Given the recent food-safety scares recently, you may look at the food at your grocery store and wonder how to know if it’s safe. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t currently have the authority to issue recalls on tainted food. All of the food recalls recently in the news were actually voluntary recalls, even the recent PCA peanut butter recall which sickened over 700 people and killed nine.
So what should you look for in the grocery store?
1. Beware of ground meat in a sealed package that looks as if it is under pressure. It may be packaged with carbon monoxide gas or other gas to retain the color of the meat. Don’t use the color of this meat to judge its freshness. Instead, look for a sell by date. We have no indication that meat packaged with CO make you sick. It’s just that you can’t judge freshness by color.
2. Inspect your produce carefully. Spoilage does not equal foodborne illness, but you should check your produce, look for signs of rotting or spoilage.
3. Wash your produce carefully when you get home as an additional safeguard. You should not wash poultry as the spraying water could spread pathogens.
4. Keep your countertops clean as well as anything that comes into contact with food, such as utensils, sinks, etc. A good scrubbing with soap and water will take care of most microorganisms. You don’t need antibacterial soap.
5. After cutting up meat and poultry, make sure you wash the knife and cutting board before cutting up vegetables or any other food. If you are having a barbecue, do not put the cooked meat and chicken back on the same plate you used when it was raw.
6. To kill dangerous bacteria, make sure you cook all chicken and ground meat thoroughly. That means using a meat thermometer—final temperature should be 165° F.
7. Replace your sponges and wash your kitchen towels often.
8. Meat should be defrosted in the refrigerator, not on the countertop. If you defrost it in a microwave, it needs to be cooked promptly.
For more tips, go to the Consumers Union Web site.
When someone in your home has a suspected food-borne illness, try to save any packaging for the product you feel might be the cause of the illness, and take note of what that person may have eaten for the last several days.
The Food and Drug Administration needs greater funding and the authority to do its job, and Consumers Union feels we need major reform in order to protect the nation’s food supply. can send an e-mail right now to Congress to support real reform.
