New food safety rules on imported foods...

13 years ago

This article brings up a question...

What does everybody think about Springfield Ham being sold to the Chinese food maker Shuanghui International? Any thoughts.....here's a link to an overview of the sale:

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/07/10/senate-hearing-on-smithfield-shuanghui-deal-a-primer

The sale has provoked health safety questions from the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the impact on AmericaÃ¢ÂÂs supply of the heart-disease drug heparin.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/07/25/chinas-smithfield-deal-also-brings-drug-concerns/

Smithfield Hams brands include Weight Watchers Armour, Carando, Cook's Ham, Curly's Foods, Eckrich, Farmland, Gwaltney, Healthy Ones, John Morrell, Kretschmar, Margherita, and Smithfield. The company also operates The Genuine Smithfield Ham Shoppe and a restaurant, Taste of Smithfield, both in Smithfield, Virginia.

We don't eat Smithfield products because of the salt and water content.

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: New imported food safety rules

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Comments (7)

John Liu
13 years ago
I don't care about the sale. What Smithfield makes, so does Hormel. However, I'm not buying any food products imported from China (okay, sometimes in the Asian market there is no choice, but otherwise) and it doesn't matter if they carry an American name
ruthanna_gw
13 years ago
It means nothing to me either. i buy a lot of pork products like hams, sausage, etc. but they are all butchered and made within 50 miles from our house.
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Im new to canning and food preservation. So much information..".to trust or not to trust." Yet even though I hear the bottom line is to trust only the approved testing, I find that I still have questions and have a hard time trusting my end product simply because of the possibility of human error. I read that there is a field test similar to a home pregnancy test that they use to detect botulinum in 20 minutes. Has this been made available to the public and if not, why? It's a great business plan if someone can come up with the science behind it. And Ill buy it. Home testing might also make it possible for others to continue testing since the government quit. But while we're waiting for that, I would like for someone to clarify some information. I know botulinum is the bacteria which produce the toxin (gases) that can hurt us. The bacteria die at a certain temp for a certain time. I have heard some people suggest to boil a home-canned product thoroughly after opening/before eating it to kill the bacteria, but this seems insufficient as the toxins would still be present. It is not the live bacteria that are toxic but the gases that they produce. Also the bacteria die when exposed to oxygen. Does boiling somehow neutralize toxins? Or is this just false information? Lastly, since bacteria produce gases, is it safe to conclude that jars tainted with bacteria would definitely have some outward visible signs of contamination? I know that other bacteria can infect food, but in my short studies I have been led to believe that botulinum is the hardest to kill. But do all bacteria produce gases and therefore provide some indication that food isn't safe?
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I was at a grocery store, one of the somewhat pricey ones, and a pear fell to the floor, bounced few times, and rolled to a stop. I picked it up, and handed it to the produce man that was stocking items. He just put it back on the display. I was dumbfounded. Germs aside, that pear was not worth selling after bouncing so many times, but he didn't seem to care. I guess fruits and onions, anything that's stacked, is likely to fall on the floor a few times. And I didn't even think about the germs the pear picked up. Of course, I always wash my produce before eating it, anyway. It never occurred to me we may need to wash our bread wrappers, too. I quit buying commercial bread a long time ago, anyway. When the expiration date is a few weeks in the future, I figure that I don't want to eat whatever they put into the bread that makes it last that long. The preservatives scare me more than the germs on the wrapper. Sally
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This whole thing has me scratching my head. There's been some peanut farms with trouble and one major company with problems. It's almost like there's a surprise when a company that uses a, how to describe it... low quality supplier? for their supplies has to recall products. I was talking to a lady at the store the other day and I commented how well stocked the peanut butter shelves were. I like Skippy and it was on sale for $1.49/jar. She and I agreed on this. I had two jars in my cart and she was getting some. We agreed that there was no need to fear the major brands. Just avoid the peanut butter added items where the companies don't do quality control on the product themselves. As I said, I bought two jars. They'll be on the shelf for a while anyway just in case. But the places that use it as an additive and don't care who the supplier is, to me would be suspect. At this point though, I would not buy a store brand or generic brand of jar peanut butter. Probably safe? Yeah. Worth the risk? Not to me. I found it curious that Target pulled a bunch of items (in their house brand) to be on the safe side. I commend them for being proactive. But then I noticed a number of other items they had on the shelf containing peanuts that they didn't pull. Again, I'm not running in fear, but I found it curious.
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annie1992
13 years ago
Nope, doesn't matter to me either. I either raise pigs or get one locally and make my own sausage and bacon. I don't really care much for ham, so I seldom eat that at all.

