It seems that there’s been one recall after the other lately, mostly for our foods. To stay safe with what we eat, we need to keep an eye on those recalls. Some of them have been scarily bizarre.

The latest ones include pieces of plastic in sausages, wood in frozen meals, stones in chocolate bars, botulism in juice and tree nuts in cheesecake.

Then there are undeclared allergens, like the milk that was in tortilla chips, and chicken salad, which can affect people who have a dairy allergy. We have hot sauce with undeclared sulfites, which can seriously affect people who have an allergy to sulfites. When you thought you’d recover from an illness with some over-the-counter help, we had cough medication recalled for being contaminated.

Humans aren’t the only ones to be affected by the wrong ingredients in our foods. A recent recall was for a dog snack that was contaminated with salmonella.

Nobody likes extra email to wade through, but in the case of recalls, we really do need to pay attention.

Signing up for email notifications is the best thing we can do right now, especially with the increase in the number of recalls. Go to www.recalls.gov/food.html

www.fsis.usda-gov/recalls and www.foodsafety.gov to sign up for email alerts. Or if you really don’t want extra emails in your inbox, make a point of going to those sites once a week and scrolling through the list of new recalls.

Even if you think you probably don’t have a recalled item, if you’ve ever bought it in the past, check your freezer and cabinets. That item might still be there. “Though recalls are increasing, safely measures help protect consumers and address issues quickly.”