Last year it was peanut butter. Before that – tomatoes. It seems like every year there’s one major food recall that really shakes the system. Last week the FDA notified the public about another recall hurricane, this time for various products containing Hydrolized Vegetable Protein, an ingredient used in many processed foods:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking steps to protect the public following the early identification of Salmonella Tennessee in one company’s supply of hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP). This is a common ingredient used most frequently as a flavor enhancer in many processed foods, including soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, seasoned snack foods, dips and dressings.

The manufacturer of the affected product is Basic Food Flavors Inc in Las Vegas, Nevada. Only HVP manufactured by Basic Food Flavors is involved in this recall. read more…

What you need to know:

HVP is a flavor enhancer used in a wide variety of processed food products, such as soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, seasoned snack foods, dips, and dressings. It is often blended with other spices to make seasonings that are used in or on foods.

As of late Saturday night, 92 products are on the recall list, including bouillon, dips, dip mixes, dressings, and snacks. Unfortunately the list will keep growing.

Fortunately, most of the products that use the tainted HVP have a “kill step” which requires heating them up, thus killing off the salmonella. So far, nobody has reported any illness as a result of the contamination.

Theoretically the shelves should be free of recalled products, but as each day passes new products are added to the list. Since many of them are non-perishable, there is a good chance you may already have them stocked in your pantry. To be on the safe side, check the ingredient list for Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein and then consult with the FDA website to see if the product is on the recall list.

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It was a rough start of the year for the peanut butter industry. A major recall, one of the largest in US history, sent sales of all products, even innocent ones, down. But now sales are on the rebound, according to the latest market studies. White breads and jellies across the nation are rejoicing…

In celebration, we decide to take a look at what looks like a nutritious choice – Skippy’s Natural Peanut Butter Spread.

If the label says it’s natural, it must be healthy, right?

Read more…

Three months after scores of young women across the country began to fall ill with a particularly nasty strain of e-coli, Federal health officials manged to piece together the puzzle and discover that the root is Nestle’s refrigerated cookie dough products, eaten raw.

Nestle issued a recall yesterday, but managed to confuse more than elucidate. On the one hand Nestle is asking people to return products to the store, but on the other hand it says that as long as you bake the product it should be safe. What’s a consumer to do?

The FDA is more clear cut in its instructions: Cooking the dough is not recommended because consumers might get the bacteria on their hands and on other cooking surfaces.

Meanwhile, consumer groups are calling for improved food safety measures by the FDA, so that these contaminations are discovered before people get sick. Nestle is actually known for stringent safety protocols, so it will be interesting to see what else it could have done to prevent this recall.

What you need to know:

The contaminant casuing the problem is E. coli O157:H7. It causes abdominal cramping, vomiting and a diarrheal illness, often with bloody stools. Most healthy adults can recover completely within a week. Young children and the elderly are at highest risk for developing HUS, which can lead to serious kidney damage and even death.

What to do at the supermarket:

Folks, you knwo the drill. Remember the recall is just for cookie dough, although if past behavior is any indicator, sales all  Tool House cookies are going to slump in the next few weeks.

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The FDA has served as a punching bag for this blog and other critics for a long time. In retrospect, deservedly so. Weakness in the face of the food industry, revolving doors of top personnel and corporate conglomerates, ineptness in preventing food contamination and handling the ensuing recalls, etc…

We’re hoping all this will change with new FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg starting her first full week in office today. Welcome Dr. Hamburg.

Here is a partial wish list of things we’d like to see fixed in the food regulation arena.

1. Revoke the GRAS (generally regarded as safe) status of harmful food additives such as artificial colorings, potassium bromate, and others.

2. Free packaged foods of “health claims“, which are actually marketing claims, by banning them altogether. A reminder to our readers, “health claims” are a concession that the US lawmaker gave to the powerful food industry lobby in the early 90’s when the Nutrition Education and Labeling Act was being negotiated. The result of that law is the nutrition label as we know it today.

3. Speaking of nutrition labels – please stop the practice of rounding down to zero. Manufacturers are legally allowed to claim a product has 0 trans fat even if a serving contains 0.49 grams. And since we all know people consume much more than the formal serving size, they can get much more than the 0 trans fat they were expecting.

4. Serving Size – Here are some ridiculous examples – 11 potato chips, 2 Oreo cookies. Come on, even 3 year olds eat more than that in a sitting. The reason serving sizes are so minute is to make them appear less caloric/fat/salty/sweet in the nutrition label. Please help manufacturers give us  accurate info.

