SICK EGGS

[chefedb]

I believe that by now everyone has heard about the Salmonella outbreak due to tainted eggs.Now they have finally traced it to the food the chickens were fed. I happened to have purchased a dozen eggs last week of the tainted brand the day before the press told the public. I bought them back and noticed that they were still selling the eggs. I told them, and showed them the press release. They told me ""The home office said they were ok"" I told her good, then  send the dozen I bought back to them and let them have for breakfast.        It seems strange that the USDA has not passed a law that all chickens should be innoculated against Salmonella. In England this has been the practice for a year and hardly any Salmonella outbreaks. It cost approx 1 cent per dozen to give us safer birds. Guess it don't matter because any of the eggs that are proven questionable are pasteurized as a liquid and sold to manufacturers for use in other foods like salad dressings and mayo.. What makes me mad is that the state health depts. check food service facilities for everything yet the feds permit this. '''' Check everything folks ''''' Only in America

 

[chrislehrer]

My fave is the thing, I think you told me about it first, that the USDA says salmonella is an intrinsic part of chickens, and thus cannot be eradicated, and therefore everyone needs to crank the heat high and be on their own risk. Tell that to other countries where salmonella in eggs and chicken meat is essentially nonexistent! As you say, only in America....

 

[dc sunshine]

That's ridiculous.  "Intrinsic"? they say.   Why should it be so?

And "The home office said they were ok."  The staff at the stores cannot be expected to be experts, but they are just spouting what they've been told to (not excusing them), and head office is looking after dollars, unfortunately. To the detriment of their quality of food and more importantly the public.

 

[chefedb]

Why in chickens or poultry?  Chickens and turkeys(which are dirtier) are one of the few inhabitants of planet that for no apparent reason eat their own waste. Other species will if starving. As when we do not wash our hands after using bathroom,and this is a good start for carrying the bacteria, imagine eating waste and what that will do ?? Many other countries DO inoculate their birds therefore either none or small amounts of infection.

 

[amazingrace]

We  go on strike against the poultry industry.  The cost of the innoculations would seem paultry compared to zero profits and product wasting on the shelves.  Chicken is my favorite meat,  however I'm willing to do without if boycotting the industry would make a difference. 

 

[kuan]

At home we pay over $3 a dozen for our eggs.  It's worth it.  A lot of it comes from Larry Schultz organic farms.  (yeah there's my plug)  

 

[chefross]

In Europe they do not wash the eggs, and sell them on store shelves at room temperature. The natural coating on the eggs keeps them safe.

Silly America, we wash our eggs, leaving the porous shell to be exposed to whatever........

 

[maryb]

The american farm system and how animals are fed is the biggest problem. Contaminated feed = contaminated food. Add in the way the majority of meat is processed and it adds in even more avenues for bacterial contamination.

 

[chrislehrer]

In Europe they do not wash the eggs, and sell them on store shelves at room temperature. The natural coating on the eggs keeps them safe.

Silly America, we wash our eggs, leaving the porous shell to be exposed to whatever........

Well, actually no. The norm in America is that the eggs are washed --- and then sprayed with a sealant, basically wax I think. So the eggs don't end up being more porous than naturally, but I gather there is some question as to whether this process has any actual positive effects.

 

[chefross]

Well, actually no. The norm in America is that the eggs are washed --- and then sprayed with a sealant, basically wax I think. So the eggs don't end up being more porous than naturally, but I gather there is some question as to whether this process has any actual positive effects.

Obviously there is something amiss here.

 

[bhtoad]

I was walking by a local dollar store yesterday and saw a sign in the window advertising Hillandale eggs, $1 per dozen.  Almost fell over.

 

[chefedb]

More and more with the failures of our government in the food inspection process, it is being left to us to keep abreast of recalled brands where or when and  why. The fact that the supposed contaminated brand eggs are still being sold is proof of failure of someone. In most cases it is a matter of , lets call it economics.(GREED). We need a revamp of all government inspection agencies. Put them all under 1 agency of people who KNOW food and chemistry, and give them power to prosecute  .. This will save us money as far as having to many agencies with people just sitting around doing nothing. A good friend of mine, now retired  years ago was a USDA meat inspector. He worked an average of 5  hours a day and received  51k a year ++. not to shabby . He used to tell me about offers of bribes all the time. He told me how this could have been stopped and he told his supervisors, but alas onto deaf ears.

 

[eastshores]

You can't put it all on the gov since as stated there is corruption in the industry from the farmers and on up the USDA chain, most likely the same sort of corruption that is present in every single facet of our society. The difficult thing to come to terms with, is that there is no economic reward for playing fair, for doing the right thing. The farmer that follows every guideline, have vigilant testing in their production operation, etc. is the farmer that has to charge more to make the same profit as the guy cutting the corners. Ultimately, people stare at the different brands on the shelf and often opt for the cheapest product because it "looks" the same. Does anyone know if the gov has rewards programs in place for farmers to do more than is required? We subsidize in other ways, seems that if you can get an industry to self police then that would beat out trying to inspect/enforce.

