"foodsafety" news and stories

Every once in a while it's good to have a refresher course in kitchen safety. The FDA's 1996 flick "Dirty Little Secrets" does just that with a dramatic announcer, toilet paper in the fridge and a copy of "The Silver Palate Cookbook." Did they miss anything? Weigh in.

[Via Public.Resource.Org, BoingBoing]

Patience, everyone. It's almost over.

As Obama and McCain relentlessly feint and parry towards Tuesday, has any word been volleyed more often than "taxes"? Whether your taxes are, not to mention will be, lowered, raised, leveraged, undercut, overspent, distributed, re-distributed, undistributed or even, perhaps, unpaid, it's important to remember the basic fact that taxes fund government. This includes departments, agencies, entities and initiatives concerning food, from growing it to cooking it to eating it. With election day finally ascendant, isn't it time to check in on some of the entities supported by public funds, to see what we're paying for?

When I saw this machine on Inventor Spot, I was truly amazed. I also thought it sounded too good to be true, but that remains to be seen.

The Culinary Prep is a device that cleans food in an "all natural and very effective anti-microbial solution." The makers of the Culinary Prep claim that it removes 95% of bacteria from the raw meats and/or vegetables that you wash in it. It's also about $400, but I guess when it comes to food safety you get what you pay for.

In addition, the Culinary Prep makers say that it reduces spoilage (thus extending shelf life), improves flavor, and still reduces fat and sodium. I can see how this device can extend shelf life, reduce spoilage and all that, and even how that could have an effect on the flavor. It's that fat/sodium reduction claim in addition to everything else that sets off my "spidey sense." What do you think? Would you buy it?

Gourmet Boutique has issued a recall of 286,000 lbs of deli luncheon meat for possible contamination by listeria. The meats were used in sandwich wraps and other ready-to-eat products. The USDA has classified this recall as Class I, "reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death," or what I would call "pretty damn serious."

The list of potentially affected wraps and other ready-to-eat products from the company are listed here.

[via: Consumerist]

Source

Hmm, "risky eating behaviors", that sounds pretty dangerous. That is what I thought when I happened on this article. Some researchers have studied the link between food safety awareness and actual eating habits. The study was aimed at college age adults, but perhaps it can be applied to everyone. It turns out that I, and quite possibly many other people, have eating habits that are "risky".

Apparently, eating things like raw cookie dough, cooked eggs with runny yolks, and sushi (with raw fish), not to mention steak tartare, are all risky foods. Any food that has not been thoroughly cooked or leaves any room for bacteria to hide is risky. In the study there was a "weak" link between higher food safety knowledge and safer eating habits.

The only problem I see is that some foods are supposed to be under or un-cooked. I can see where the food safety advocates are coming from, but, really, a well done steak is ruined (in my opinion), and I was practically raised on chocolate chip cookie dough. Perhaps we all should try to be aware of the risks and take all the precautions, but go ahead and eat our sushi raw. Does anyone have another take on this? Is there some additional information that you'd like to share?