Disturbing Food Recall of the Day

The title only tells part of the story:

California Firm Recalls Poultry Products Imported From an Unapproved Source

It's the actual "poultry product" that I find more disturbing:

Khong Guan Corporation, a Union City, Calif., establishment, is recalling approximately 2,858 pounds of chicken drink products that were ineligible for import to the U.S., the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. ...


The products subject to recall include: [View Labels]

• Packages containing six 2.3-fluid ounce-bottles of "BRAND'S Essence of Chicken Drink"
• Packages containing six 2.3-fluid ounce-bottles of "BRAND'S Essence of Chicken Drink, with Cordyceps Extract"
• Packages containing six 2.3-fluid ounce-bottles of "BRAND'S Essence of Chicken Drink, with 4 Herbs"
• Packages containing six 2.3-fluid ounce-bottles of "BRAND'S Essence of Chicken Drink, with Lingzhi"
• Packages containing six 2.3-fluid ounce-bottles of "BRAND'S Essence of Chicken Drink, with Ginseng

What, pray tell, is a "chicken drink product"? Some Googling indicates that it's a nutritional supplement that the maker of one brand claims "helps to relieve tiredness and to restore both your mental and physical energy, by increasing your metabolic rate."


Perhaps it's just some form of chicken soup sold in the form of a child's juice box. If so, you'd think they could come up with something better than "chicken drink," eh? How about "Poultry Power Juice" or a "Bock Bock Box"? Those are free of charge for any of you entrepreneurs out there.

Poop-Tainted Spinach? Just Nuke It

Now, I don’t know as much about irradiating food as I’d like. Which is to say that I know next to nothing. But nevertheless, the increasingly strident skeptic in me is just howling over this…

After two years of nearly constant food-borne illness outbreaks and recalls of everything from tainted peanut butter to tons of hamburger meat, the Food and Drug Administration's decision last week to allow the irradiation of lettuce and spinach to kill dangerous bacteria didn't surprise anyone in the food industry. …

Zapping spinach and iceberg lettuce with a tiny shot of radiation is an effective way to prevent deadly outbreaks of E. coli, according to the FDA, which says it's safe. But not everyone agrees.

The disagreements are fairly obvious. First, nuking food just doesn’t seem safe, and some quick Googling indicates that there really isn’t a good body of research on whether it is safe.

Second, as the article points out, it’s a way to put a technological band-aid on what is really a food production and processing problem. So huge fields of leafy greens are way too close to factory farms overloaded with cows that produce mountains of pooh (and lots of flatulence, but that’s a global warming story) that gets washed into nearby streams or down hills into Popeye’s favorite canned food.

Generally, I’m not opposed to technology that can improve our lives. But in this case, this criticism makes a lot of sense…

"Food irradiation is a pseudo-fix," said Bill Freese, a science policy analyst with the Center for Food Safety in Washington. "It's a way to try to come in and clean up problems that are created in the middle of the food production chain. I think it's clearly a disincentive to clean up the problems at the source." (emphasis mine)

It’s easy, of course, to fault one person or political party in the continuing degradation of our food production system. But that’s really taking the easy way out.

But Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association said the Bush administration isn't doing anything other administrations haven't tried.

"This is definitely bipartisan," Cummins said. "Every administration since FDR has been pro-agribusiness, and there hasn't been much difference in their policies."

Thankfully, food that has been irradiated has to be marked as such, and something tells me a big sticker that screams "IRRADIATED" isn't going to attract a lot consumers.

Scrapin' Up the Bits... Humble Pie Style

I understand that my blog moniker is a bit… well, highly presumptuous. I am by no measure what Tony Bourdain or any other chef would consider a cook. I use it more in a dual sense: that I aspire to become highly skilled in the kitchen, and, in the more mundane sense, that, because I work out of my house, I don’t have to spend time commuting and, thus, do most of the cooking in our household.

And I cook a lot. But it’s not always good.

I’ve had several misfires lately. Wahoo steaks partly mangled on a ridiculously hot Weber grill while on vacation. The scallops that never got seared because I didn’t let the cast-iron pan get hot enough, accompanied by a grainy cauliflower puree. And, last night, a “spatchcock” chicken that was a tad undercooked -- well, the breasts -- because I pulled it from the grill too early. (In my defense, it was a big-a#$ chicken! Probably not the best choice for our first spatchcock. And, it should be noted, my wife did a wonderful job preparing the flattened out chicken.)

The only saving grace was the fantastic, remarkably tender grass-fed T-bones -- from Deanna and David McMaken’s Rose Ridge Organic Beef in Waynesburg, Ohio – I made on Saturday night. My ego needed that.

Meanwhile, a few other notable items….

What was that I said the other day, while discussing the new PGH program, about how there will be more food recalls? Another one might be coming pretty quickly…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is broadening its testing of food beyond tomatoes, including looking at imported products, to find the source of a salmonella outbreak in the United States, a spokesman said on Monday. …

Although tomatoes are still the "lead suspect," cilantro, jalapeno peppers and Serrano peppers have been added as possible culprits, according to FDA spokesman Mike Herndon.

And another reminder that corn as a fuel source is highly susceptible to weather perturbations.

Analysts said it's still too early to tell how much the Midwest crops have been damaged, but they will be keeping a close watch on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the government agency continues to assess the crop land.

A large loss of acreage could slash U.S. corn production and push next season's year-end stocks to the lowest level since just after World War II, some analysts said. If bad weather continues in July and August, corn prices could rise to $10 a bushel, said Shawn Hackett, president of agriculture futures brokerage Hackett Financial Advisors.

Speaking of corn, Food & Wine, meanwhile, finds some organic or otherwise sustainably produced spirits, including…

Prairie Organic Vodka A clean, creamy vodka produced from organic corn grown by a Minnesota farmers’ co-op. The leftover cobs are converted to biofuel that powers distillation ($26).

And, finally, Mental Masala at the Ethicurean has the goods on Wal-Mart’s going all locavore. Part of the reason: reduce liability issues in the event of a recall, as I suggested the other day in the aforementioned PGH program post.

The big question, however, is whether this is the real deal, working with small farmers to procure fresh fruits and veg, or whether the company will resort to its usual, um, hardball tactics that many would argue do more harm than good.