Growing Food Recall Sweeps Nation, Americans Collectively Roll Eyes

In the interest of steering away from media scare tactics, I’ve avoided discussing every minor food recall. Truth is, they happen on a weekly basis so I thought I’d wait for a doozy. Didn’t have to wait long. A Las Vegas based flavor company, Basic Food Flavors, found that one of their flavor enhancers was contaminated with salmonella and (shockingly!) they continued to ship the product to food manufacturers regardless. Because daddy needs to support Strip Club Tuesdays with the boys.

It’s OK though, the flavoring compound found to be contaminated, hydrolyzed vegetable protein or HVP, is only used in products you rarely see on the shelves such as McCormick dips and gravies, Trader Joe’s dressings and dressing mixes, CVS and Safeway snack products. See, nothing to worry about.. if you’re Amish.

For the rest of us, food-borne illnesses cost American a total of $152 billion (with a “B”) each year between lost wages, lost productivity, and medical expenses (and also the small matter of food companies knowing about bacterial contamination and doing squat about them), here are a few tips for my fellow consumers:

“ 1. Clean
• Wash cutting boards, dishes and utensils with hot soapy water. Clean after preparing each food item, before you go on to the next.
• Rinse fresh fruits and vegetables under running tap water, including those with skins that are not eaten.
• Use paper towels to clean kitchen surfaces, or, if you use cloth towels, wash them frequently in the hot cycle of your washing machine.

2. Separate
• Don’t cross-contaminate. Have one cutting board for fresh fruits and vegetables and another one for raw meat, poultry and seafood.
• Separate raw meat, poultry, seafood and eggs from other foods in your grocery cart and bags and in your refrigerator.

3. Cook
• Use a food thermometer to make sure meat, poultry and egg dishes are thoroughly cooked. • Cook eggs until the yolk and white are firm, not runny.
• Bring sauces, soups and gravy to a boil when reheating.

4. Chill
• Keep your refrigerator at 40° F or below; a freezer at 0° F or lower.
• Never let raw meat, poultry, eggs or freshly cut produce sit at room temperature more for than two hours before refrigerating (one hour when the outside temperature is above 90° F). Do the same with cooked foods.
• Never defrost food at room temperature. The safe way to defrost food is in the fridge, under cold water or in the microwave.”

Food Safety 101 is No Match for Tyson’s Bottom Line

The 40-140 Rule strikes again, and, not surprisingly, a food industry giant decided it’d rather save money than follow it. According to the FDA, you should be careful when eating your budget friendly Tyson Seafood Gumbo soup.

“Tyson stored fish and crab for about 18 hours between 40 and 55 degrees. The FDA said those products should be stored below 40 degrees to keep bacteria and toxins from growing on them.. Inspectors in August also cited the company for not documenting procedures for stopping bacterial growth.”

For those of you who are not familiar with the 40-140 Rule, it states that, to avoid bacterial growth, a food product such as fish needs to be kept at either below 40 degrees F (i.e. a freezer) or above 140 degrees F (i.e. cook it).

Tyson essentially threw this Food Safety 101 rule out the window, my guess is because their energy bill would have been higher to keep a temperature below 40 degrees F rather than the we’ll-take-a-guess-and-assume-it’s-safe temperature range of 40–55 degrees F. And the window of safety in which you can leave meat, poultry, and fish above 40 degrees F is 2 hours. Glad they stuck by that one.

Tyson claims this is just a documentation error, that they simply didn’t write down that they took the necessary steps to hinder bacterial growth, and that they’re thawing procedures were within proper safety guidelines. It doesn’t take a nerdy food science undergrad to tell you that, at least the latter, can’t possibly be true. Would you leave a fillet of fish in a warm refrigerator for almost a day and then think, eh, it’s fine. Probably not.