I can honestly say that those are three words that never figured I’d say. However, it has finally happened: my nuts are dangerous. Since I’m not a dude…. as most of you should have figured out by now, that means that I can only be talking about one thing: pistachios. It was one thing when spinach was recalled… it didn’t affect me. If anything, the spinach scare allowed me to finally eat salads from McDonalds as I’m allergic to the green thing. When peanuts were recalled, I didn’t worry, as I have yet to get over spending a good portion of my youth filled with peanut butter and butter sandwiches (due to growing up in a time where there wasn’t a ton of money to spend on food). The only peanut butter you’ll find in my house is for any potential rodents as bait and frankly, salmonella poisoning is the least of any mouse’s worries. Now, when my beloved nut ended up in the news about possibly falling victim as the latest food item to be tied with salmonella, I decided that enough is enough. I mean, with pistachios on the list, what’s next…. chocolate too? If that’s the case, who will be able to make this delightful creation?
Really though, what food is really safe? Think about it… it’s not just the processing plants that you should be concerned with. Think about what touches our produce, our meats, even our processed foods before they make it into our homes? Do you really know exactly how those pineapples went from being grown to ending up in a can for your easter ham? Do you know how much rodent feces, dead insects and mold are allowed in canned items by the FDA? Well you can find out just what is allowable by reading this:
Levels of natural or unavoidable defects in foods that present no health hazards for humans
Oh, the fun part starts at, “COMMODITIES AND DEFECT ACTION LEVELS”, which you’ll have to scroll down for. Perhaps our worry about salmonella poisoning isn’t the worst of our food worries after all.
Filed under: Droppings, fucked up Tagged: | Food Defect Action Levels, pistachios
You can blame past GOP people for this. After Clinton, Bush and co. – like Reagan and Bush I before them – cut the inspection budget at FDA, which has no fucking teeth anyway.
You have to be so vigilent as a consumer in this country…don’t get me started.
Riot Kitty is right. I had a reason to look into the FDA. if you knew what was going on with the food supply, you would run for the hills. Not only was FDA funding cut, but the regulators’ ties with the processed food industry, which results in too many issues being sweptunder the rug.
We are pistachio people too…we checked our almost empty bad, and we had the ones from Setton!!!! Well, we’re not sick, so I guess that’s good! Really scary though when we don’t feel safe about eating! Maybe when someone high up on the ‘food chain’ gets sick, we’ll have more money or regulation going into our food industry safety, but for now I guess they’re okay with us peons dying off.
The nut jokes have been flying around here… I almost bought some right before the announcement. What gets me are the greens- you can’t just wash them, it is inside the plant from contaminated water. wtf? Bush took the teeth out of the FDA, but the Obama administration is going to put them back. That’s why you are seeing those Yaz correction ads… The Bush admin. is why you saw an explosion of nutraceutical ads making egregious claims over the last 8 years. Hopefully those people will be shut down too. There is so much work to be done putting this country back together again, it boggles the mind!
Have you read the Omnivore’s Dilemma?