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Eating out means eating right. In the midst of food recalls and multi-state foodborne illness outbreaks, the injunction has never been truer—especially for pregnant moms, who must be particularly careful of what they eat because of their compromised immune systems.
That is not to say of course that moms should stop going to Taco Bell or KFC (most restaurants now require a food safety certification or a food handler certification as an employment requirement) and make do with home cooking all nine months.
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The federation of State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) is up in arms over federal plans to cut the Agriculture Department’s whole budget of $5 million for the Microbiological Data Program (MDG), effectively eliminating the nation’s largest produce testing program. According to PIRG, MDG is responsible for screening high-risk fresh produce for pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria, conducting about 15,000 random tests a year.
Although many restaurant owners have made a valuable contribution to food safety by making a food handler certification or a food safety certification an employment requirement, the food-supply chain has many stops and foodborne pathogens can enter the chain at any of them. MDG attempts to arrest the entry of pathogens in the middle of the chain.
PIRG’s alarm comes on the heels of Dole’s recent recall of some 800 bags of lettuce after Salmonella was discovered by MDG during random sampling in New York, one of 11 states that host produce distribution centers from which samples are collected to gather data on E. coli (STEC), E. coli O157:H7 and other pathogens.
“Cutting this program will leave public health officials without a crucial tool used to investigate deadly foodborne illnesses in fresh produce leaving inspections in the hands of produce producers. Is this really conducive to keeping consumers safe?” asked Nasima Hossain, a U.S. PIRG public health advocate. “In view of the accelerated increase in foodborne illnesses linked to fresh produce, and this latest recall of bagged lettuce, we think the USDA should reconsider cutting this program which is thoughtless and will leave the public increasingly in more danger.”
MDP was launched under President Bush’s 2001 Food Safety Initiative.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to suffer from Salmonella infections, which has increased 10 percent in recent years, accounting for about a million people across the country falling ill from the pathogen every year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Salmonella infections represent nearly half of the hospitalizations and deaths among the nine foodborne illnesses that CDC monitors.
The CDC says the bacterium, which exists as several harmful and dangerous subtypes, causes some $365 million in direct medical costs every year in the U.S., and a staggering $14.6 billion annually in efforts to keep it out of the food-supply chain.
Now, an international team of researchers has taken a big step toward taming Salmonella infections. Led by University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) researchers Michael Mahan and Douglas Heithoff, the team has successfully identified certain hypervirulent subtypes of Salmonella and believes that the feat represents a first step toward preventing food poisoning outbreaks caused by the pathogen.
The UCSB researchers reported finding 14 hypervirulent subtypes and discovering the powerfully infectious strains were restricted to certain serotypes. The scientists said they are now developing protocols to quickly detect the most dangerous strains and, ultimately, to come up with therapies to combat them.
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- Question: What Foodborne Illnesses are associated with beef?
- Viking Cattle Comapny:
- "Escherichia coli can colonize in the intestines of animals, which could contaminate muscle meat at slaughter. E. coliO157: H7 is a rare strain that produces large quantities of a potent toxin that forms in and causes severe damage to the lining of the intestine. The disease produced by it is called Hemorrhagic Colitis and is characterized by bloody diarrhea.E. coli O157:H7 is easily destroyed by thorough cooking.
- Salmonella may be found in the intestinal tracts of livestock, poultry, dogs, cats, and other warm-blooded animals. There are about 2,000 Salmonella bacterial species. Freezing doesn't kill this microorganism, but it is destroyed by thorough cooking. Salmonella must be eaten to cause illness. They cannot enter the body through a skin cut. Cross-contamination can occur if raw meat or its juices contact cooked food or foods that will be eaten raw, such as salad.
- Staphylococcus aureus can be carried on human hands, nasal passages, or throats. Most foodborne illness outbreaks are a result of contamination from food handlers and production of a heat-stable toxin in t he food. Sanitary food handling and proper cooking and refrigerating should prevent staphylococcal foodborne illness.
- Listeria monocytogenes is destroyed by cooking, but a cooked product can be recontaminated by poor handling practices and poor sanitation. FSIS has a zero tolerance forListeria monocytogenes in cooked and ready-to-eat products such as beef franks or lunchmeat. Observe handling information such as "Keep Refrigerated" and "Use-By" dates on labels."
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Link reblogged from nulla aurora, nullus dies
OTTAWA—The federal government wants to allow the carcasses of already dead animals to be processed in slaughterhouses for human consumption, a move that is raising concerns about the safety of Canada’s food system.
The Conservative government is pitching the change as a way to cut red tape…
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Photo reblogged from Government Executive Media Group
Before he became an advocate for food inspection workers and a proponent for consumer food safety, Stan Painter worked in commercial slaughterhouses as a chicken grader and quality control agent. He remembers seeing workers put condemned meat back on the line labeled as “edible product,” and he recalls managers telling rank-and-file employees to keep quiet about contamination. “If the plant tells you to falsify the paperwork, and you don’t falsify the paperwork, they are going to fire you,” he says.
