Eggs anyone?

I happened to pick up a dozen eggs last week only to find out that they were on the recall list. Some 380 million eggs! Finding out that they're not safe to eat after you've already eaten eight of them is not heartening news. I'm usually up on my recalls but this one seemed to come late. I think I'll hard boil the rest of them just to be safe. Or should I live dangerously and cook them over easy? In the last three years there's been recall after recall and it seems to be getting worse. There was fish, chicken, ground beef, beef with mad cow, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, salads and peanuts. Not to mention underprocessed canned foods like chili, spaghettos, and cereals. I know you must assume meats can be loaded with e-coli or salmonella and cook them properly but there isn't much you can do about veggies. So like that wonderful Russian game we take a gamble and eat dinner and hope it wasn't on the recall list. Only had food poisoning once as a kid from some bad milk that was undetectable.

You can go to the CDC website to see which ones are bad.

Killer Peanut Butter

In eighteen months we've had ecoli and salmonella in beef, peppers, pork, fish, onions and not to mention tainted pet food from China (tomatoes were aquitted). And now to add to that list peanut butter. Some 474 people have been made sick from it since October. I've had food poisoning twice in my life and I'll say it's no picnic. With the globalization of our food supply I'm amazed that we haven't seen even more cases. I only recall my parents speak of food poisoning being fairly common during the depression because people would can their own foods. Keep that in mind should you do the garden thing this spring and want to jar or can it for later use. Important to follow the directions about sterilization of the jars and proper blanching. It's also a good reason to buy local. Not only do you get to know where the produce was produced and of course the benefits of supporting local farmers and reducing transportation costs but it's a bit easier to track down the source of any food bourne illness.

A CDC report on the latest - peanut butter

I'm from the government I'm here to help

The government accountability office gave the FDA a list of changes last year (2007) to be implemented into their proceedures. Of over 30 changes to be made only about 7 have been acted upon.
After the latest cases of food poisoning and at a senate hearing on food safety Dr David Acheson who is the associate commissioner for foods told the committee that the FDA would need six to eight weeks just to give details of the FDA's safety plans, when they will be implemented and the cost.

Now you would think that after the spinach contamination and a similar problem with lettice not to mention this is the second time around for tomatoes, that the FDA would get their act together and establish a system to quickly identify where the produce was grown and where it ended up at the supermarket. It really doesn't take a lot of work to track. I have to do that in my job. Every bag, box, or drum must be labeled with the date, the place it was generated and who is the owner. And yes we do tons and tons of hazardous materials. Oddly enough we use the same 4ft boxes that watermelons are shipped in.

I've seen how much of our food is produced in this country and I know that a large part of it has some sort of tracking number. Maybe it's time to put numbers on produce and ground meats then the process would make it easy to recall any food produce.

First bad beef then produce now more fishy problems

Gordon fish fillets were recalled in 10 states on the east coast because a consumer found pills in them.

Did Rush loose his stash in the fish batter?

Ground beef safety

I guess it will be a while before I eat any hamburgers. I was fooled into thinking that if I bought the more expensive "natural" beef patties that there would somehow be a greater level of safety or more care in the preperation of the meat. How wrong I was. The first recall was for Morans. I had been buying them for several years now because they have no additives like growth hormones and the like. You can actually notice the difference between an all natural and regular meats. I try to limit the amount of red meat I eat in any given month but I still like a good steak and my favorite prime rib from time to time. Now I'm forced to find another solution to the ground beef problem. I'm wondering if there's something like a beef wash that could be used prior to grinding. And I'm considering buying a grinder and buying full beef cuts. I think that is what my mother did many years ago. She'd buy round steak when it was cheap and have it ground. Sure made for a fresh hamburger.
At any rate I'd be suspecious of any ground beef that was really cheap from Wally world or any other discount outlet. And here's the latest:
Ground beef reall

More food recalls

Just when you thought it was safe to eat (let's see) beef, tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, pork, or fish, now there's onions

Food Safety

More bad beef

Another 82000 lbs. of beef was recalled here in our state. Luckily it didn't make it to anyone's dinner table as the beef had been sold to wholesalers in the region and was pulled before it made it to retail outlets. Now I realize we don't live in a perfect world and nothing is 100% safe, but I was just wondering what exactly are acceptable levels of bacteria?