It’s been 10 years since I left Canada.

And the longer I’m away, the cuter it becomes: I want to send the country a fruit basket.

Stuart Smyth, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s bioresource policy, business and economics department, said “Canada has one of the top, if not the top, food safety systems in the world. Other countries look to our regulatory system as a model of food safety. Many developing countries just don’t have the fiscal resources to have the level of quality and control that we do in Canada to ensure that the food products that are available for purchase in our grocery stores are as safe as they possibly can be.”

Smyth’s assessment mirrors that of a 2014 Conference Board of Canada report, which ranked Canada’s food safety performance first among 17 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The report, which surveyed the country’s ability to assess, control and mitigate risks, cited a low number of reported food-borne illnesses and recalls as a reason for the top billing.

Nosestretcher alert: Smyth said a regular food safety issue in Canada is related to organic foods.

“Thousands of cases a year of food illness are triggered from organic products,” he said. “It’s largely due to the process of them using manure slurry as fertilizer and coming down to improper household food preparations in terms of making sure that they’re properly washing organic food.”

That is complete manure slurry.