Kitchen appliances make our lives more convenient and our meals more delicious, but they’re also dangerous. Dangerous? Ordinary appliances start tens of thousands of fires in United States homes every year. Our colleagues down the hall at ShopSmart rounded up some common causes of appliance fires and warned us all. [More]
Quality & Safety
E. Coli-Laden Beef Traced To Bi-Lo And Winn-Dixie Stores
By 8.5.13
Last week, we shared the massive 25-ton ground beef recall out of the National Beef Packing Company in Kansas. There haven’t been any illnesses reported yet: the germs were found during routine testing. Still, it’s good to know which retailers that contaminated meat went to, in case you happen to have picked some up. [More]
Salads Sold At Red Lobster & Olive Garden Linked To Cyclospora Outbreaks In Two States
By 8.5.13
Taking some of the guess-work out of figuring out why your stomach may currently be turned inside out, the Food and Drug Administration has confirmed that salads linked to a cyclospora outbreak that’s sickened at least 400 people have been tied to four restaurants in Iowa and Nebraska, including Olive Garden and Red Lobster. [More]
FDA Links Acetaminophen To Nasty, Possibly Fatal Skin Reactions (But Try Not To Freak Out)
By 8.2.13
Because no weekend can get started without news of a possible scary drug interaction, the FDA has issued a consumer alert warning that, in extremely rare cases, use of the popular over-the-counter painkiller acetaminophen (used in Tylenol and many others) can cause “rare but serious skin reactions,” including three serious skin diseases with symptoms like rash, blisters and widespread damage to the surface of skin. Yuck. [More]
FDA Sets Rules For Gluten-Free Food Labels
By 8.2.13
In recent years much has been made of gluten — people with celiac disease can’t eat it and others simply want to keep their diets free of it. But until now, there hasn’t been any official word from on high regarding how to actually define what makes a gluten-free food. The Food and Drug Administration is changing that with a final rule on what characteristics a food must have in order to be really and truly gluten-free. [More]
25 Tons Of E. Coli Contaminated Ground Beef Recalled
By 8.2.13
National Beef Packing Company is recalling a 25 tons of ground beef that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. No, we didn’t forget that we already ran this story in mid-June: this is a second and entirely different recall that’s twice as large. [More]
Ford Agrees To Pay $17.35 Million To Settle Allegations It Was Slow To Issue 2012 SUV Recall
By 8.1.13
Ford is ponying up some big bucks to settle government allegations that the company putzed around and delayed the recall of almost half a million SUVs last year. The price tag to make it all go away: $17.35 million, the top penalty regulators can impose against automakers.
[More]
The No. 1 Reason To Wear Nose Plugs At A Freshwater Water Park: Brain-Eating Amoebas
By 7.30.13 — Updated: 5.23.17
Maybe you think you’re too cool to wear nose plugs when swimming or rocketing down water slides at the water park, despite the fact that they prevent water from shooting up into your nasal passages. But there’s one very, very good reason to invest in a pair or at least plug your nose if you’re visiting a water park with fresh water: Brain-eating amoebas can get inside and that is not a good thing. [More]
FDA Finally Realizes Maybe It’s Time To Do A Better Job Of Improving The Safety Of Imported Foods
By 7.26.13
Perhaps your kitchen is only stocked with locally sourced organic food, but around 15% of what Americans eat — including half the fresh fruit, one-fifth of fresh veggies and 80% of fish — comes from around 150 different countries. So, finally getting around to implementing changes mandated by the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the Food and Drug Administration has proposed a couple rules aimed at beefing up controls on imported edibles. [More]
Trader Joe’s Customers: We Don’t Want Drugs In Our Meat
By 7.25.13
While many grocery store chains carry meat from animals that have been fed unnecessary antibiotics purely for the purpose of encouraging growth, the results of a new survey show that a large majority of all supermarket shoppers — but especially Trader Joe’s customers — would rather that their favorite food store stop carrying the drugged-up beef, pork, and poultry. [More]
No, The Consumer Products Safety Commission Does Not Have A SWAT Team
By 7.24.13
An important correction in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week: “The Consumer Products Safety Commission does not have a SWAT team. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that it does.” So that’s good. Or maybe sort of disappointing. The context was an excerpt from an upcoming book about the recent trend of unlikely government agencies using Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams. Like the Department of Education, or NASA. [Wall Street Journal] (Thanks, Greg!) [More]
Subway Employee Admits To Touching Bread With Penis, Says Photo Was Taken At Home
By 7.22.13
If the Taco Bell taco-licker wasn’t enough to put you off fast food for a while, now comes a photo posted by a Subway employee of a man touching a loaf of dough with his penis. But not to worry because the employee says this was done in the privacy of his own home. [More]
Six Flags Visitor Thrown From Roller Coaster And Killed
By 7.22.13
No one expects a happy family outing to an amusement park to end with a family member dead from one of the rides, but that’s exactly what happened on Friday at Six Flags Over Texas. Authorities from the park and the government are investigating the cause of a tragic accident where a rider was thrown from the Texas Giant Roller coaster and killed. [More]
Sears Re-Announces Recall Of Dehumidifiers Because No One Prefers Fires Over Humidity
By 7.17.13
Would you rather have a humid living environment, or one that’s on fire? Ding ding — we’re pretty sure the owners of 800,000 dehumidifiers sold by Sears would agree with you. The retailer is again reminding consumers of a recall for a product line that had issues last summer, again, over fires linked to using the Kenmore dehumidifiers. Now might be a good time to check on your dehumidifier. [More]
5 Reasons Mosquitoes Find You So Darn Irresistible
By 7.15.13 — Updated: 5.2.17
I once had a roommate casually mention that she never got mosquito bites because she wasn’t allergic to the little buggers. Hearing this, while I was grumpily slathering hydrocortisone over seemingly innumerable red itchy skin splotches caused an overwhelming and totally rational jealousy. Why me? Why anyone? Stupid bugs. [More]
FDA Bans BPA From Infant Formula Packaging (Because Manufacturers Have Already Stopped Using It)
By 7.11.13 — Updated: 4.1.14
Fresh off patting itself on the back for only approving two new cigarette products (because they’re basically the same as the cigarettes already on the market), the Food and Drug Administration is continuing to show its willingness to take a timid stance on a controversial topic, by banning the use of the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) in the packaging of infant formula… because packagers have all stopped using it anyway. [More]
Big Meat Sues USDA Over Country-Of-Origin Labeling Requirement
By 7.10.13
In May, new USDA regulations went into effect that require meat processing plants to label not just the original country of origin for each item sold, but also which countries that product might have stopped at along its way from farm-to-store. The rules also prohibit the commingling of meats from various international sources. But now a group of meat industry associations have sued the USDA, claiming that this rule violates their Constitutional rights. [More]
Golden Corral: Food In Dumpster Video Wasn’t Served; Father Of Employee Tried To Sell Video To Company For $5K
By 7.8.13
As we mentioned this morning, a video showing food sitting by the dumpsters of a Golden Corral restaurant in Florida has become an Internet sensation. Now the owners of the Golden Corral franchise featured in the clip are saying that all the food shown in the video was thrown out and the manager involved was fired. The franchise owners also claim that the father of the employee in the video tried to sell the clip to the company before it went public. [More]
