Bravo Cheese Recalls all of its Cheeses

               On November 23 this year, Bravo Farms had decided to recall all of its cheeses because of the many E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks from their products. They sell many different varieties of cheeses in retail stores throughout the nation, mainly on the west coast. They sold cheeses that included Gouda, Pepper Jack, Tulare Cannonball, and different styles and flavors of Cheddar cheese. “Out of concern for any further contamination we have decided to further expand the recall to include all of our cheeses,” the company said. After the recent Gouda cheese (mentioned in my previous blog) outbreak in 5 different states, they decided to test their cheese plant for any pathogens. During the investigation, listeria monocytogenes and E.Coli O157:H7 bacteria have been discovered by California Department of Food and Agriculture, the company says.

Rooftop Garden

These are the picutres I took at our class trip to the rooftop garden. It was really interesting to discover people are trying to be green any possible way they can. Growing your own produce helps you learn about gardening and ways that you can be healthier. Growing your own produce is organic and is much healthier than buying fruits and vegetables from the supermarket because you do not add any preservatives, hormones or chemicals that makes our food less nutritious. This has inspired me to be more aware of what I eat and how I can choose healthier foods.

Tylenol and Other Medication Recalls

                 This November, more than 40 over-the-counter medications are voluntarily being recalled by the McNeil Consumer Healthcare company. These include pain, fever and allergy medications for infants and children. Forms of Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl, and Zyrtec and all being recalled. Their has been traces of higher concentrations of ingredients in the products that are supposed to be. Some of the medications “may contain inactive ingredients that may not meet internal testing requirements' or 'may contain tiny particles” and in addition, some of the raw materials in the products were 

 and that some of the raw materials used to make the products were adulterated with bacteria. The McNeil company that their are no reports of detrimental medical mishaps, the recall is a “precautionary measure.”  

               If medication similar to these being recalled are needed you can substitute them with medications such as a chewable tablet, a box of the medicine that hasn’t been recalled with a lot number that wasn’t included in the recall, or another brand or generic form of the medication which has not been affected by the recall at all.

Recalled over-the-counter medications for infants and children include these medications:

• Tylenol Infants' Drops
• Children's Tylenol Suspension
• Children's Tylenol Plus Suspension
• Motrin Infants' Drops
• Children's Motrin Suspension
• Children's Motrin Cold Suspension
• Children's Zyrtec
• Children's Benadryl Allergy liquids in bottles

Don't take food samples from Costco

                Who knew that a tiny cube of a cheese sample could make 27 year old social worker Annette Sutfin so sick? She took a cheese sample at one of the Costco’s in Phoenix, Arizona and went to the hospital three days later. She suffered stomach cramps on October 18, and they got really intense on the 21st. When she went to the hospital, she was released, but she went back two days later because of bloody diarrhea. She stayed till the 25th and later got a call from the Maricopa County Health Department on November 1 to tell her she tested positive for E. coli 057:H7.

               No one had told her that the Bravo Farms Dutch Style Gouda Cheese she took a sample of was made from raw milk and that their are risks to be considered when consuming unpasteurized products. "All the things you read about E. coli seem to be about beef," she said and the investigation of what she ate did not seem likely to lead back to the small Costco cheese sample. 

  Sutfin did recover but not 100 percent. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, their were 10 other victims of the outbreak in Arizona. Eight are from Colorado, three are from New Mexico, two are from Nevada and one is from California.

Watch Your Lettuce

               Freshway Foods of Sidney, Ohio, may be responsible for a romaine lettuce recall earlier this year, that had sickened students in three states. According to the lettuce distributor, investigators are tracing the outbreak to a farm in Yuma, Arizona. Freshway Foods sold the lettuce in 23 states and recalled it because of a possible E. coli 057:H7 outbreak. Three of the illnesses were life-threatening. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked 10 other cases to the recall.  

               Both college and high school students were effected by the outbreak. Health officials claim that college students were sickened in April and have already recovered. The superintendent in New York, James Parla said that two cases were confirmed and connected to other cases in two different states. Vice President at Freshway Foods Devon Beer, said that the company with the FDA and found the farmer who grew the contaminated lettuce but would not name him. 

