Poop-free cakes come from sanitary facilities, safety-minded bakers
I once watched a grandmotherly woman dipping her fingers in a big tub of donut icing and spreading them on fresh-baked cinnamon rolls, as she explained to me that her procedure was much quicker than the spatula-method I was using. That may have been so, but we were working in a retail donut shop where bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat products wouldn't fly with the health inspectors. 
You have the right to treat your own food in any manner you please. But when feeding others, you're obligated to do all you can to make it safe.
A mom of three in Teaneck, New Jersey, wanted to bake and sell "mortgage apple cakes" to forestall the foreclosure on her home. When more than 500 orders for the $40 cakes came in, Angela Logan was ready to get baking.
But, according to the Associated Press, Teaneck's health officer notified Logan that it was against state law to use her house as a commercial kitchen.
She would have to bake in a kitchen subject to food safety inspections.
The AP reports that, since the notification, "the Hilton Hasbrouck Heights has allowed Logan to cook in the hotel's kitchen, where she can produce up to 10 cakes at a time."
That's very generous of the hotel. I wonder if they gave Logan any food safety training, or just the use of inspected facilities? Both are important if Logan's customers are going to have their cakes and eat them, too.
Antenna in your mocha latte?
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains a list of Food Action Defect Levels in the Code of Federal Regulations "to establish maximum levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods for human use that present no health hazard." 
A local news station in Michigan got hold of this list and started asking people on the street how they felt about the number of bug parts allowed in their coffee and the amount of rodent "excreta" tolerated in their chocolate.
My local news station in Wichita, Kansas, broadcast their story Tuesday while I shook my head and chuckled. There were a lot of interesting faces as people looked from their cup to the list and back again.
In the end, I got the impression that the public is okay with a few bug parts (and laugh about getting the extra protein), but won't stand for the poop.
We here at barfblog.com continually advocate keeping as much poop out of food as possible, and proudly wear our t-shirts that declare, "don't eat poop" with a message about handwashing on the back.
But I'm not crazy. I realize, like the FDA (not the USDA, as asserted in the story, which primarily regulates only meat and poultry products), that it's virtually impossible to keep the entire (non-meat and -poultry) food supply 100% poop-free. Therefore, I'm glad there are regulations in place to reduce the microbial risks associated with that poop. (The poop that got into the peanuts at the Peanut Corp. of America plant violated those regs.)
I'm just saying... some poop happens. Risks that cannot be eliminated can, and should, be controlled. Responsible, informed producers and consumers do this every day with tools like the FDA Defect Action Level Handbook and tip-sensitive digital meat thermometers.
Do your part: wash your hands and stick it in.
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Couple didn't know what they were eating
A 47-year-old Israeli woman crawled feebly to the front door to call for help from a neighbor before passing out. Her partner, also 47, had already fallen unconscious.
FOX News reports that the couple began to feel dizzy after eating a meal of fried blowfish, and could barely breathe when the ambulance arrived.
“From what they have been able to tell us,” Rambam Hospital spokesman David Ratner said, “a neighbor gave them the fish as a gift. They didn’t know what it was; they fried it up for dinner and ate it.“
The couple was unaware of the neurotoxins contained in the skin and certain internal organs of blowfish that are highly toxic to humans. Contacting or ingesting these toxins leads to muscle paralysis and can result in an excruciatingly slow and painful death.
Marine biologist Dr. Nadav Shashar said, though the fish is the second most poisonous vertebrae in the world, it is considered a delicacy in Japan and Korea, "but they know how to prepare it."
Dr. Shashar concluded by saying, “The basic rule of thumb is simple: Don’t stick things in your mouth if you don’t know what they are.”
Don't eat poop or blowfish poison.
