet culture tucked under the bed. The social irresponsibility has to stop.