               The recall only includes lettuce that had a “best if used by” date on or before May 12 because Freshway Foods did not continue buying its lettuce from the manufacturer. It was not clear why the contaminated lettuce had hit college and high schools students the worst but it was probably because of the "grab and go" salads sold at Kroger, Giant Eagle, Ingles Markets, Marsh grocery stores food service outlets and in-store salad bars and delis. Most of the recalled lettuce was sold in states east of the Mississippi River. It was sold in Alabama, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

More recalls at Wal-Mart

               In May 2010, alfalfa sprouts sold to over 400 Wal-Mart stores in 15 states have been recalled because they were contaminated with salmonella. The sprouts were sold raw by Caldwell Fresh Foods to Wal-Marts in Alabama, California, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon and Wisconsin, the company said. The Centers for Disease Control said that the sprouts had sickened 22 people in 10 states and a baby located in Oregon. The rest of the eleven were from California. Besides Wal-Marts, the sprouts were also sold to restaurants, deli’s and nationwide retailers. Caldwell Fresh Foods did not comment on the situation and they did not answer the company phone.

               The Oregon Department of Human Services announced the first outbreak and reported that the sprouts were sold in 18 states in South, Midwest and West. Two people were also sickened in Nevada and two in Wisconsin. The CDC said that one person each became ill in Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico and Colorado. The sicknesses began between March 1 and May 2 and six people were reported to be hospitalized. The spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Caren Epstein said that the sprouts were removed from the stores as soon as their was knowledge of the contaminated produce. She reported that 75 in Illinois, 56 in Georgia and 47 Wal-Marts in Louisiana purchased the sprouts and the rest of the stores included 12 other states. 

Cadmium: Dangerous Toys/Giveaways at McDonald's

               In June 2010, 12 million cadmium-tainted "Shrek" drinking glasses sold by McDonald's were being recalled. Similar cheap products raise many questions about the products being manufactured for Americans. "It could have been any glass company," said Ron Biagi, an executive with Arc International, which made the glasses. "We all do the same thing using materials from the same suppliers." McDonald’s stated that their glasses met the federal guidelines with the cadmium levels permitted to make the product. Scott Wolfson, a spokesman of a CPSC-testing lab, said that the glasses do not meet the standards of the toxic mental of what they contain. The CPSP issued a major announcement telling consumers to stop using the dangerous glasses. "We believe the Shrek glassware is safe for consumer use," McDonald's USA spokesman Bill Whitman said. "However, again to ensure that our customers receive safe products from us, we made the decision to stop selling them and voluntarily recall these products effective immediately." 

              Cadmium can cause bone softening, kidney problems, hinder brain development in young people and long term exposure can cause “adverse health effects.” The Shrek-glassware would cause long term exposure with low levels, and would enter a child body if the child puts their unwashed hand into their mouths.

Subway: Not as fresh as you think...

               According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, forty-eight Illinoisans contracted a rare form of salmonella after eating at Subway restaurants in June 2010. Out of the forty-eight, seventeen were hospitalized. This illness has reached as far as 18 counties. Subway isn’t aware of the specific food that was contaminated, but them and FDA are working together to figure out where exactly the problem is coming from. 

               In 2008, Subway had additional problems with salmonella in Great Britain. Subway sold contaminated meat for about five months which causes 120 illnesses and one death. These problems result in revenue issues within the company especially in Illinois. To promote the new breakfasts, Chicago and Northwest Indiana would give away breakfast sandwiches for free from 7-11 a.m. on Tuesdays. Any effort to promote their business is a plus. 

Letting Salmonella Slide

  Basic Food Flavors Inc. is the company who produces hydrolyzed vegetable protein, (HVP) which is a food enhancer used in many ready-to-eat foods. A recall included 177 products containing HVP in June 2010. On June 23, Basic Food Flavors Inc. received a warning letter from the FDA for documentation on their products. 

  During the last inspection of the plant, Salmonella contamination was found and led to a recall of all HVp powder and paste made by the company since September 17, 2009. Food safety officials in Washington D.C. were worried about the thousands of products that would need to be recalled so the FDA limited its recalls on products because it lacked a “kill step,” (when potentially dangerous pathogens are removed from a product when it is being manufactured). Only 177 products were recalled. The FDA said that “the salmonella had established a niche environment”, and it was contaminating the facility. The company is trying to think of solutions so that it will not survive and become a bigger problem in the factory. 

