There’s an old saying about reformed smokers or drinkers or whatever … they’re the worst critics.

And they want everyone to share their religion.

Natural Selection Foods got food safety religion after the 2006 E. coli O157:H7 in spinach outbreak. Bill Marler recently said upon settling some lawsuits, “Special mention to Natural Selection Foods for its leadership role in preventing leafy green bacterial outbreaks.  All companies should strive for its standards.”

I disagree. There were 29 outbreaks on leafy greens before the 2006 spinach outbreak. Why didn’t Natural Selection pay attention before they got caught?

It’s an old tale. Now, after 20 confirmed deaths, and probably dozens more, Maple Leaf Foods is proclaiming they’ve hired a food safety dude.

I thought food safety would be a priority if a $5 billion company was selling food.

But I’m hopelessly naïve. Ask old girlfriends — or my wife.

Randy Huffman, formerly of the American Meat Institute, is going to be chief food safety dude for Maple Leaf Foods. Once he settles into his new post in Jan., maybe he can foster the food safety culture his boss, Michael McCain, claims to already have. And maybe he can address some outstanding issues, ones I wrote about back in Aug. 2008 when the enormity of the listeria outbreak in Canada was just emerging:

• who knew what when;

• warn pregnant women and others at risk from listeria in deli meats; and,

• make your listeria data public.

Here’s Randy, the meat science guy, on video.