Foodborne Infections

Read an interesting article online in the New England Journal of Medicine about Foodborne infections. This part of the article really jumped out at me

Once again, we must ask ourselves how foodborne disease can develop in 76 million residents of one of the world's most technically advanced countries each year, causing 350,000 hospitalizations and 5000 deaths and adding $7 billion to our health care costs, despite intensive regulation of food production and distribution.

The recent recall of peanut butter makes me wonder just how safe our food system is in this country. Recalls of different food products happen all the time. Is it that hard to produce safe food in this country? How is the average person supposed to know what foods to purchase that won't make them sick or worse? Would routine irradiation of food help? Only buying organic? Local? As our population continues to grow the pressure to produce enough food will only make this issue more important.

blogging and health...

I have been blogging on and off for awhile now. I still am trying to figure out if it is something worth doing. I mean am I doing it for myself or for others to read? If it is for others do I look at how many people read my posts or how many people comment to decide if I am hitting my target audience? Yada yada yada. Obviously almost no one comments so that can't be why I blog. I do get a fair amount of hits according to different counters. Should it matter? In the long run no. I wish I had more people take an active interest in my blog but deep down that is not why I do it. And I am glad to see that science has come to my rescue on this. There really is a good reason for blogging. Not exactly what I was looking for though. I have stuff on my mind and at times I just have to say it. That is why I blog. I know I could focus my posts on certain topics to try and draw an audience. I know there are other things I can do to try and draw readers to my blog. I figure what happens happens. If you find your way here and like my ramblings than I have done my job. If it turns out to be just me and my closest friends than that is cool too. One fact I have come to is that I cannot remain silent and there are times when I have to speak/blog out. So there will always be new posts by me. They may not be as frequent as I, or my readers my like, but they will happen. So I hope you enjoy what you read and if so maybe you can comment from time to time.

The dangers of the double dip

Here is something to think about this Superbowl Sunday--

On average, the students found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip.

Doesn't that make you want to try the dip at this weekend's big party?

Fast Food Surprises...

Not sure how many people still frequent fast food restaurants. I try hard to avoid them whenever possible. Here is an article on some of the surprises you may find in their food. Here is a part that jumped out at me

Along with many of McDonald’s sauces, both the cilantro lime glaze and the orange glaze contain propylene glycol alginate. While propylene glycol is considered "GRAS" for human consumption, it is not legal for use in cat food because the safety hasn't been proven yet [10]. Proplene glycol is also used "As the killing and preserving agent in pitfall traps, usually used to capture ground beetles" [10].

So it is not safe for cat food and is used to kill beetles, but lets put it on our salads? Don't just love the FDA...