5. How about a unified front of package label? These labels are supposed to be a quick glance way for a consumer to decide if a product is nutrtious enough ro not. With all the new formats sprouting like mad (NuVal, Smart Choices, Guiding Stars, etc..), consumers are more confused than ever. Why not adopt a system such as UK’s Traffic Lights? Yes, it irritates food manufacturers, but hey, you are supposed to protect us consumers.

6. We know you need Congress for this, but isn’t it ridiculous that the FDA can’t mandate a company to stop shipping tainted food? Today, all recalls are voluntary.

7. While we’re at it, ask Capitol Hill to allow prosecution of CEOs and processing plant managers who knowingly continue to ship poisoned products. Nothing like the fear of jail time to get folks thinking straight.

8. Back to food labels – it would be great to know how much sugar has been added to a product. The nutrition label states the amount of total sugar in a serving, but it does not indicate whether the sugar is added to the food or occurs naturally. Caloric-ly, there is no difference between table sugar and sugar found naturally in fruits and vegetables. But the benefit of fruits and vegetables is in the additional vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals they provide. Added sugars provide no health benefits. They are truly empty calories. Today, consumers can only guess how much sugar is added.

9. Lastly – Food safety is divided among too many government bodies, including the FDA, USDA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and others. At times there is overlap between the regulatory bodies, and sometimes the opposite. Wouldn’t it be smarter to have all food safety issues handles under one roof?

Any more suggestions folks? Please comment below.

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The pistachio salmonella recall of March could have been avoided had Setton, the California based processor, taken proper corrective action.

Recap: On the heels of the peanut butter recalls of January, March became pistachio recall month with about 2 million pounds of pistachios that Setton distributed having to be returned/destroyed. The pistachios were suspected of salmonella infection after testing by Kraft foods, a Setton customer, tested a shipment.

Turns out that Setton, according to the FDA, knew about salmonella contamination as early as October 2008, a full 6 months before the recalls even began. So why did they continue shipping?

What you need to know:

What does Setton do? They receive “fresh” pistachios from growers in California. These pistachios may sometimes be contaminated with harmful bacteria such as salmonella.  Setton processes the pistachios as follows: roast, package, and ship. Salmonella should be zapped by the roasting process. Ideally, no worries. However, if the unroasted pistachios come in contact with the roasted pistachios for some reason, the problems begin.

What did Setton do when it discovered its roasted pistachios were tainted? They re-roasted them and then shipped. That did not help. Did Setton try to figure out why the roasted nuts were tainted in the first place? Was there some sort of cross contamination that the plant mangers were unaware of?

Most likely Setton tried to rectify problems that may have caused the contamination. However, at some point the cost of fixing these problems became prohibitive.

This is where some owners/managers start cutting corners. If the risk seems tiny, why spend a million dollars renovating a production line?

Unfortunately, judgment can get cloudy in the face of profit and loss pressures. That’s why strong regulation and harsh punishments are needed. If a food factory owner holds the power of life and death in her hands, she must fear not only the business bottom line, but also the personal consequences of her decisions.

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Add this to the list of modern food annoyances. It’s bad enough we’ve become a society of frozen TV Dinners munchers; now even the pleasure of a 2 minute microwave meal has been taken away from us thanks to food borne pathogens that can kill us.

From the New York Times:

The frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007 left federal inspectors mystified. At first they suspected the turkey. Then they considered the peas, carrots and potatoes.

The pie maker, ConAgra Foods, began spot-checking the vegetables for pathogens, but could not find the culprit. It also tried cooking the vegetables at high temperatures, a strategy the industry calls a “kill step,” to wipe out any lingering microbes. But the vegetables turned to mush in the process.

So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The “food safety” instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”

Read the entire article…

What to do at the supermarket:

Buying and preparing your own meals, on a range or in the oven, will help you stay healthy and is much more nutritious than frozen.

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Are the FDA and the Food Industry taking a more proactive role in protecting the public from food-borne pathogens?

If we’re to judge by the handling of the current pistachio recall, compared to the peanut recall just 3 months ago, the answer is yes.

Here’s why:

1. Last week, the FDA, for the first time, told consumers to avoid a product category. This, despite the fact that no reports emerged of sicknesses from salmonella infected pistachios. This action was intended to prevent the replay of several deaths and illnesses in the days and weeks following initial peanut recall earlier this year.

2. The FDA also strongly urged Setton Pistachio to recall its entire 2008 crop! That’s about 10 million lbs. of pistachio, around 5% of total production in the US.

