China's melamine scare extended to more dairy products

Liquid cow's milk has been pulled from shelves around the country of china after 10% of it tested positive for the industrial chemical melamine, used in this case, as well as last year's pet food crisis, to artificially boost nitrate levels and give the appearance of higher protein levels. Apparently whoever thought this was a great idea forgot, as illustrated in the large amounts of dying pets that the results are, oh I don't know, poisonous? Maybe they didn't talk about it on the government-run news programs there. So brilliant food producers decided that it would be a good idea to start doing the same thing to milk intended for human consumption. This has now led to a fourth baby dying of kidney failure, with 6,000 plus still sick with kidney stones. The melamine has now been found in liquid milk, as well as yogurt and some other products. This incident is just one in a long line of screw ups in China's poorly run and poorly supervised food industry. In 2004, twelve babies died and 200 were sick after drinking fake formula that contained no nutrients.

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China wants to poison your baby.

China: known for the big pet food scare of '07, where pets around the nation died after melamine plastic was added to pet foods. Guess what, they are at it again! As if poisoning pets wasn't bad enough, now they are going after the children. Melamine-tainted baby formula has killed three babies and sickened 6,000 plus. The FDA states that the formulas are probably not on US shelves, but that they are investigating further.

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this just in: crappy pet food is crappy.

If any of my readers actually buy the following brands of pet food, shame on you. Not only have they all been recalled for a salmonella contamination, they have always had disgusting ingredients in them that I wouldn't dare feed the dog of my worst enemy. So if you have them in your house, please immediately dispose of them, and buy some real pet food for your animals.

