Food Companies: Our Food Probably Isn't Safe Enough For Your Microwave. Good Luck!
As the food supply chain gets longer and harder to control — food companies are basically giving up and placing the responsibility for food safety on you, the consumer. In fact, one food giant, General Mills, has essentially conceded that cooking their food in a microwave isn't good enough.
From the NYT:
In addition to ConAgra, other food giants like Nestlé and the Blackstone Group, a New York firm that acquired the Swanson and Hungry-Man brands two years ago, concede that they cannot ensure the safety of items - from frozen vegetables to pizzas - and that they are shifting the burden to the consumer. General Mills, which recalled about five million frozen pizzas in 2007 after an E. coli outbreak, now advises consumers to avoid microwaves and cook only with conventional ovens. ConAgra has also added food safety instructions to its other frozen meals, including the Healthy Choice brand.
The problem, according to the Times, is that ..."the supply chain for ingredients in processed foods - from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables - is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede."
ConAgra, whose chicken pot pies sickened 15,000 people in 2007, was never able to determine which of the many ingredients caused the outbreak. Yum.
Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers [NYT]
(Photo:SA_Steve)
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there are a lot of the frozen items that cannot be prepared in a conventional or toaster oven, or at the least the manufacturer says it's "not recommended"
In other news, Kia has stated that they cannot guarantee vehicle integrity on highways at speeds above 40 miles per hour. They advise planning routes around traffic, school zones and residential neighborhoods. Kia state that "...the supply chain for car parts" has become too complex, and that they're honestly not sure who got mufflers and who got pressure cookers installed by mistake.
Also, computer maker Dell advised not connecting their PCs to the internet. Due to threat of infection, it is advised to perform all work offline, copy it to a floppy and walk to your local library (though it is safe to drive if speed limits are low enough, see above), insert the floppy disk into the library's machine, upload all work, then destroy the floppy (since reuse can cause infection).
Thank you for your time.
Irradiate it!
Welcome to Globalization.
This is what happens when we outsouce everything including our food to China and India.
This is a pot pie, it is made of e. coli and fail.
@shadowboxer524: no! teh goberments use radiashun an flooride in our water to keeps us dumb and underr Big Brothers control..
Ah so this is why a lot of the frozen meals now include to test the temp with a food thermometer! It all makes sense now.
We need some Star Trek technology to keep us safe from our food.
"There appears to be no form of life on this peperoni pizza. I think it is safe to assume that we can eat dinner now."
@Jacob Schumer: I've always read those type of "not recommended" instructions on the back of my box o' food as meaning "this method will not achieve the most palatable results" (i.e. instead of getting a nice crisp crust, you get a soggy or chewy crust) rather than "this method may cause you to sicken and die".
@edwardso: And really, if I had 45 minutes in which to cook my lunch (or dinner), I'd be making something from scratch. Sometimes you only have 10 minutes total to heat 'n eat...
Maybe some clever microwave manufacturer will add an irradiation option.
@Etoiles: exactly, we don't have a microwave at home but when I'm running late I like to grab the occasional frozen meal to take to work (especially lasagna, since I find it labor intensive to make from scratch)
@Etoiles: And at work! We don't have an oven at work. I take frozen food into work because it's the easiest, quickest way to go about it when you only have a 30 minute lunch.
So basically, we have to have ovens at work now?
Can you say Eff Dee Ayy?
Or maybe people need to stop buying highly processed, salted, sugared, fatty packaged foods.
@sir_pantsalot: "Any change in the surface scan?"
"Negative. Limited atmosphere, dominated by high fructose corn syrup, pork grease, monosodium glutemate, incapable of supporting life forms."
"Does it have to be completely lifeless?"
"Don't tell me you found something."
"We've picked up a minor energy flux reading on one dyno-scanner."
"Damn. Are you sure, maybe the scanners out of adjustment?"
"I suppose it could be a particle of preanimate matter caught in the matrix."
"Alright. Get on the comlink to Dr. Marcus."
"Aye, sir."
"Maybe it's something we can transplant, hmm?"
"You know what she'll say."
Good thing I don't own a microwave. Everything we cook is made either in the oven or on the stove.
I'm the last guy to call for government intervention, but how hard can it really be to demand that these companies start irradiating these products before they ship?!
Yeah, something tells me that we have reached the point where some regulatory agency needs to step in here.
"Sorry, we can't assure your food is safe, that's on you bud!" doesn't sound like it should be an option for me.
@shadowboxer524: I really wish we did irradiate more of our food. Certainly you can't irradiate everything (e.g. yogurt), but for bulk processed food, it certainly couldn't hurt (the safety or the flavor).
@Leohat: While I can agree with your sentiments, E. coli hasn't been a problem from India (yay not eating cows!). It also hasn't been a problem from China. Extraneous cardboard or melamine on the other hand... that's a problem with China.