No More Bison Meat

               About 66,000 pounds of ground and tenderized steak bison products were recalled because of potential E. coli O157:H7 in July 2010 by the Rocky Mountain Natural Meats company in Henderson, Colorado. The recall occurred after the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) had found products to be contaminated with E. coli. An investigation done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and the New York Department of Health discovered that 6 people had became sick after consuming products from the company.  One person was from New York and the other five became ill in Colorado. The products were distributed from May 21 and May 27. Although the sell-by date for the recalled meat has passed, consumers may still have the product in their freezers.  

Secrets of the Pet Food Industry

  The pet food industry in the United States is the only industry legally allowed to lie to consumers, and the only food industry allowed to violate Federal food safety laws. Food recalls not only happen to food that we eat, but also to our family dogs and cats that we love so much. This major pet food recall had occurred in 2007. 

U.S. Magistrate Judge John T. Maughmer sentenced Sally Qing Miller and husband Stephen Miller, owners of ChemNutra, Inc., to pay a $25,000 fine and three years probation. ChemNutra Inc. was at fault for importing melamine tainted vegetable protein ingredients. These ingredients were put into the pet food and was responsible for the thousands of illnesses and deaths in dogs and cats. ChemNutra pleaded guilty but was fined $25,000 because of knowingly importing contaminated poisonous vegetable proteins and the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, will pay $150 million in criminal fines to settle allegations it knowingly sold the contaminated ingredients. 

  Menu foods who is another pet food manufacturer responsible for hundreds of recalls and thousands of deaths in pets in 2007. They settled for $24 million dollars for pets who consumed melamine tainted pet foods. A human drug company was fined $600 million in civil penalties and its product did not result in any illness or death. This controversy explains itself. We pay a lot of money for the well being of our pets and the pet food industry obviously does not care about the welfare of the animals that we treat like family members. This really needs to be changed. What more can the food industry lie to us about?

E. Coli...A Close Friend

          1 million pounds of ground beef products were recalled on August 6, 2010 because of seven people who fell ill with E. coli contamination. The company Valley Meat Co., of Modesto, sold the contaminated meat to  California, Texas, Oregon, Arizona and internationally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Most of the products were sold frozen and processed from October 2, 2009 to January 12, 2010. The source of the outbreak was determined but one of the seven sickened patients, with a meat sample in their freezer. 

          The USDA was looking for stores where the products were sold to remove them from the shelves. "This is the first recall in our history and we will investigate the matter thoroughly and take any measures deemed necessary to further elevate our safety standards, protect consumers, and ensure confidence in our products," Valley Meat stated. Valley Meat advises consumers to throw out the potentially contaminated meat with the establishment number "EST. 8268" on the label, and throw it out or bring it back to stores for a refund.

          The majority of infected people were in Northern California. Exposures also took place in Marin, Mendocino, Placer, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Siskiyou and Kern counties. Ralph Montano said that none of the patients cases were so severe that they need hospitalization, and all of them recovered. Symptoms include severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and a low fever. If the situation is on a higher level of severity, the infection can lead to kidney failure, brain damage and even death.

Salmonella, the FDA, Jack DeCosta, and Continued Bad Habits

Corporations and factories have been allowed to participate in many unsafe practices and the government hasn’t done a thing to promote food safety habits. Due to this, Wright County Eggs and Hillandale Farms are responsible for the recent outbreak of salmonella in eggs, and have recalled about half a billion eggs in May 2010. Salmonella causes fever, severe vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and can cause fetal infections if it gets into the bloodstream. Their have already been 1,300 cases of salmonella between May and July but only about one in every 38 cases of salmonella are actually reported. So the numbers are actually much higher and approximately in the ten thousands. 

Austin “Jack” DeCoster is Wright County Eggs owner and also has family ties to Hillandale Farms, which also come together because they manufacture and buy their eggs from the same places. He has a long list of animal and environmental abuses, and Secretary Robert Reich, writer of the Christian Science Monitor blog on August 24, commented, “DeCoster agreed to pay a $2 million penalty (the most we could throw at him) for some of the most heinous workplace violations I’d seen. His workers had been forced to live in trailers infested with rats and handle manure and dead chickens with their bare hands. It was an agricultural sweatshop.”