Country Acres Cat Food 40#	16603 02181		Retriever Bites & Bones Dog Food 8#	79818 96757
Country Acres Ration Dog Food 40#	16603 02333		Retriever Bites & Bones Dog Food 20#	79818 96634
Country Acres 18% Dog Food 40#	16603 02331		Retriever Bites & Bones Dog Food 50#	49394 05666
Country Acres Hi Pro Dog Food 50#	16603 02021		Retriever Gravy Blend Dog Food 50#	49394 05665
Doggy Bag Dog Food 40#	73893 40000		Retriever Gravy Blend Dog Food 8#	79818 96756
Members Mark Complete Nutrition Premium Cat Food 20#	81131 89881		Retriever Hi Protein Dog Food 8#	79818 96755
Members Mark Complete Nutrition Premium Dog Food 50#	05388 67055		Retriever Hi Protein Dog Food 25#	49394 00002
Members Mark Crunchy Bites & Savory Bones Adult Dog Food 50#	05388 67309		Retriever Hi Protein Dog Food 50#	49394 00003
Members Mark High Performance Premium Dog Food 50#	81131 75479		Retriever Mini Chunk Dog Food 8#	79818 96754
Natural Cat Food (Sam's Club) 15#	81131 89883		Retriever Mini Chunk Dog Food 25#	49394 00006
Natural Dog Food (Sam's Club) 25#	81131 89884		Retriever Mini Chunk Dog Food 50#	49395 00005
Ol' Roy Complete Nutrition 4.4#	81131 69377		Retriever Puppy Blend Dog Food 6#	49394 56221
Ol' Roy Complete Nutrition 8#	05388 67144		Retriever Puppy Blend Dog Food 8#	79818 96758
Ol' Roy Complete Nutrition 22#	05388 60342		Retriever Puppy Blend Dog Food 20#	49394 00004
Ol' Roy Complete Nutrition 50#	78742 01022		Retriever Puppy Blend Dog Food 40#	79818 96706
Ol' Roy High Performance Nutrition Dog Food 20#	05388 60345		Special Kitty Gourmet 3.5#	81131 17546
Ol' Roy High Performance Nutrition Dog Food 50#	78742 05815		Special Kitty Gourmet 4#	78742 53199
Ol' Roy Meaty Chunks 'n Gravy Dog Food 8#	81131 69629		Special Kitty Gourmet 7#	81131 17547
Ol' Roy Meaty Chunks 'n Gravy Dog Food 22#	81131 69630		Special Kitty Gourmet 8#	78742 53200
Ol' Roy Meaty Chunks 'n Gravy Dog Food 50#	81131 69631		Special Kitty Gourmet 18#	81131 15748
Ol' Roy Puppy Complete 4#	81131 79078		Special Kitty Gourmet 20#	78742 53201
Ol' Roy Puppy Complete 8#	81131 79079		Special Kitty Gourmet 25#	78742 54314
Ol' Roy Puppy Complete 20#	81131 79080		Special Kitty Kitten 3.5#	81131 17553
Paws & Claws Delicious Mix Cat Food 8#	79818 96632		Special Kitty Kitten 4#	78742 53198
Paws & Claws Delicious Mix Cat Food 20#	49394 05746		Special Kitty Kitten 7#	81131 17554
Paws & Claws Delicious Mix Cat Food 40#	79818 96676		Special Kitty Kitten 8#	81131 24739
Paws & Claws Premium Choice Cat Food 8#	79818 96633		Special Kitty Original 3.5#	81131 17557
Paws & Claws Premium Choice Cat Food 20#	49394 00008		Special Kitty Original 4#	78742 04930
Paws & Claws Premium Choice Cat Food 40#	49394 05747		Special Kitty Original 7#	81131 17562
Pedigree Large Breed Adult Nutrition 20#	23100 29158		Special Kitty Original 8#	78742 05744
Pedigree Large Breed Adult Nutrition 30.1#	23100 31484		Special Kitty Original 18#	81131 17559
Pedigree Large Breed Adult Nutrition 36.4#	23100 31479		Special Kitty Original 20#	78742 05794
Pedigree Large Breed Adult Nutrition 40#	23100 29154		Special Kitty Original 25#	81131 68869
Pedigree Small Crunchy Bites Adult Nutrition 4.4#	23100 05104		Wegman's Bruiser Complete Nutrition Dog Food 4.4#	77890 33654
Pedigree Small Crunchy Bites Adult Nutrition 8.8#	23100 05103		Wegman's Bruiser Complete Nutrition Dog Food 20#	77890 32988
Pedigree Small Crunchy Bites Adult Nutrition 20#	23100 14719		Wegman's Bruiser Complete Nutrition Dog Food 37.5#	77890 32994
Pedigree Small Crunchy Bites Adult Nutrition 32#	23100 31483		Wegman's Bruiser Puppy Dog Food 4.4#	77890 33621
Pedigree Small Crunchy Bites Adult Nutrition 40#	23100 31478		Wegman's Bruiser Puppy Dog Food 17.6#	77890 32991
Pedigree Small Crunchy Bites Adult Nutrition 44#	23100 05100		Wegman's Bruiser Small Crunchy Bites Dog Food 4.4#	77890 33618
Pedigree Small Crunchy Bites Adult Nutrition 52#	23100 05110		Wegman's Bruiser Small Crunchy Bites Dog Food 20#	77890 32982
Pet Pride Indoor Cat 3.5#	11110 74584		Wegman's Buju & Ziggie Complete Cat Food 3.5#	77890 10005
Pet Pride Indoor Cat 18#	11110 74585		Wegman's Buju & Ziggie Complete Cat Food 18#	77890 10004
Pet Pride Weight Management Dog Food 17.6#	11110 74578		Wegman's Buju & Ziggie Indoor Cat Food 3.5#	77890 12038
PMI Nutrition Bites & Bones Dog Food 50#	42869 00174		Wegman's Buju & Ziggie Indoor Cat Food 18#	77890 12039
PMI Nutrition Canine Advantage 50#	42869 00172		Wegman's Buju & Ziggie Kitten 3.5#	77890 12036
PMI Nutrition Feline Medley 20#	42869 00171		Wegman's Buju & Ziggie Original Medley Cat Food 3.5#	77890 10006
PMI Nutrition Gravy Crunches Dog Food 40#	42869 00033		Wegman's Buju & Ziggie Original Medley Cat Food 18#	77890 10003
Red Flannel Active Formula Dog Food 40#	42869 00063
Red Flannel Adult Formula Dog Food 20#	42869 00055
Red Flannel Adult Formula Dog Food 40#	42869 00054
Red Flannel Canine Select Dog Food 20#	42869 00068
Red Flannel Canine Select Dog Food 40#	42869 00067
Red Flannel Cat 10#	42869 00059
Red Flannel Cat 20#	42869 00058
Red Flannel Hi Pro Formula Dog Food 50#	42869 00065
Red Flannel Prime Dog Food 25#	42869 00052
Red Flannel Prime Dog Food 50#	42869 00053
Red Flannel Puppy 40#	42869 00056

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Bagel Recall

Wegmans Food Market has recalled every type of bagel and "bialys" (sounds like dialysis, but I guess it's a flat bagel with toppings on it) due to some unplanned seasoning: small metal springs. Delicious!

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Meat Slicers Cause of Canadian Listeriosis Outbreak

Maple Leaf foods stated that the Listeria bacteria that has been the cause of 38 confirmed cases of Listeriosis and 13 deaths has come from from deep inside the machinery that slices meat, even though the machinery is cleaned regularly. The food plant is still shut down until the machinery is either cleaned more thoroughly or replaced. All 220 products made by the corporation have been recalled.