He does not believe all slaughterhouses are bad and accepts it’s a tall order to execute best practices on every bird, every time. But Painter and many of the federal inspectors he represents as chairman of the American Federation of Government Employees National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals believe an Agriculture Department proposal aimed at saving money could make an already imperfect system worse.
Read the full story at GovExec.com.
Image Credit: Amanda Palleschi/GovExec.com
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Photo reblogged from Dr. Jay Weber
What does the number on a fruit sticker mean?
7 out of 10 items in grocery store shelves contain ingredients that have been genetically modified. Fruit and vegetables do not come with nutrition labels but they do have stickers (PLU – Price Look Up Code) which contain pertinent information.
Next time you decide to purchase that apple or cut a slice out of that melon, consider the PLU sticker. This sticker will tell you whether the fruit was organically grown, genetically modified, or produced with chemical fertilizers, herbicides or fungicides.
PLU stickers that have 4 digits and begin with a “3″ or “4″: produce is conventionally grown. This means that this produce was sprayed with weed killers and chemical pesticides.
PLU stickers that have 5-digits and start with “8″: produce was genetically engineered (man intervened by manipulating the genes to produce a larger or brighter colored food). This produce may have been chemically treated.
PLU stickers that have 5-digits and start with “9″: produce was raised organically. You can be sure that this produce was not treated with any chemicals.
If you see other variations of code on your produce, you can refer to the following website and look up the PLU code as well as other information regarding this topic: http://www.fruitsticker.com.
Note: the adhesive used to stick the PLU onto the fruit is edible but the sticker itself is not.
Having some origin coding would be great for seeing how far a particular fruit/vegetable traveled but that is something still hidden in our giant supermarkets. Read More
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Photo reblogged from Your Map to Health
What Do the Dates Stamped on Food Packages Mean?
Many food products now include open dating on the label or packaging. This date helps the store know how long to display a product. It also helps consumers know the time limit to purchase or use the product at its best quality. The most common labels are sell-by, use-by and expiration date. Here’s what they mean:
Sell-by Date – This date tells the store how long to display the product for sale. Buy the product before the date expires.
Use-by Date – This is the last date the product will maintain its optimum freshness, flavor and texture.
Expiration Date – If you haven’t used the product by this date, it’s time to toss it.
earn more about this topic:
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To comply with the strict Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines on food safety, the FDA Food Code, North Carolina is expected to replace a dog-eared set of regulations it introduced almost a generation ago, in 1976. For the restaurant owner and workers the new, more stringent code means, for example, that restaurant employees who are sick will not be allowed to work and cooks will not be allowed to touch ready-to-eat food with bare hands.
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Photoset reblogged from Bad Bad Batz
It’s a great idea. But the thing about this device is that does it actually works?
“Many people are concerned about the health effects associated with the consumption of GMOs. Elephant Nose was designed to identify the state of foods (GMO/natural, fresh/stale, and so on) using artificial nose technology. Information about the food is displayed on the device’s LCD panel. Elephant Nose is portable and can thus be used at the grocery store or market, as well as at home.”
I guess all you need these days to win a “design concept” contest is an impossible idea executed as a personal massager. Does this thing vibrate when it “smells” bullshit? Just as this magic wand is able to sniff the diff between GMO and organic corn, my newly “designed” t-shirt increases your intelligence and eliminates racism.
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Post reblogged from Bad Bad Batz
In a previous post, I asked:
Here’s a common sense test for whether lean finely textured beef should be labeled. If you put a pile of ground chuck in front of a consumer, and also a pile of lean finely-textured beef next to it, would the consumer be able to tell the difference?
This was unfair. The reason it’s unfair is because LFTB is probably never blended with ground chuck. It’s blended with “ground beef” and there is a world of difference between “ground chuck” and “ground beef.”
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Link reblogged from Don's blog
This one was good one. Plenty of pop culture reference and a thorough discussion of “Pink Slime” and related food safety issues.
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Eating out means eating right. In the midst of food recalls and multi-state foodborne illness outbreaks, the injunction has never been truer—especially for pregnant moms, who must be particularly careful of what they eat because of their compromised immune systems.
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With all the outbreaks that has been in the news before till now I would say let’s make a change and do something. I’d like to share you guys a file that’ll be really helpful in our day to day lives. You can also check out Food Safety Training to start the course.
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In his blog piece “Rapid City Journal (SD) does a decent job covering restaurant inspections,” writer Ben Chapman points out the importance of hiring the right staff with the right stuff to pass mandatory restaurant inspections. The right food safety training and the right food safety culture should be present, he says, to pass muster when the restaurant inspector comes calling.