Am I the only one who is a little paranoid about the little trays housing microwave food? Despite all wording that says it's safe to microwave the food as it is in the tray, I still take it out most of the time so I can eat it off a regular plate.
@pecan 3.14159265: You know didn't hearty servings of meat and potatoes or pasta and cheese for a complete meal.
If you want something quick that you can make fresh, try eating a sandwich and some yogurt. Or you can have some fresh fruit and veggies.
You'd be surprised at how little food your body actually needs to function well, a snack of some fruits and nuts could well provide enough sustenance to keep you going for hours.
This really means that the big food processors have totally given up on trying to assure their food isn't tainted, they dumped the responsibility to consumers. If you look at the huge supply chain and all of these middle men that food products go through before they end up in some finished product it clearly is impossible for them to monitor food safety and still make a profit.
Between all of the contaminated food issues in the last two years and this new story I am about done with all convenience foods. We buy the occasional quart of ice cream or frozen pizzas. I may finally break down and try making batches of frozen pizzas myself. At least I know where most of the ingredients came from.
I thought microwave food was pre-cooked. Shouldn't that eliminate the problem?
@teh: The spike in eColi came from the corn byproduct they started feeding cows. It is the after product of making ethanol. Something about it allows eColi to flourish in the cows iintestinal tract. Now add in meat packing plants that are running at unsafe speeds in order to increase profits. They are trying to process cattle too fast and cause more accidents where the guts burst before they clear them out of the carcass. Slowing down or trashing the entire cow isn't profitable. Taking the chance of killing you or your kid with eColi to them is an acceptable risk.
@superberg: When I was in college I worked in a supermarket. The frozen food truck would deliver pallets of products which sat in the back room until the people who were hired to work the frozen food aisle showed up. During the several hours that the food sat unrefrigerated, any bug from c. coli to black widow spiders could have infiltrated. I'm not sure things have improved any.
So, not only is it NOT HEALTHY for me to eat processed food, even just dabbling in it occasionally is a imminent threat to my health and well-being?
Well, at least that might deter more people...
riiiight.
Blech - Microwaved food always tastes nasty and rubbery and half-heated anyway. Real Oven for the win!
If they can't insure the food is safe to eat, how about not letting them sell it?
@ds:
The only difference here is that if your alternator becomes contaminated with e. coli is isn't going to make you ill (as long as you don't lick it), and it probably isn't going to contaminate every other alternator in the factory.
@ds:
Also:
Shell issued a warning today that their gasoline may cause engines to seize up when revved at 2500 RPMs or greater.
@dragonfire81: And? Sometimes I'm in the mood for something other than coldcuts and yogurt, and a frozen lasagna every once in a while is fine anyway if you're otherwise a healthy eater. I'd prefer the times I splurge and heat up a frozen meal to not be fraught with danger, thankyouverymuch.
@UnicornMaster: Hopefully they'll be more apt to protect consumers from poor food quality than the FCC is at protecting us from robodialers and the like. I for one am not holding my breath, just in case. I'll probably die from eating a frozen pot pie anyway, so I know I'm just postponing the inevitable, but that's what I do.
Yes, in tort law, just because you say "we are not responsible" does not make it so. That is just a ruse to discourage people from suing. They are still just as liable as if they didn't put a warning on. So always feel free to sue even when you see one of these bogus labels.
@TechnoDestructo: I'm pretty sure licking my alternator would cause me harm even without the E. coli-I'll run some tests and get back to you on that. :)
Official government response: Everyone, please stop eating. It is no longer possible to be sure you will not die. Good luck, and thank you for the tax money! Sincerely, Chase AIG Citi GM --OOPS!, I mean Uncle Sam.
If you're eating most processed frozen foods available today, with the salts and refined products therein, you're slowly poisoning yourself anyway....E Coli is just a faster process
I guess this is why I have been seeing a new step on microwave items that states to use a food thermometer to check the temp.
And I would guess they are going to use this as their defense for the next outbreak.
@bohemian: 1. I think my comment still stands. By not having a large beef eating community, India is largely unaffected by the "E. coli epidemic." When I get produce from a farm in India (not that it's common to find any here in the US), I don't have to worry about it being contaminated with E. coli carrying manure.
2. E. coli is prevalent in cows fed a diet primarily of corn as the cow's digestive system is ill adapted to process this source of food without the help of bacteria. (The massive methane produced from cows is also a side effect of that diet.) There are many different strains of E. coli even some that exist in your own digestive track. Feed cows corn tended to increase the pH in their stomach, making it more hospitable for a virulent strain. Certainly some of blame for this problem lies with the meat packing plants with their lax safety regulations, but also in the massive manure such feedlots produce. I tend to cook my beef, but not my spinach.
IIRC, just saying "it's not recommended to cook in the microwave" while putting "microwavable" on the box and putting microwave instructions does not free them from legal liability.