Weekly Blog Response #12

For this week’s blog response I read an article about sushi and food poisoning tilted “Multistate Outbreak Linked to Raw Sushi Grows to 200 Cases.”  The sushi was contaminated with Salmonella and has caused 200 cases throughout the US.  It is from a particular kind of product in the sushi called ‘tuna scrape,’ and it is that that has been in the sushi that people have gotten ill from.  This just brings to mind the articles I have responded to about raw milk and quite frankly it is making me want to stay away from raw milk and raw seafood do to the fact that these outbreaks keep seeming to revolve around ‘raw’ food, or at least milk and seafood. I have never liked sushi and now after reading this article I don’t plan on trying it any time in the near future unless it is the kind that does NOT have raw seafood.  However, the CDC has at least made sure that there was a recall of the infected tuna, which means that hopefully there would still be no more cases of people getting sick.  It’s incredible though how fast and how far spread the outbreak is, and it shows just how important better food safety laws are.

Food Log #12

Personally, I have no idea what to write for this food blog since in class we watched people present about our research projects.  Everyone seemed to have very interesting topics that they were doing their research projects on.  I liked the ones about how students would like to eat healthier if it was easier for them to on campus, or something along those lines.  I know that I try and eat healthy but it is very hard to eat healthy in the dining hall, and in my dorm room where I have a bunch of snacks and such.  At home, I find that it is much easier to eat healthy than while I’m at school despite my best efforts to eat healthy at school.

And tonight at work I made an observation, that when there is a variety of fresh fruit people will eat it.  There were fresh strawberries tonight and I kept seeing people take bowls of strawberries (it was a slow enough night that I was actually paying attention to this).  The lady at the salad bar had to keep refilling the strawberries.  To me, this just seems like a tad bit of proof that people will eat fruit and that perhaps more of a variety would have people eating more fruit in the dining hall.

Weekly Blog Response #11

I’ve already written about raw milk in a previous blog response due to the fact that I am a milk lover to the point where my parents joked that I would go through withdrawal if I did not have milk.  Anyways, once again I’m on the subject of raw milk after reading an article on foodsafetynews.com called “E. Coli Case Count in Missouri Rises to 14; Raw Milk Implicated.”  In essence the article talks about how there has been an outbreak of E. Coli that has been possibly linked to raw milk, though the Missouri Department of Health has not confirmed an official source of the problem.

Here’s my opinion about it.  All the articles about these outbreaks are short, what I want to know is why raw milk is so dangerous.  What makes it that way?  If people know it is dangerous why do they still drink it?  Honestly, even with my love of milk, I don’t think I would risk it.  I mean I would do a lot of information first and such, but even then I don’t think it would be a smart choice to drink raw milk, and that’s what I’ve learned from reading articles such as these.

Food Log #11

Even though I did not participate in class today due to Day of Silence, I found the discussion very interesting.  I think that the ideas that people were talking about in terms of what could be changed at the café are reasonable ideas, my only issue is what could be the downside of it.  I mean, I’m sure there would not be a large one but at the same time there could be an increase in the cost of the food, which would be a bad thing.  But there are other issues too.  Making all the eggs from actual eggs that are cracked there in front of you would in crease the wait time.  Also, on the subject of how those eggs are stored during breakfast, they sit in a container, which is in a vat of ice/ice water.  They are kept cold, but I understand why people didn’t like it.  The complaints I heard were reasonable.

I agree that the dining hall should be more considerate of the dietary needs of the students, and I think that having more options available for them would be a wise idea.  More vegetarian, vegan, and foods that are specialized for those with special diets would be smart, and allow the dining hall to serve all people and not discriminate against them.

I hope that the people in charge are receptive to the suggestions because they can only help.

Weekly Blog Response #10

For this week’s blog response, I read a blog titled “Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning Strikes Three in Alaska.”  It is about how three people in Alaska got sick from PSP (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning), but luckily all the three victims are recovering.  They had eaten shellfish that were locally harvested, and many shellfish run the risk of having the PSP.  It has nothing to do with the algae bloom that occurs in Alaska, and crabmeat is not known to have it, but crab guts can.  Commercially farmed shellfish has been tested and is clean.  The PSP is being considered a public emergency.

Personally, I am not all that surprised that something like this happened due to the fact that with eating shellfish and seafood from the sea always runs the risk of having something in it.  Between Red Tide, which you’re not suppose to eat seafood during, and the PSP, it makes more sense to eat shellfish that has been commercially farmed rather than fresh from the sea.  It also seems like it would be a safer choice than fresh.  As someone who very much loves to eat shellfish and seafood, this makes me more wary about what I am eating by far.  Even though we’re nowhere near Alaska, it’s better to be safe and cautious.

