That’s Sorenne (right, pretty much as shown) enjoying a duck egg omelet made with duck eggs from our friend, Kate the vet. Kate is exceedingly conscientious about cleanliness and I take pains to avoid cross-contamination in the kitchen.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) today reissued its advice on the safe consumption of duck eggs, following the confirmation of five new cases of Salmonella Typhimurium DT8.

The FSAI states that these five cases are in addition to the thirteen cases associated with duck egg consumption during an outbreak earlier in the year.

It is reiterating its advice to consumers to only consume duck eggs that have been thoroughly cooked and to cease using raw duck eggs in any dishes that will not be cooked thoroughly prior to eating. It continues to recommend that good hygiene practices are followed, such as washing hands and preparation surfaces after handling or using duck eggs.

In light of these new cases, the FSAI advises caterers to be particularly strict in adhering to best hygiene practices and to only serve duck eggs or duck egg products that have been thoroughly cooked prior to consumption. It also reiterates the need for strict procedures to be followed at all times to avoid cross contamination between raw and cooked foods.

I have a friend who was a dairy farmer for decades and he refused to eat at McDonald’s.

He likes hamburgers and all, he just couldn’t stand the thought of his spent Holsteins being served as a Big Mac.

Some types in the Australian beef industry feel the same way.

The Courier Mail in Brisbane reports that backers of truth-in-labeling legislation aimed at ensuring old cow meat is clearly labeled as such are concerned industry representatives will succeed in destroying the intent of the legislation.

They are worried that a register being drawn up in response to the legislation will only make buying beef in the supermarket even more confusing for consumers.

Once passed, the terminology would apply to meat sold in supermarkets and butchers around the country.

Consultant to the truth-in-labelling legislation, Norman Hunt, said vested industry interests who did not want consumers to realize they were buying beef from old cows were to blame.

The Aus-Meat domestic retail beef register, drawn up earlier this month, is proposing to change the much-maligned "budget" label, used to describe beef from cattle 10 years old, to "economy".

Under existing law in Queensland, abattoirs must label old cow meat "manufacturing" grade but retailers are then able to market it as prime cut under the "budget" grading.

Government adviser, Red Meat Advisory Council secretary Justin Toohey said it was impossible to provide a guide to eating quality of meat to consumers based on a whole of animal approach, adding,

"The trouble is every muscle has to be graded individually for this sort of thing to be a success. An eye-fillet from an eight-tooth cow could be beautiful eating, for example."

A small deli in Long Island City, Queens, will go down in local history as being the first business to earn a Grade A from the city's health department, which implemented its new restaurant inspection grading system on Tuesday.

Crain’s New York Business (photo from Crain's) reports the agency is holding a press conference Wednesday morning at Spark's Deli on 2831 Borden Ave., where health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley will laud the small business's accomplishment.

Co-owner Jose Araujo said,

“We serve a lot of hard-working people, construction crews and mechanics. And now they'll know for sure that I provide good food. … We've done well in past inspections. There's always something to fix or be done better, but we've never failed an inspection.”

On Tuesday an inspector visited his business, awarding him with a score of 10.

According to the new letter grading system, in which restaurants receive either an A, B or C grade (or fail the inspection altogether), a score of 0 to 13 qualifies as an A.

Other restaurants were inspected on Tuesday and earned A's, but Spark's was the first, according to health department officials.

Until three years ago, Kenneth Maxwell enjoyed Banquet chicken and turkey pot pies so much he ate them three or four times a week. They were easy to prepare, and Maxwell could eat one for lunch and quickly return to work as an electrician.

When cases of salmonella poisoning led the pies' manufacturer, ConAgra Foods, to issue a product recall in the fall of 2007, Maxwell did not hear about it and continued to eat them. He bought several pot pies about two weeks after the recall was launched, when they should have been pulled from store shelves, and became violently ill, he said.

Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune reports this morning that Maxwell's experience reflects common problems with food recalls: They routinely fail to recover all of the product they seek and, according to experts, sometimes even leave tainted foods in stores, putting consumers at risk of becoming ill from potentially deadly foodborne pathogens.

If consumers are suffering from recall fatigue, what about retailers who are supposed to get potentially contaminated product off the shelves?

Communications about recalls with both the public and retailers, must be rapid, reliable, repeated and relevant, and that the produce outbreaks of 2006 marked significant changes in how recall stories were being told on Internet-based networking like YouTube, wikipedia, and blogs.

The Tribune story says a spokesman for Jewel-Osco's corporate parent said relying on the media, posting shelf notices and making sure store employees are prepared to answer customers' questions all have worked with recalls in the past.

Safeway, the parent of Dominick's food stores, contacts shoppers directly in some recalls — typically smaller ones, said spokesman Brian Dowling. But in larger recalls, he said the company's stores rely on other methods to get the word out, such as notices on store shelves and stories in newspapers and on TV and radio.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released the Government's Products Recall app for the Android smartphone at USA.gov website.

And it will be the same boring message. Marshall McLuhan famously said “The medium is the message” (that’s him above, right, in a scene from the movie, Annie Hall). With food safety recalls, it’s the medium and the message, if you want to get people’s attention.

The Maxwells said they have not eaten a Banquet pot pie since the recall.