3. Both federal and state health officials quickly arrived at the California processing plant to inspect sanitary conditions. They found multiple issues, including the use of the same bins and conveyor belts for both raw and roasted pistachios. (Roasting at a high temperature is supposed to kill salmonella, but if the roasted nuts are then placed in a contaminated bin, you’re back to square one)

4. Pistachio growers have put up a website to inform consumers which products are safe and which are not. The FDA is happily linking to that site instead of trying to play catch up and update everything on its own.

5. The FDA has notified all other pistachio producers to be on their best, as random and frequent inspections are to expected in all plants in the coming weeks.

This is great start. Here are a few suggestions to make things even better:

1. Mandate stricter sanitary protocols. A Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point plan (HACCP) is a scientific food safety approach that requires analyzing where contamination sources in production processes, taking measures to prevent contamination in those critical areas, and then reviewing the results through pathogen testing. Currently the system is required only in meat and poultry processing plants.

2. Enable the FDA to mandate recalls, instead of leaving the decision in the hands of the manufacturers.

3. As with medical doctors, hold plant owners and managers personally responsible for safety breaches. Nothing like the prospect of personal fines or jail time to motivate folks to the highest standards in food safety.

4. Mandate processors to report contaminated foods that they receive from their suppliers. It seems that Kraft had received multiple shipments of tainted pistachios from Setton in the past few months. The salmonella was discovered through Kraft’s internal testing. However, besides addressing the issue with Setton and receiving alternate shipments, Kraft did not notify the FDA.

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It’s a shame that pistachios are being recalled en-mass due to a new salmonella outbreak. These are very healthy nuts!

As we wait for the FDA recall list to fatten up, let’s learn about this delicious nut.
1. The pistachio nut comes from the pistachio tree, native to western Asia – Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, and western Afghanistan.

2. Pistachios reached Europe from Iran at least as early as the 6th century.

3. In the US, pistachios are cultivated mostly in California and New Mexico.

4. Today’s top manufacturers of pistachio are Iran, US, Turkey, Syria, and China.

5. The pistachio nut is actually the seed of the tree fruit. This is what experts call a culinary nut, rather than a botanical nut.

6. The word pistachio originated from a mix of Persian and Latin.

7. If you thought a machine splits the shells open, you’re wrong. They split when the fruit ripens.

8. Each pistachio tree averages 120 lbs. of nuts every two years. That’s around 50,000 nuts.

9. Pistachios are rich in mono-unsaturated fats (the good kind). Research on the health benefits of pistachios has shown that they may help reduce levels of bad cholesterol (LDL) and lower the risk of heart disease.

10. Pistachios are also rich in Thiamin (vitamin B1) and vitamin B6.

11. A 1 oz. serving of pistachios of 40-50 nuts contains over 10% of the FDA’s daily values for fiber, magnesium, copper, and phosphorous. It will set you back 150 calories.

12. Like all food from plants, pistachios are cholesterol free.

13. In these dire times, try walnuts and cashews as alternatives. So far, they are safe….

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This week, Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack announced the implementation of Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) law for meats and nuts. The law has many loopholes, but it is a good first step.

In the meantime, private enterprise is always a few steps a head. Realizing that there is a growing market of consumers who want accountability and traceability not just at the country level, but at the farm level, YottaMark, a California startup,  has developed a nifty solution.

HarvestMark.com

HarvestMark is a sticker that the farmer places onto a bulk package of fruit or vegetable during harvest. The sticker includes a unique numeric code which can later be used to trace the product back to harvest day and know among other things:
- which farm was this product grown in?
- when was it picked?
- how long has it been in storage?
- who were the middlemen?

The code is different than the UPC barcode. All the data associated with a certain batch of produce is uploaded by the various stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of the product using software that the YottaMark company has developed. For example, a warehouse can track when the product came in ,when it left, and if there were any irregularities during storage. This sort of a solution can also be helpful in product recall management.

If applied at the single product level, consumers may be able to get all this information as well, whether in the supermarket or at home.

It will be interesting to see if, when and how HarvetMark gains market traction.

harvestmark.com

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The Peanut Butter Salmonella outbreak saga continues, with new dramas unfolding daily.

Turns out the owner of Peanut Corporation of America, the company responsible for the tainted peanut ingredients, instructed employees to ignore the salmonella found in the Georgia plant and keep shipping to customers.

In a Congressional hearing on the outbreak, the owner took the fifth amendment.

The FBI is investigating criminal wrongdoing by the owners.

An additional plant owned by this company, in Texas, has been shut down after salmonella was found there as well.

In a sly move, the company filed for bankruptcy on Friday, which means families and organizations harmed by their safety infractions will not be able to sue.

Over 2000 products have been recalled.

Despite all the hoo-ha, most consumers aren’t aware of many product types that have been recalled, such as brownies and ice cream.

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