Like John, I'm not buying food products imported from China, but there are enough other choices that it has not been a problem for me.

Annie
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
13 years ago
You can have all the rules you want, but without enough inspectors, what good will that do? With our economy in such terrible shape, big cities going bankrupt, I don't think there will be money to hire more inspectors.

According to that article linked, only 15% of food are imported, and yet, there are 3000 deaths each year from bad food. It seems to me that it is not imported food we have to worry about killing people.

dcarch
foodonastump
13 years ago
It does t state whether 100% or 0% of the food deaths are from that 15% of our food that's imported, so I don't see how any inferences can be made from that article at all. I would also believe that long-term affects of "bad food" are of a lot more concern than a mere 3000 quick deaths a year. That's not to make light of 3000 deaths; I've currently got a 12 year old in my prayers whose liver shut down supposedly due to some crazy strain of E. coli that at last word the CDC has yet to trace back to its source.
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
13 years ago
"It does t state whether 100% or 0% of the food deaths are from that 15% of our food that's imported, so I don't see how any inferences can be made from that article at all. ----"

You could be correct. 15% of the imported food may not be responsible for any of the 3,000 food deaths. :-)

The fact is, the article specifically named only three deaths related to Italian cheese. Any other deaths related to imports you for sure will hear all over the news. Who and what caused the other 2,997 deaths? Import food or domestic food?

Have you look into USDA's food recalls of non-imported foods that you never hear on the news?

I am not saying we produce filthy food, I am saying let's always keep an open mind.

dcarch
sandy808
13 years ago
I don't buy imported foods, at least to the best of my knowledge. I also do not buy any mass produced foods, from Smithfield or any other company. I certainly do not buy ANY mixes or prefab box foods.

This country is just as deplorable in their food practices as any other. I have talked with many a farmer who left the USDA way of farm life because much filth is allowed while the inspector is sitting there. Bad things are alowed in feeds, the farm conditions are filthy, and people think eggs are fine because they are run through disinfectant water full of feces. The cracked ones sitting in that filth are sold to go in cake mixes. Do you really think workers at a factory farm care? They don't. They don't care if a child dies due to contamination.

Read some of Joel Salatin's books. They are an eye opener, and due to his wonderful sense of humor, a delight to read. We vsited his farm in Virginia last fall. What a wonderful place!

A well run cattle or chicken farm, where the animlas are allowed to be happy animals and are rotated on fresh pasture daily, DOES NOT SMELL. At all. The meat and milk taste fresh and sweet.The cheese is not the rubber stuff the stores sell. Better yet, make your own cheese from local fresh milk. It's a fun past time.

So if the masses want cheap food, buy it, and eat it, I don't care. It only exists because they don't care enough about themselves and support it with their dollar.

Make a nice meal for family and guests out of pure basic ingredients, and a roast or hamburgers from a local organic farmer. If you're a vegetarian, make a nice lasagna from cheeses you made youself and sauce you cooked from scratch and simmered all day. It's some effort but make enough for the freezer and you have easy meals for other days. Serve them a cake actually made from scratch and not a grocery store or box. They will rave about your meal, probably over eat a little, and ask to come back soon for a visit.

Smithfield? Yuck!

New food safety rules on imported foods...

Comments (7)

John Liu

ruthanna_gw

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