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Court Rules Beef Producers not Allowed to Test for Mad Cow

Why? Well, because then all the other beef producers would be jealous. The USDA tests a measly ONE PERCENT of all beef produced in the states for mad cow. ONE. A meat packer in Kansas called Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wanted to start testing 100% of their beef. Great, right? Wrong, apparently. Evidently, that wouldn't be fair to all the other children meat packers because their beef would appear to be not as safe, and they would lose money.


Yeah.

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Hot Pockets Being Recalled

Be careful when you bite into that Hot Pocket, those might not be pepperoni, but rather small, red pieces of hard plastic. Nestle recalled 215,660 pounds of Pepperoni Pizza flavored Hot Pockets recently because of this. Check to see if the side of your box has “8157544614D,” “EST 7721A,” and “BEST BEFORE JAN2010.” stamped on it.

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Half of All Food Produced is Thrown Away.

Think back to when you were a child, and you sat there at the kitchen table, your slimy, sickly-green brussel sprouts getting cold on your plate as your mother yelled, "finish your food! think of the starving children in Africa!" Well, she might have been onto something. The Stockholm International Water Institute issued a report last week stating that half of all food produced is wasted, either during processing, transport, in stores and kitchens, and finally by the consumer. This of course is a tragedy in and of itsself, considering the number of people living in poverty without enough to eat. It's also, the Institute states, the source of 40 trillion liters of water flushed down the drain each year.

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Maple Leaf confirmed as source of listeria, expands recall

8/26/08 *UPDATE* a possible twelve people have now died from consuming tainted meat.
Four people have now died of listeriosis caused by eating tainted meat from Maple Leaf Foods, Canada's largest food processor. Maple Leaf was confirmed to be the source of the meat yesterday, and expanded its recall to include all products made from January 2008 on. The complete list can be viewed here.

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FDA OKs Use of Radiation to Kill Germs in some Veggies

On Friday the FDA is expected to issue new regulations regarding the use of radiation on lettuce and spinach to kill microorganisms such as e-coli, salmonella, and listeria. Irradiation of food, also controversially known as "cold pasteurization", has been in use since the 1960's as a way to control germs, as well as insects in food. The process was first invented in 1905. From 1953 to 1980, the government sponsored the National Food Irradiation Program, which did many research projects on the use of irradiation in food. Critics of the procedure say that the longest study of people eating irradiated food was 15 weeks, and no long term studies have been performed on the effects this may have in humans. They also say that irradiating food is an easy way to cover up sloppiness in the harvest and production of foods that create situations where contamination can occur in the first place. Another worry is that important vitamins and nutrients are destroyed in the process. Furthermore, critics worry about food becoming radioactive itsself. The FDA maintains that the food does not retain any actual radiation after the procedure. However, a statement on food irradiation on the Environental Protection Agency's website said the following:

Can irradiation make food radioactive?

No. Food does not come in contact with radioactive material during food irradiation, and cannot be contaminated this way. Radiation that is too energetic, however, can disrupt the energy balance in the nuclei of food atoms, making them unstable (radioactive). This is known as induced radioactivity.

Electron and x-ray beams can be energetic enough to induce radioactivity. To prevent induced radioactivity, FDA limits the energy of the radiation from these sources to less than 4 mega-electron volts. Radiation from cobalt-60 sources is not energetic enough to induce radioactivity.

Food that is treated with irradiation is required to be labeled with the international symbol of irradiated food, the "Radura" pictured above. It is also required to have the words "Treated with Radiation" or "Treated with Irradiation".

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Canadian Deli Meat Plant Closes After Listeria Outbreak.

*8/23/08 Update* Four deaths have now been confirmed.


Seventeen people have contracted listeriosis after eating tainted deli meat from Maple Leaf Foods, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. One of the affected people has died. Maple Leaf has temporarily shut down production until the source of the contamination is found. A list of recalled products is below:



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26365	Sliced Cooked Turkey Breast	470 g	SE 30
02106	Schneiders Bavarian Smokies	1 kg	OC 28
02126	Schneiders Cheddar Smokies	1 kg	OC 28
21333	Sure Slice Roast Beef	1 kg	SE 30
21388	Sure Slice Combo Pack	1 kg	SE 30
60243	Deli Gourmet Roast Beef slices	1 kg	SE 30
02356	Seasoned Cooked Roast Beef	500 g	OC 07
42706	Roast Beef, Seasoned and Cooked	500 g	OC 07
21334	Sure Slice Turkey Breast Roast	1 kg	OC 14
21444	Sure Slice Corned Beef	1 kg	OC 14
44938	Montreal Style Corned Beef	500 g	OC 14
21440	Sure Slice Black Forest Style Ham	1 kg	OC 21
21447	Sure Slice Salami	1 kg	OC 21
21331	Sure Slice Smoked Ham	1 kg	OC 21
48019	Schneiders Deli Shaved Corned Beef	200 g	OC 21
48020	Schneiders Deli Shaved Smoked Meat	200 g	OC 21
48016	Schneiders Deli Shaved Smoked Ham	200 g	OC 21
48018	Schneiders Deli Shaved Smoked Turkey Breast	150 g	OC 21
48017	Schneiders Deli Shaved Fully Cooked Smoked Honey Ham	200 g	OC 21
21360	Burns Bites Pepperoni	500 g	09 JA 01
99158	Turkey Breast Roast	1 kg	SE 30
71330	Roast Beef Cooked, Seasoned	2.5 kg	SE 30
71331	Corned Beef, Smoked Meat	2.5 kg	SE 30

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FDA knew about problem peppers months before outbreak.

