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Corn and Poblano Peppers Recalled for Listeria Hummus Recalled for Listeria Contamination Listeria monocytogenes (commonly referred to as Listeria) is a pathogenic bacteria that contaminates vegetables, raw meats, and unpasteurized milk. Individuals who consume food with Listeria can develop Listeriosis, a potentially fatal infection that can cause fever, muscle aches, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, and miscarriages in pregnant women. According to the Centers for Disease Control, those especially susceptible to Listeriosis include: - Pregnant women - Newborns - Elderly individuals - Those with a chronic disease or compromised immune system For more information on Listeria, please visit the excellent resource below: http://www.about-listeria.com/ The message to learn from the recalls above is simple. No food is completely safe from dangerous bacteria. It does not matter if you choose organic. As we have seen, organic foods are not guaranteed 100% bacteria-free. Regardless of what food you buy, you should thoroughly wash and cook your food.
Actually, mayonnaise is made with pasteurized products and contains lemon juice, which contains a high level of acidity, preventing the mayonnaise from spoiling. It is no more likely to spoil than any other food. However, it is unsafe to leave any perishable food out for more than two hours.This myth probably originated from when mayonnaise was made with raw eggs, which are often bacteria carriers. 2. Washing poultry and meat will help prevent foodborne illnesses. Washing poultry can remove surface pathogens, if done correctly. However, most people don’t wash their meat correctly, and end up cross-contaminating the kitchen. For this reason, its safer just to cook your meat to the correct temperature, which kills all surface and internal pathogens. 3. Using hand sanitizer is as effective as washing your hands. Partially true. In normal day to day life, using alcohol-based hand sanitizer is actually more effective than washing your hands, especially since many people do not wash their hands correctly. Hand sanitizer kills microbes, while hand washing is the mechanical removal of the microbes from your skin. However, if you’ve just worked with a bunch of raw hamburger, and you have a thick coating of fat over your skin, hand sanitizer won’t be very effective. The best solution is a combination: wash your hands for at least 20 seconds, dry them, and sanitize. 4. No pink color in meat means it is done and safe to eat. It might be done, but the only way to make sure is to check it with a thermometer. Meat color is determined by pH, not by temperature, and the only way to make sure that harmful pathogens are killed off by cooking is to cook food to the correct internal temperature. The FDA recommends the following: * Ground beef: 160°F (71°C) * Poultry: 165°F (74°C) * Pork: 160°F (71°C) 5. You can thaw meat safely in the refrigerator, microwave or on the counter. The safest place to thaw meat or poultry is in the refrigerator, which keeps it out of the temperature danger zone when bacteria are likely to multiply rapidly. If you need to thaw meat quickly, defrost it in the microwave and then cook it immediately. Never thaw meat on the counter—it increases the risk of cross-contamination and gives bacteria the opportunity to multiply quickly. 6. Contaminated food smells or tastes funny. If your food smells or tastes funny do not eat it, it may be spoiled. However, dangerous bacteria such as E. coli, Listeria or Salmonella have no odor and are undetectable to human senses. 7. If you begin to feel sick, it must be the last thing you ate. Actually, most people with a foodborne illness will not show symptoms anywhere from a few hours to more than a week after eating a contaminated meal. It is important to contact health officials if you think you contracted a foodborne illness. They can help trace the source of potential infections. 8. If you eat organic, you can worry less about contracting a foodborne illness. Wrong. You are just as likely to contract a foodborne illness eating organic lettuce as you are eating regular lettuce. However, eating certain organic foods might lower your consumption of pesticides. 9. Eating butter left out on the counter will make you sick. This one is partially true. Salted butter does not spoil nearly as quickly as other dairy products, but if you decide to leave it out cover it to prevent cross-contamination and use it within a few days. 10. If food has mold on it, it is still okay to eat as long as you cut the mold off. Visible mold usually indicates the food product has been thoroughly invaded by mold and should be thrown out. The mold spots that are visible to the naked eye are mature colonies of mold spores. The mold is not confined to these patches though. Invisible threads of immature mold extend away from the spores and into what may appear to be a fresh and uncontaminated portion of food. However, it is okay to cut off a large area around a mold spot on hard cheeses. A west London restaurant owner was criticised for an “appalling catalogue of offences” after health inspectors saw a mouse jumping from a bowl of sweet and sour sauce in the kitchen. Inspectors visiting the Kam Tong, Hung Tao and Kiasu restaurants in Queensway, Bayswater, found mouse droppings all over the kitchens and cockroach eggs in the dim sum and baskets of prawn crackers. One rodent was photographed scampering along a kitchen drainpipe in the Kam Tong restaurant after jumping from a bowl of sweet and sour sauce which was about to be served to customers. Owner Ronald Lim, of Barnet, north London, admitted 17 counts of breaching food hygiene regulations at Southwark Crown Court. Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC ordered him to pay fines totalling £30,000, plus £18,131 costs, and handed him an eight-month jail term suspended for two years. He was told that if he did not pay the fine, he would face 18 months in jail, a spokeswoman for Westminster City Council said. The three restaurants were shut down between May and August 2008 but have since reopened. Lim now has three months to prove he has improved standards before a decision is made on whether to ban him from operating a catering business altogether. Brian Connell, Westminster City Council’s cabinet member for business, enterprise and skills, said: “This is an appalling catalogue of offences and gives an otherwise good industry a bad name. “This person was not running these restaurants to the levels of hygiene which are required and which customers rightly expect.”  An vegetable vendor weighs produce at a wholesale market Indian farmers are injecting a hormone sometimes given to women during childbirth into vegetables and fruits to make the produce ripen sooner and gain weight, an Indian minister has warned. In a letter to health ministry officials seen by AFP, junior health minister Dinesh Trivedi demanded a nationwide crackdown on the illegal use of the prescription drug Oxytocin, which he said can cause serious health problems if taken over a long period. “These hormones may cause irreparable damage to our health, if taken through these vegetables, over a period of time,” he stated, listing heart disorders, sterility, nervous breakdowns and memory loss as possible side effects. He said the hormone, used to induce childbirth and lactation in women, is injected in pumpkin, watermelon, aubergine and cucumber plants to make them bear bigger fruit. The injection can also be administered to fruit and vegetables just before they come to market to make them appear more plump and fresher. Though the drug is banned for use in animals, it is often illegally used in cattle to boost milk production. India’s health ministry banned Oxyotocin for public sale after a series of media reports about the drug being administered to underage girls in rural Rajasthan to make them look older before their marriages. In neighbouring Bangladesh, sex workers are often given the steroid drug Oradexon, a form of Oxytocin, for the same reason. Despite the ban on public sales of the drug in India, the hormone is still easily available from fertiliser and pesticide vendors, an official in the health ministry told AFP. Penang is conducting checks on goat milk suppliers and has culled 98 of the animals after a seven-year-old boy became the first person to be infected with brucellosis. Brucellosis is caused by the Brucella bacteria and is a disease mainly found in cattle, swine, goats and sheep. The boy fell sick after drinking raw goat’s milk. He was admitted to a private hospital after coming down with fever on April 24, said state exco member Phee Boon Poh. He was transferred to the Penang Hospital several days later after failing to respond to the antibiotics given. Also called Bang’s disease, or undulant fever, brucellosis is a highly contagious disease caused by ingestion of unsterilised milk or meat from infected animals, or close contact with their secretions. It causes flu-like symptoms, muscle pain and swollen glands, and can result in complications like bone and joint lesions, encephalitis, meningitis and chronic fatigue syndrome. Phee said that following the incident, the state Veterinary Services Department began conducting checks on milk suppliers. “We hope suppliers from Kulim, Kuala Ketil and Lunas will heed the department’s advice to prevent the spread of the disease,” he said. Phee said the department had so far tested 3,243 serum samples of goats from 11 farms in the state. “Ninety-eight of the goats were culled after the test results came in positive,” he said. He said the owners of the culled goats were paid compensation of RM5.60 per kilo. Phee advised the public to boil milk before drinking. He also urged those selling mutton, including for the coming fasting month, to ensure the meat was free from the disease. “An awareness campaign will be held on July 27 by the various government departments and the municipal councils,” he said. |
Sunday, 1 August 2010  Do not get bottled water Instead of bottled water get a reusable container to carry water. Also you can get a filter to make your home tap taste more like bottled water. It is definitely more cost efficient.  |
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Just within the past week, organic spouts, peppers, and hummus have been recalled for Listeria contamination.
1. Mayonnaise spoils more readily than other foods.
