Anyone who was scared off greens after the massive spinach recall two years ago might find themselves eating a big spinach salad soon. The FDA is allowing spinach and lettuce manufacturers to irradiate their products before they hit grocery store shelves. Irradiation, which is the process of exposing an object to radiation, kills dangerous bacteria like E. coli, salmonella, and listeria.

Irradiation won't sterilize the greens, but the FDA is hoping it will drastically reduce the risk of outbreaks like the one that killed four people in 2006. But critics wonder if irradiation is the answer. I worry that steps like this one will lull consumers into believing that the problems with our food safety have been fixed, and that it takes the focus away from farming and manufacturing processes that put us at risk in the first place.

It's not clear from the article whether irradiated spinach and greens will be labeled. Some people worry about the long-term health effects of eating irradiated foods, but the FDA assures consumers that there is no radiation left behind, nor does the process affect taste, texture, or nutritional value. What do you think?

Source

When my daughter bit into a red, ripe, juicy tomato tonight, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing it came from our own backyard garden. The seemingly relentless string of food recalls over the last couple of years have left many Americans, myself included, feeling less than secure in the safety of our nation's food supply.

When many people worry about food safety, they worry about meat, a fact that Forbes recently identified as one of the most commonly held food safety misconceptions. In fact, fresh produce is one of the largest sources of food-borne illnesses in the U.S., mainly because it's a raw product.

So what are the other misconceptions? Check out this Forbes gallery to learn more about them, but they include:

• that bacteria can be washed off
• that local always means food is safe
• that cooking can eliminate all bacteria
• that food-borne illnesses are rare
• that you don't need a food thermometer
• that cooked food is safe sitting out

Fruit and vegetables should make up a large chunk of your diet, so it's important to make sure that they are safe. To reduce your risk, follow these safe handling tips from the FDA, but also keep an eye out for food recalls so that you can eliminate any affected food you may have in your home.

Source

With food safety at the top of many a mind these days, a plan out this week from the White House was chopped down by Democrats in the U.S. Senate as not being enough to stem potential hazards from the U.S. food supply.

Although the plan increased surveillance of imported and domestic foods in the U.S., it gave most of the responsibility to food manufacturers directly. Umm, isn't that the reason for the problem? It's been shown over and over that profits count more for safety, as evidenced by a bevy of food recalls this year alone.

What do you think? Are self-policing strategies enough to keep food production and importing safe in the U.S.? Should more strict government regulation be the answer?

Source

Recalls of food-related products are still being batted around in the media and as such, a report today says that President Bush will be given a suggestion to allow the FDA to have the power to mandate recalls when risks develop.

Right now, the FDA has no such power, and recalls are handled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. But when health is at stake, do you agree that the FDA should be involved with controlling the details of a recall?

Although I'm not a huge fan of the FDA, having that agency be involved with the direction of product recalls that could have an immediate effect on the health of any U.S. citizen seems appropriate given all the recall issues in the last year.

Source

China and the U.S. continue to go round and round based on multiple Chinese-based food and product ingredient recalls in the last year, and one good thing is that the amount of safety awareness this recall situation has caused can only serve to make things better in the future. At least, I hope.

China just said this past week that it will start to "clamp down" on foods contaminated with dangerous industrial chemicals (among other things) in the wake of a global backlash currently underway concerning the level of quality coming from that country as it relates to food and other products.

Has the "Made in China" label suffered in the last 12 months? Of course -- quality control is under review in the world's most populous country like never before, and many nations are learning that the cheaper-than-cheap commodity prices and manufacturing practices in China come at a price -- a large price.

Source

It's interesting to hear that an increase in healthy (or unhealthy, I suppose) salad consumption around the world is increasing the risk of disease and illness, but that is what U.S. scientists are saying.

The law of averages takes over here -- the more people consume a certain food type (which could have E.-coli or other bacterial problems), the more incidents of sickness will result.

On one hand, it's great to see more folks around the world eating vegetables and salads as opposed to more unhealthy food products or items. But, if the safety of those vegetables is of concern, there's going to be more possible problems. Are you going to stop eating salads. I won't.

Source

With all the Chinese-related food and product recalls in recent months, apparently the Chinese government is taking quite a ribbing form the U.S. and other countries about the quality of products coming from that country.

Yet, the government there believes it may be getting a bad rap from media all over the world who are covering all the Chinese food-based recalls and defective products with journalistic fervor. Too bad, I say. China, get in line. The media won't stop covering the immense quality problems until they demonstrably get better.

Not all Chinese products are having quality issues, but not all Chinese products are the same, either. I'd rather have a defective $30 DVD player than a food item that could cause severe sickness.

Source

It seems like there's been a rash of food recalls lately, and this time organic baby cereals are the target. Gerber recently recalled all of its organic rice and oatmeal cereals because they may contain clumps that don't dissolve when mixed with liquid. There have been reports of babies choking on the clumps (but thankfully, no one has been hurt.)

The recall includes ALL boxes of these two kinds of cereal and you can contact Gerber for a full refund if you've purchased a box. Click here for contact information and UPC codes.

Source

Considering the winding and long route most food takes from the growing arena to your dinner table, are you concerned about how safe it all may be?

Sure, the standards of food consumed in the U.S. are rigid and are checked by regulatory agencies quite regularly. Food in the U.S. is pretty safe, all things considered. That, or there would be millions of food sicknesses each day as well all go about our lives and rely on others for supplying us with food.

The recent peanut butter and bagged spinach recalls have made it hard to trust food safety, but it's generally still intact in the U.S. Even with the recent (and ongoing) pet food recall, have all these events shattered your belief in the safety of the U.S. food supply? Read this and see if there are steps you can take to make your food safer.

Source

Families of those affected by recent peanut butter and spinach contamination reached out to U.S. lawmakers this week. Their purpose: to ensure that federal oversight of the nation's food supply is strengthened.

The e-coli contamination of bagged spinach and the peanut butter bacterial infection from ConAgra (based in Nebraska) has shed new light on the food supply safety of food sold in the U.S., as it should.

We all take for granted that the food we eat is safe, but with more and more imported food and less resources from the FDA to police the food supply for 300 million people, are we really that safe?

Source

When over a ton of hot dogs are recalled -- yeah, the public probably takes notice. The staple of backyard and park cookouts and tailgate parties is having a sad day this week, as over 2,700 pounds of frankfurters are being recalled.

The ton o' dogs are being recalled by the world's largest kosher slaughterhouse due to being potentially underprocessed.

The dogs in question were shipped to New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania according to officials. Agriprocessors Inc. is accepting returns on its 1- and 2-pound packages of frankfurters made with beef and chicken.

Source

Just after a rather high-profile recall of contaminated spinach from an e-coli outbreak, now egg salad is up to bat, as Ballard's Farm Sausage has announced that it is recalling its egg salad product in 17 states due to possible Lysteria bacteria contamination.

While consumers can return the 12-ounce containers of Ballard's Egg Salad for a refund from the place of purchase, the company said that it will not sell any further product until it has figured out the cause of the Lysteria contamination through an intensive investigation. It's kind of scary -- two rather high-profile prepared food (or bagged raw in the case of the spinach) recalls in under 45 days that have the potential to cause harm in younger or elderly people -- or people with compromised immune systems.

Although the company did not say where the original containers we sold, the states included in the recall are Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Source