The FDA insists that they were as surprised as anyone that the salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,423 people this year turned out to be from jalapeno and serrano chili peppers from Mexico. Were they really? An AP investigation of FDA records showed that Mexican peppers had a long history of contamination. FDA Border inspectors apparently turned away contaminated chilis 88 times. This year. That's 491,200 metric tons of rejected peppers.Ten percent of those batches had salmonella. The rest were either filthy, used illegal pesticides, or in one case, were simply poisoned. The USDA reports that 84 percent of all fresh peppers consumed by the United States come from Mexico.

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No room for your own dairy farm? Think again.

Meet the Dexter Cow, an irish breed of cattle created in the 1800s. The Dexter, once considered a very rare bovine, has increased in popularity lately. Why? because these cows are about the size of a large dog. Priced at a reasonable ~$400 - $4000, these mini-heifers produce about 2 gallons of milk per day, more than enough for any household.

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Pedigree Recalls Salmonella Tainted Pet Food

Pedigree pet foods has recalled 100 bags of "Pedigree Complete Nutrition Small Crunchy Bites" because they contain a component which tested positive for Salmonella. The bags were mistakenly shipped to Albertsons stores in Southern California, and Costco stores in Northern California. 

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USDA Allegedly Sponsored Movement to Defeat Farm Animal Rights Bill

Sponsors of California's Proposition 2- the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, are sueing the USDA and the American Egg Board right now because of $3,000,000 that was allegedly set aside to defeat the bill. Californians for Humane Farms says that the board is not allowed to use government money for political campaigns. Proposition 2, if passed, would require farm animals to be in enclosures big enough for them to turn around in.

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Oops...

Oh hey, no big deal or anything, but Nebraska Beef forgot some beef when they made last week's e-coli recall announcement. Only about 160,000 lbs. Oh, and, you might not be able to tell if you have the meat or not. You see, these boxes of cow with "EST. 19336" on them were sent to companies to be processed even further. Apparently you are supposed to just "check" with your retailer. I'm sorry, but somehow I don't really feel comfortable putting my life in the hands of the pimple-faced kid who bags my groceries. No offense. Think I'll stick to chicken for a while. 

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Tuna Recall

Pre-made Tuna salad from Home Made Brand Foods has been recalled due to a possible contamination by Listeria Monocytogenes. According to wikipedia, this organism is rare but dangerous. It has a case death rate of 25%. In comparison, Salmonella has a case death rate of 1%. It is especially dangerous for children, the elderly, those with weakened immune systems, and can infect fetuses in the womb, usually causing miscarriages. The products being recalled are as follows:

• 99/ 5 lbs. units of "Home Made Brand Foods Tuna Salad" dated 8/19/08 expiration
• 412/10 lb. units of "Stop and Shop Tuna Salad" dated 8/19/08 expiration
• 366/12 oz. units of "Stop and Shop Tuna Salad" dated 8/19/08 expiration

No illnesses have been reported.

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What???

Erm, just in case any of my readers here like to dine on COW HEAD, I'm here to inform you that there has been a recall of 38,000 of these bovine noggins. Why? because apparently their tonsils have not been completely removed. Yes, while every other part of the head is apparently ok to eat, cow tonsils are required to be removed because they can contain prions, the evidently theoretical infectious agent thought to cause Mad Cow Disease. Why don't you just have a nice steak?

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E-coli Outbreak from S & S Foods Spreads

A Virginia Boy Scout camp was shut down this week when 72 people fell ill after eating tainted beef processed at S &S Foods. Earlier this week we reported that 11 people had become ill in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Asuza, California-based S & S Foods is now recalling 153,630 lbs of beef after this latest incident. 

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Supermarket Chains to Stop Selling Certain Types of Fish

Supermarket chains Giant Food as well as Stop and Shop have decided to discontinue sales of certain types of fish that appeared on a report recently released by Greenpeace on overfishing. Orange Roughy, Shark, and Chilean Sea Bass were all removed from seafood counters until their ocean populations stabilize.

Look here for more ways you can help curb overfishing, including form letters to send to other chains of grocery stores, and a number you can text to find out the status of certain types of fish.

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