Food Log #10

Today in class we talked about GMOs and how they could or couldn’t help in Africa, as well as how it is partially our fault for why the Africans do not want to use the GMOs.  For example, in the US we are all afraid of eating GMOs to the point where we do not want to eat them.  We have a fear of them, of what has been spliced into the foods’ DNA that makes it different.  Despite the fact that there has been no studies showing adverse effects of GMOs we still do not want to eat them or have anything like them in our food.  Then, we go and expect the people in Africa to want to eat them?

Come on.  Are we that much of a hypocrite as a country to think that a poorer country would want to eat food that we are afraid to eat ourselves?  Honestly, there’s no reason why we should have to expect people to eat things that no one else wants to eat for ourselves.  I mean, yes it could possibly help them with starvation, but they would still have to be able to buy the food, which they can’t most of the time.  However, I do not blame them for not wanting to use them when we refuse to eat them ourselves.  At least that’s my opinion based on what we went over in class today.

Weekly Blog Response #9

The article I read was called “FDA Seeks to Stop CA Fish Producer, Cites Botulism Risk.”  The article discussed the issue of food sanitation at a fish company out in California under the name of Blue Ocean.  The FDA gave them warnings, and sanctions have been filed against the company after diseases such as Listeria and the risk of botulism were discovered at the facility.  They ignored FDA warnings and the DA is seeking to file sanctions against them.

Honestly, I can’t understand why this company would ignore the FDA warnings.  What did they expect?  That they would just get away with it?  They’re lucky that no one has gotten seriously sick or died.  It just makes no sense to me especially since we have spent so much time talking about how important food safety is during production.  It’s a way that a lot of people could get really sick really fast.  Why would they want to ignore them?  Why would they want to risk it?

I wish the article provided more insight into what happened.  I don’t understand.  I really don’t.  I wish there had been more details provided, I’d be curious to learn more about the motives of Blue Ocean.  Though I do agree that they were very lucky that no one had gotten sick from their products.

Food Log #9

I found that this week in class when we discussed what our parents thought was healthy food, how different everyone’s answers were.  All the answers were different, but there were similarities at the same time, such as what things on the TV said were healthy, vegetables and the like.  I mean in my family, the answers one of my mom gave were pretty similar to what other said.  Though the reason she gave for why she considers fruits, vegetables, grains, and lean-meats such as fish and turkey that she gave was that it is because it is what doctors say is healthy, and since she and my other mom both work in a medical profession they would know that sort of thing.

Yes sometimes we eat what is popular, such as Greek yogurt, but it always for the health benefits, since Greek yogurt has a lot of protein that is the main reason why we eat it.  But, what my parents consider healthy is also based upon what my brothers, as track and cross country runners, should eat and what one of my moms diets since she has diabetes.

Personally, I find it difficult to follow the rules of what is healthy to eat at school, because there’s just so many options, but I try and take my mom’s advice to try and eat portion sizes of foods.  That and to not ‘graze’ throughout the day.  Either way I found that that class was very interesting and I enjoyed hearing what other people said.

Weekly Blog Response #8

For the food blog response I read a short piece about a recall of mini chocolate chip cookies that have walnuts in them.  It was called “Allergen Alert:  Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts.”  They left the walnuts off the recipe, a labeling error, and no adverse reactions have been reported.  Honestly what struck me about this piece was that it could have relevance to what we viewed with Jamie Oliver.   I’m surprised that they were lucky enough to realize the error before anyone got seriously hurt.  Parents could have bought these cookies for their children, who, if they had nut allergies, could have been seriously hurt, if not killed due to allergies.

There are things that I think are wrong about this article, like the fact that it is so short and there’s so few details provided.  How did the labeling error happen?  How were they able to realize that there was a labeling error?  I feel like with the way things are with food production are and all the concern over food safety that something such as this would happen.  What if the cookies had been sent to a school?  How many children could have potentially ended up in the hospital?  I’m just stunned that something like this would happen, could happen with how many things are done by computers today, which I think is how they would be able to produce the labels.  It just stunned me really.

Food Log #8

So this week we talked about school lunches, particularly in relation to Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.  What struck me today in class was that while we were listing the barriers that Jamie Oliver faced and everyone was talking about them, I wasn’t sure if any of the others realized that those were the same barriers they would face if they tried to change things here on campus.  There’s the cost of the food, it’s more expensive to buy the amount of food fresh to feed the campus at all of the different locations that there are to eat.  Not to mention the fact that the cooks on campus have to continue to have food available during all of the hours they are open.  I understand that people on school, or at least the ones in the class, but they need to understand that there are people who work to make sure we all have food to eat in the dining hall each and every day.  It just makes me frustrated when people talk about it the way they do in class.  The workers there are some of the nicest people I have ever met, they work hard and it’s not their fault if people do not like the food.

I agree the quality of the food could be improved, but it is also college food, equivalent to school lunches.  The fact is the food could be worse and as far as college food goes, in my opinion it is good.

Though this is also just my opinion, and response to some of the things I heard today and have been hearing, and in response to the discussion we had of barriers that Jamie Oliver faced.