Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., a Wyalusing, Pa. establishment, is recalling approximately 8,500 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O26, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The product subject to recall includes:

• 42-pound cases of "GROUND BEEF FINE 90/10," containing three (3) - approximately 14 pound chubs each. These products have a "use/freeze by" date of "07/01/10," and an identifying product code of "W69032."

The products subject to recall bears the establishment number "EST. 9400" inside the USDA mark of inspection. These products were produced on June 11, 2010, and were shipped to distribution centers in Connecticut and Maryland for further distribution. It is important to note that the above listed products were repackaged into consumer-size packages and sold under different retail brand names. When available, the retail distribution list(s) will be posted on FSIS' website at

FSIS and the establishment are concerned that consumers may also freeze the product before use and that some product may still be in consumers' freezers. FSIS strongly encourages consumers to check their freezers and immediately discard any product subject to this recall.

FSIS became aware of the problem on August 5, 2010 when the agency was notified by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources of an E. coli O26 cluster of illnesses. In conjunction with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources, the New York State Department of Health, and New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets, two (2) case-patients have been identified in Maine, as well as one (1) case-patient in New York with a rare, indistinguishable PFGE pattern as determined by PFGE subtyping in PulseNet. PulseNet is a national network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories coordinated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Illness onset dates range from June 24, 2010, through July 16, 2010.
 

Advertising Age reports the American Egg Board has taken out full-page ads in major newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today to try and tamper down rising fears around America's favorite breakfast food.

The ads call attention to the fact that "the potentially affected eggs, which make up less than 1% of all U.S. eggs, have been removed from store shelves" and end with the reminder that "thoroughly cooked means thoroughly safe." Consumers are driven from the print ads to a website, eggsafety.org.

What the ads do not talk about is risks of cross-contamination, as anyone who has cracked an egg into a bowl knows about.

Kevin Burkum, senior VP-marketing for the American Egg Board, told Ad Age the messages are "aimed at educating consumers on the safety of eggs and how to properly cook them." He added that the organization is also looking at expanding the print campaign to radio and digital efforts to get the message out.

As soon as any group talks about educating consumers, they’ve given up.

Instead, the egg folks should treat consumers like they may have a few functioning neurons, talk about salmonella testing data and sell safety directly to consumers at retail.
 

President Barack Obama got a sandwich at Jerry's Famous Deli in Miami last week, which was slapped with 26 restaurant violations for all types of uncleanliness by a state inspector on Monday.

The restaurant inspection comes less than a week after Obama made his to-go order of two corned beef sandwiches on rye.

An inspector stopped the sale of cooked meatballs after he found raw meat sitting out in the open in unsafe temperatures. Employees were also seen handling meat and bread without gloves and without washing their hands properly.

Associated Press reports a California man who says he ordered French onion soup and bit into a condom instead of melted cheese has settled his lawsuit against the Claim Jumper restaurant chain.

The terms of today's settlement were not disclosed.

Both sides say in a statement the deal indicates no admission of liability by either party.

When John Lennon heard in 1967 that one of his former schools was making students deconstruct the lyrics to songs by the Beatles, he responded by writing the most nonsensical song he could come up with, combining the lyrics of 3 previously unfinished songs – two written on acid trips – and stated at the time about the result, I Am the Walrus, “Let the fu**ers work that one out.”

The Eggman in the song apparently referred to The Animals lead singer, Eric Burdon, who had a fondness for breaking eggs over the bodies of naked women.

This trivia is as useful as most of the information surrounding the salmonella-in-eggs outbreak that has sickened a thousand Americans.

There are hints of information but most public commenters are using the outbreak for political or legal opportunism.

Today’s USA Today reports that state and federal health agencies identified an Iowa egg company as a likely source of illness at least two weeks before the firm launched a massive egg recall Aug. 13 and the public got its first hint of a growing national salmonella outbreak.

In late July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even considered reminding the public generally about the dangers of eating undercooked eggs, said Ian Williams, chief of the agency's outbreak response branch. The CDC decided it would be more effective to wait until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) completed its investigation of the firm, Wright County Egg in Galt, Iowa.

By late July, the California and Minnesota state health departments had identified several small restaurant outbreaks of salmonella with eggs as a likely culprit — and Wright County Egg as a common supplier, Williams said.

