Food Safety Quiz From The FDA
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
13 days ago
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Olychick
13 days agoRelated Discussions
Evil S510 Food 'Safety Act' passes Senate
Comments (23)I haven't commented yet and had tried to stay away from it as I try to avoid politics and policies on garden forums. Also till recently I hadn't studied it a lot. I did know most of the farmers here were against it. I have some concerns. Not about what will happen immediately but in the future. One of my concerns is why Monsanto and a few others lobbied so hard for it and also spent a fair amount in support of some legislators. I don't feel it will impact the small garden grower saving seeds for a long time if ever. Another concern is it may in time affect small seed vendors. I remember when Cargill and a few others got laws passed that eventually forced many of the small locker plants out of business. I was good friends and did business with several of them and know what happened. The initial law didn't do it but allowed the means to gradually tighten the screw till many were forced out. I can remember in the 70's when there were 8 locker plants within 60 miles. For the last 10 years there has been 2. Now with the increase in demand of people wanting either to fatten their own or buy meat they know how it was raised and also some easing of a few regulations there has been another open up. The goal of any corporation is too obtain a bigger share of the market. Whether that be a packing plant or a seed business. One way to eliminate competition is by legislation. And one way to get laws passed is too say it is for food safety. I have emailed one of my legislators asking questions. Other than that not a lot I can do but keep informed and watch how it plays out. Personally I try not to get too worked up over things I have no control of. Jay...See MoreGreat article on Cookware safety from FDA
Comments (4)For the record, that FDA article goes back almost 18 years now, and needs some points updated and/or clarified. Why did you ditch all your non-stick cookware? What did you base your decision on? Was it PFOA, by any chance? From "Teflon Pan Scare Comes with Sales Pitch": "What Mercola misses in his rush to indict Teflon, and - funnily enough - sell you his own line of cookware - is that it is impossible to ingest PFOA from Teflon. PFOA is used to bond the Teflon coating to a metal surface, but in the process, which involves extremely high temperatures, virtually all of the PFOA is incinerated. The remainder is not accessible under any normal cooking method - unless you actually ate the pan along with whatever you cooked in it (in which case, PFOA would be the least of your problems). "All of which is why the Food and Drug Administration and the EPA have said that consumers are just not at risk from using Teflon-coated cookware." So, as long you treat your non-stick cookware nicely (no metal utensils, no screaming-hot burners, etc.) there is basically no risk, and that is according to numerous sources....See MoreWhole Foods To Label GMO Foods
Comments (33)Thanks for the link Annie, I checked it out, and as of the date of that article, Seminis did sell to Territorial and Johnny's as well as Fedco. It could be that a couple of the brassicas I just bought from Fedco, as well as the Lollo Rosa lettuce from Burpee could have come from Seminis. I will have to call the companies and check. A short snippet from the article Annie posted: " Taking spinach into his own hands: Nash Huber doesnâÂÂt want to get stuck depending on a hybrid that might get dropped by a mega-company owner on a whim. He also doesnâÂÂt want to lose any of the vigor, disease resistance, etc. that hybrid has provided. So Nash is working on dehybridizing �" breeding an open-pollinated spinach that is well adapted to his needs. (pictured: Huber, left; Matthew Dillon, right) Posted February 22, 2005: The news of MonsantoâÂÂs agreement to purchase Seminis has received little attention from the media other than the financial pages and a few seed industry and anti-globalization web sites. But then again, why should it? How many consumers �" of food or seed �" have even heard of Seminis? And yet, as Seminis spinmeister Gary Koppenjan said, âÂÂIf you've had a salad, you've had a Seminis product." It is estimated that Seminis controls 40 percent of the U.S. vegetable seed market and 20 percent of the world market�"supplying the genetics for 55 percent of the lettuce on U.S. supermarket shelves, 75 percent of the tomatoes, and 85 percent of the peppers, with strong holdings in beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and peas. The companyâÂÂs biggest revenue source comes from tomato and peppers seeds, followed by cucumbers and beans. In large part, these numbers reflect usage of Seminis varieties within large industrial production geared towards supermarkets, but Seminis seeds are also widely used by regional conventional and organic farmers as well as market and home gardeners. JohnnyâÂÂs, Territorial, Fedco, NicholâÂÂs, Rupp, Osborne, Snow, and Stokes are among the dozens of commercial and garden seed catalogs that carry the more than 3,500 varieties that comprise Seminisâ offerings. This includes dozens of All-American Selections and an increasing number of varieties licensed to third parties for certified organic seed production. The brand-name companies under Seminis (such as Petoseed) have developed, released, produced and distributed varieties common to the market farmer and even home gardener. These include Big Beef, Sweet Baby Girl and Early Girl Tomatoes; Simpsons Elite and Red Sails Lettuces; Red Knight and King Arthur Peppers; Gold Rush and Blackjack Zucchinis; Stars & Stripes Melon; and Bush Delicata and Early Butternut squashes (see sidebar for other popular varieties)." So home gardeners DO have to check their seed, these are very popular varieties though the article is NOT saying that these......See MoreFood safety
Comments (27)* A handy reference on the amount of bacteria that you can kill at different temperatures and cooking times is here: https://www.fsis.usda.gov/Oa/fr/95033f-a.htm?redirecthttp=true * I clean raw foods mostly with just water. I try to at least get any obvious layer of bacterial material to wash off by feel under running water. My general feeling on other techniques for cleaning raw food is that they either do far less than the people using them believe (e.g., vinegar will not kill many types of pathogenic bacteria) or for the ones that do work well - like oxygen bleach - I worry about ingesting that and killing off valuable gut micromes. You have to balance all of these issues of safety and convenience, and it's really hard to do this accurately. I have chosen to go with convenience. * I will confess that I eat a LOT of raw eggs and have never had a problem with them. Only in raw form do you get some of the nutritional advantages. This is by far my biggest food risk for pathogens. I have yet to get a single episode of indigestion. So even for high risk activities like this, the risks are actually pretty low. * For reasons I have never understood, oysters - even well cooked - cause me to throw up. Always. I'm not sure if that is some bacteria that survives cooking or if that is some other chemical agent that cannot be cooked away....See Moreannie1992
13 days agocarolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
13 days agolast modified: 13 days agoElmer J Fudd
12 days agolast modified: 12 days agojmm1837
12 days agocarolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
11 days agolast modified: 11 days agofoodonastump
11 days agofloral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
11 days agolast modified: 11 days agocarolb_w_fl_coastal_9b thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UKOlychick
11 days agocarolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
11 days agolast modified: 11 days agoElmer J Fudd
11 days agoElmer J Fudd
11 days ago
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