In a Forbes investigation in 2006, a detailed report of the conditions at Ohio Fresh Farms showed similar conditions to those at the Wright County Egg Farms and stated, “In the three years of its existence the company has incurred dozens of enforcement actions from the state, up to seven issued in a single day, for such violations as promoting swarms of flies at ‘extreme levels’ and discarding empty vaccine vials, mixed in with manure in a vacant field.” Investigators also added that they had discovered Salmonella on the site and the factory had one of the worst ammonia emissions, which cause skin and lung irritation. 

Their is an outcome of about 9,000 deaths each because of 81 million cases of food-related illnesses. The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for overseeing corporations in the food industry and has 450 inspectors for about 156,000 different sites. These companies are visited by the inspectors about once a year which tells us that instead of protecting consumers, they are contributing to the population in not knowing that our food really isn’t safe. The corporations are enabled to continue business, despite their violations and unsafe practices.

Heres a link to daily food recalls and outbreaks: 

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/default.htm

Cafeteria Food

                Hello to whoever is reading this. The other day at school, I visited the school cafeteria during my break. When I got there, I was expecting something totally different than what I had found out. I thought that there would be fresh and healthy food, or at least somewhat, but I discovered the total opposite. There wasn't a large variety of options but there was basically all fried foods and a small area for salads. I try to eat as little fried food as possible because its so fattening. So, I instinctively went toward the salad bar.
                The vegetables looked really dry and old and looked like they were very low quality. It wasn't the most pleasing sight at lunch time. There was a choice between grilled and crispy chicken and I asked for grilled because its obviously healthier and more nutritious. They said they were out of grilled chicken which means its pre-cooked which is gross. How hard is it to take a chicken cutlet and either fry or grill it? This makes me wonder about other food habits all fast food restaurants follow.  So, I ended up getting a turkey wrap. It was really bland in flavor and didn't impress me at all. The lettuce and tomato tasted old and it reminded me of middle school and high school cafeteria food. I ended up throwing half of it out. I definitely won't be visiting the school cafeteria anytime soon again.
                The vending machines in school are really bad. They are filled with fattening chips, cookies, carbohydrate filled granola bars (which some people think they are healthy) and soda and other sugary and salty drinks. Why can't these school provide something healthier and more nutritious? People are aware of the health hazards of school food, and some schools have tried to change there bad habits. Serving and selling all this unhealthy food adds to the amount of kids that don't eat the proper food to energize and concentrate throughout the day.
               Therefore, I believe schools should change the food the serve to the future of America because by them serving this food, they are hurting our bodies for the future. Only then will people realize the mistakes they've made throughout their lives with their poor diet habits and there is no going back after that.

Fast Food Nation: Chapter One

                Hello everyone! I have finished reading chapter one of Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser  today, and I honestly thought that it would be boring but I do like it so far. Schlosser tells you about a specific story of one entrepreneur who took risks and had great success, but in the end loses it all. Along the way, Schlosser also tells us of other fast food victories and the stories of the most successful and most popular fast food franchises today. The stories are remarkable because of the similar ways each person that started these fast food chains began. They were almost all uneducated, had a small fortune and took large risks. Today, all of those fast food chains are the biggest money makers.
                While reading chapter one, I had a few thoughts. The way that these chains made there food was most likely much different than they make it today (which is with chemicals and hormones). If these restaurnats made it like they did years ago, maybe it wouldn't be as bad for Americans and not cause all these sicknesses and diseases. When these business owners first opened there fast food restaurants up during the early 1900's, I doubt that they were thinking how different and unhealthy they would make peoples lives years to come. They just wanted to make fast cash but I don't think that they thought of the consequences of how the food was going to change and become revolutionized decades later.
               Fast food did change the entire world and without it restaurants and small businesses would be making the most money. I think that there would be less obese and unhealthy people who are  the right weight just as well. In America, there are currently 60 million obese people over the age of 20. There are 9 million obese children between the ages of 6-19. Obesity is the #2 cause of death in the United States.  I don't believe that it is a positive thing that these fast food chains were so common since so long ago. Society would definitely be much different than it is today if they had not been created.