The FDA didn't contact Wright County Egg until Aug. 10 and didn't provide detailed information until Aug. 12, company spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell said. The recall decision was made after discussion with FDA officials the next morning, she said.

Jeff Farrar, FDA associate commissioner for food protection, said Wednesday that his agency was aware of the states' findings in late July but needed to obtain detailed copies of invoices and other paperwork to further confirm that Wright County Egg was the supplier.

CNN also reports this morning the state of California believes it has identified its earliest cases related to the salmonella recall, and says its investigation helped tip off the rest of the country to the source of the problem.

On May 28 and 29, several people became sick after attending either a prom or a graduation party in Clara County, according to Joy Alexiou, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. Tests on some of the victims, including a catering worker who nibbled on the food, determined that the culprit was salmonella, she said.

Three months later the state is bragging?

Sherri McGarry, a director at the F.D.A.’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told the N.Y. Times last week the Hillandale recall was prompted when Minnesota officials traced a cluster of illnesses in that state to the eggs from the company’s Iowa plants.

Doug Schultz, a spokesman for the Minnesota health department, said seven people had become ill with salmonella in mid-May after eating chile rellenos at a Mexican restaurant called Mi Rancho in Bemidji, Minn. He said that investigators established a connection to Hillandale eggs on May 24.

It was not clear why the F.D.A. did not act on the information sooner.

Why didn’t Minnesota go public if it had information that could limit future illnesses?

FDA and other federal agencies do themselves a tremendous disservice by failing to clearly articulate how and when the public (and industry) should be informed about potential health risks. No amount of federal legislation or lawsuits will fix this. Instead it requires a recommitment to having fewer people barf. And any company that wants to lead – especially with profits – will stop hiding behind the cloak of government inspection and will make test results public, market food safety at retail so consumers can choose, and if people get sick from your product, will be the first to tell the public.

You all sound like element’ry penguins.

CNBC reports that experts have some simple advice when it comes to eating runny eggs these days: Run away.

With salmonella concerns triggering the recall of more than a half-billion eggs in more than a dozen states, warnings are becoming more dire every day against eating undercooked yolks and translucent egg whites.

But what's a home cook to do, especially when hit by cravings for eggs Benedict, pasta carbonara, homemade Caesar dressing or other dishes that call for raw or only slightly cooked eggs?

Drinking raw eggs for a protein boost? Even worse idea, given the risk of salmonella and its violent nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and temporary residency in the bathroom.

"We've got enough issues. Who needs to be barfing because of raw eggs?" asked Douglas Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University and author of BarfBlog.com, which highlights food-handling problems in the news and in popular culture.

He advises cooks to use a food thermometer in their frittatas, quiches and other egg dishes — and, in fact, when preparing meat or anything that poses dangers when undercooked.

Paul Stern, who cooks for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, an Ashford, Conn., camp for seriously ill children, many with compromised immune systems, said this year, the camp switched (before the recall) to pasteurized liquid egg product.

"I wouldn't be consuming or serving raw eggs any more than I'd be eating or serving raw chicken."
 

I told a state-sponsored jazz radio station yesterday (NPR) and a few dozen other media outlets yesterday that as someone who shops a lot for groceries, I’d be really interested in eggs that were verified through some kind of testing to be salmonella-free. Or reduced levels. Anything but the marketing crap that currently dominates the nation’s grocery shelves.

People are clamoring for local, natural, sustainable eggs in the wake of a 500 million egg recall that has sickened about 1,000 Americans with salmonella, yet there is absolutely no evidence that other eggs have lower levels of salmonella.

Buying preferences may help some folks feel superior, but salmonella happens – and it happens a lot. So why is there not a single retailer who will demand salmonella testing and market those results at retail?

As a consumer, I’m helpless in my choices for reduced-salmonella eggs, unless I buy pasteurized eggs, and even they are not fail-safe. I spend a lot of money at the grocery store feeding the herd of children I seem to have accumulated – why can’t someone give me some microbiological data on which to make a purchasing decision? Having more government inspectors does nothing to assuage my food safety doubts.