Corruption is infectious. Good men enter politics, law enforcement, code enforcement, etc. and too often leave with dirty hands because they cannot exist in a corrupt environment without at least turning a blind eye.

 

[chefedb]

No there are no actual  rewards program. The farmer knows if he does cheat, nothing will be done, it is like a slap on the wrist. In other words the monetary reward is worth more then being caught. I have seen and heard of places that had many minor and major   violations many times over on numerous inspections. They pay the fine, clean up their act a little , then after a while right back to where thy were. If the Government put them in jail, this practice would be greatly reduced. The multi state peanut butter salmonella poisoning we had last year was from a plant that supplied food manufactures. It had been inspected well over a year ago, it never closed and is still operating. I would have closed it and prosecuted all of them  as management knew the food was contaminated. It was premeditated.

 

[siduri]

I agree, Ed.  People complain about too much government.  There is an argument for anarchism, I suppose, but usually it's the same people who complain about too much government interference in industries (that kill large numbers of people) are the same ones that complain about being too easy with petty criminals. 

Here, we're talking about lives and health being endangered because someone wants to make a lot of money.  WE're forced to be careful, and are told "let the buyer beware," and all that.  But nobody says the police shouldn't protect us against muggers and violent criminals on the streets, and that the CITIZEN should beware!

I don't know the science of it, but it seems to me that to say that salmonella is inevitable is surely false.  I remember people always ate raw eggs all the time, whether sucked from the shell as my grandfather used to do, in zabaione, egg creams, eggnogs and simply licking the batter from the bowl, and there were not these big recalls of eggs, till around the late 60s.  In italy, i've never heard of it.  Lots of  people would give their young children raw eggs beaten with sugar in the morning.  They might say endemic, but not inevitable.  The reason, perhaps, that they don;t say endemic is that that implies that there might be a solution to it. 

 

[ramen]

This is scary news.  I've been following this from Japan where eating raw eggs is quite common.   The Japanese egg makers have managed to win the trust of pretty much everybody in Japan where runny eggs and raw eggs recipes are very popular.  I think something has to be done to gain the trust of the general public.  But telling people that contaminated eggs are a fact of life might not be the best way to go around the problem.  

---

Read my blog about food in Japan

Foodie Topography

 

[dc sunshine]

Re raw eggs - I enjoy at times a smoothie shake with a raw egg included.  I also like mayonaisse.

Not dead yet (touch wood).    I must admit I don't know the ins and outs with food regulations here.  But then I always eat my chicken well done.  Having said this,  I poach eggs until they are only just done - does this equate to raw? The white is still soft and the yolk just warm and really runny. Eggs done hard - blecch - not worth eating.

On another tack,  there was a very serious bout of food poisoning here about 10 years ago regarding metwurst/salami products.  Many people died as a result of the meat not being cooked. Whether this was an issue with the producer (it was all from one place) so I'm guessing it  must have been a problem at their end of things.  Now all products in Australia like this must be cooked and the standards have been changed to cover that.

 

[leeniek]

I heard about the outbreak of sick eggs from our head office... even though we are in Canada some suppliers import their eggs from the US so I had to check our eggs.. and our eggs are fine.  I was pretty sure they were product of Ontario but I had to check to be safe.

I remember just a couple of years ago there was a listeria outbreak that seemed to be assoicated with products produced in a particular Maple Leaf Foods plant (salami, pepperoni, bologna, hot dogs.. that kind of stuff was affected) and the recall list was staggering.  As it turned out after the investigation the source of the contamination was in the plant itself and it was shut down for a good cleaning.  Some stores voluntarily pulled all of the products named in the recall even if the products they had on their shelves were not included, just to ease the mind of the public, I think.  I know there were lawsuits filed against Maple Leaf Foods after that and honestly I can't remember if they settled out of court or if it did go before a judge.

 

[siduri]

On another tack,  there was a very serious bout of food poisoning here about 10 years ago regarding metwurst/salami products.  Many people died as a result of the meat not being cooked. Whether this was an issue with the producer (it was all from one place) so I'm guessing it  must have been a problem at their end of things.  Now all products in Australia like this must be cooked and the standards have been changed to cover that.

Salame is NOT cooked at any stage in production as far as i know, nor is prosciutto for sure (which is called "raw ham" here, "prosciutto crudo", "prosciutto" meaning ham).  It;s not supposed to be cooked, so it requires very rigorous standards and testing.  The problem is not with the cooking but with the cleanliness of the factory, the slaughtering techniques, the lack of testing etc

 

[chefedb]

In the local paper here today, It claims the 2 suspected chicken egg farms were inspected AFTER the outbreak. They found rats, maggots,overflowing poop pits. Don't tell me that this condition started the week or month before the inspectors got here. They won't release the dates of last inspection.Now its up to 500 million eggs released and infected.  We are fighting wars on both fronts. Here and abroad. Here to stay healthy, there to stay free.