From Green Right Now Reports
Norovirus and Salmonella were the leading causes of food borne disease outbreaks in 2006, according to a report released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report offers the most recent available information on which illnesses are linked to specific types of foods.
The foods associated with the largest number of cases in 2006 were poultry (21 percent of all outbreak-associated cases), leafy vegetables (17 percent), and fruits-nuts (16 percent). The food commodity categories defined by CDC are fish, crustaceans, mollusks, dairy, eggs, beef, game, pork, poultry, grains-beans, oils-sugars, fruits-nuts, fungi, leafy vegetables, root vegetables, sprouts, and vegetables from a vine or stalk.
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January 31st, 2009
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Oh for the days when all we had to worry about was a little pesticide residue on our apples. This past week brought two reminders that what we don’t know is in our food can hurt us.
The peanut butter snack recalls continued flying off the conveyor belt, noteworthy for the sheer number of products potentially tainted with salmonella – more than 400 at last count. All that contamination from one little ole peanut processing plant in Georgia. Best to heed the advice of the Food and Drug Administration’s Dr. Stephen Sundlof, “If you don’t know the source of the food that contains peanuts, don’t eat it.” At the same time, the FDA has declared that “national name brand peanut butter” sold in jars at retail has not been contaminated.
We also learned last week that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), that controversial, cheap and ubiquitous sweetener might contain more than just the empty calories blamed for our flourishing flab. A study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) reported finding traces of mercury in 17 of 55 tested foods made with HFCS.
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Related Topics: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, Food/Drink, high fructose corn syrup, mercury contamination, salmonella
January 28th, 2009
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
We’re now up to more than 55 products being recalled because of a salmonella outbreak in a peanut processing plant in Georgia. The recalled items all used peanut butter or peanut paste from the Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely, Ga., though most are being recalled because of the risk of contamination and not because of any confirmed taint.
However, whew! What a lesson for a society teeming with processed foods. This peanut butter, mostly delivered in tubs to large manufacturers or group facilities like nursing homes and cafeterias, was pressed, crunched, blended, pureed and melted into such a vast array of goods that itemizing its presence is taking weeks. It has turned up in cookies, snack bars, ice cream, cracker sandwiches, sports energy and nutrition bars, peanut sauces and dog biscuits.
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Related Topics: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, peanut butter, salmonella, snack foods