Marketing food safety at retail has the additional benefit of enhancing a food safety culture within an organization – if we’re boasting about this stuff I guess we really better wash our hands and keep the poop out of food. Maintaining a food safety culture means that operators and staff know the risks associated with the products or meals they produce, know why managing the risks is important, and effectively manage those risks in a demonstrable way. In an organization with a good food safety culture, individuals are expected to enact practices that represent the shared value system and point out where others may fail. By using a variety of tools, consequences and incentives, businesses can demonstrate to their staff and customers that they are aware of current food safety issues, that they can learn from others’ mistakes, and that food safety is important within the organization.

In the egg fiasco, no one is stepping up and saying, we know about salmonella, this is how we go above and beyond the minimal requirements of government, and this is why you should buy my eggs.

www.foodsafetyinfosheets.com

Le U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) est en train d’enquêter sur une éclosion à Salmonella Enteriditis liée aux œufs en coquilles. L’éclosion, qui a débuté en mai et qui est toujours en cours, a entraîné environ plusieurs centaines de malades.

Les enquêtes auprès de 250 malades en Californie, le Colorado et le Minnesota ont révélé plusieurs restaurants ou lieux où a mangé plus d’une personne malade avec la souche épidémique.

Les officiels de la santé de Californie ont confirmé que l’éclosion a été tracé jusqu’aux œufs de Wright County Egg à Galt dans l’Iowa, qui a procédé à un rappel estimé à 228 millions d’œufs le 13 août 2010.

Le rappel comprend des œufs en coquilles conditionnés par Wright County Egg entre le 16 mai et le 13 août 2010. Ils proviennent de caisses en cartons de six à 18 œufs et comprennent les numéros de site P-1026, P-1413 et P-1946.

•Les œufs peuvent héberger Salmonella et ont besoin d’être cuits à 63°C pendant 15 secondes pour réduire le risque.

•Les œufs doivent être conservés au réfrigérateur et maintenu en dessous de 7°C.

•Utiliser des œufs pasteurisés comme solution de remplacement pour des plats nécessitant des œufs crus.

Les œufs rappelés sont vendus sous de multiples noms de marque :
Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma's, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms et Kemps.
 

Pour plus d’information, contacter Ben Chapman,benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu ou Doug Powell, dpowell@ksu.edu
 

Audrey Kreske, an N.C. State post-doc writes of a food safety blunder on morning television:

Today's Today Show featured a segment with Martha Stewart discussing her top 50 tips for creating a kitchen that's “not only beautiful but functional as well”.  Viewers were definitely waiting with pens in their hands to discover the Domestic Diva’s secrets.

Some of the household tips included: how to avoid breaking dishes while washing them; putting liquid soap in easy-to-use decanters; and the essential nature of multiple little dishtowels.

Fascinating.

Then things got weird (see the video below, beginning at 3:55). Martha got a bit wacky with the eggs.

In attempt to show how nice eggs look on the counter as a decoration accessory, the Diva points to eggs in a basket and says, “We're having a big problem with eggs so everybody better be very careful where their eggs come from. But organically grown eggs from the farm, you can keep out for a few days on the counter”

Matt Lauer, somewhat taken aback by the statement chimed in and asked “Oh really, that's not a problem?”

Martha said, “Oh, no, no; not if they're fresh”

The big problem Martha refers to is the over 1300 Salmonella Enteriditis illnesses linked to egg and egg products that have led to a recall of almost half a billion eggs.

The problem that Martha misses is that it doesn’t matter where eggs come from or the production practice, there is still a risk of Salmonella Enteriditis being present. Contamination comes from the environment, humans or rodents; multiplies within the flock; and, an infected hen can result in the pathogen inside the egg (infection occurs in the ovary).What is problematic about the pathogen is that while it may infect a hen or group of hens, it typically does not create any clinical signs.  If Salmonella is in an egg sitting on the counter, even if Martha says it's okay, the bacterium can grow and create a larger issue.

According to a 2005 USDA risk assessment, approximately 1 in 20,000 contains Salmonella;  even if they appear to be clean and uncracked.

The best available evidence suggests that eggs should be stored in the refrigerator/cooler and held below 45°F. The U.S FDA recommends buying eggs only if sold from a refrigerator or refrigerated case, checking that the eggs are clean and the shells are not cracked, and, refrigerating promptly to prevent egg-related illness.

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