Thread: Is America Waking Up To Food Borne Illnesses?

By Dragon S5
www.alipac.us

First it was spinach, then lettuce, then green onions.

None of that bothered who I'll call "ms. x" a vegetarian and someone not too concerned about illegal immigration. That was until food borne illness got to her peanut butter.

While there are no reports in North Texas of salmonella or ecoli caused by the ConAgra food products 'Peter Pan' and 'Great Value' peanut butter it has brought up an interesting point, wtf is going on with our food supply?

When Ms. X heard the news her jaw dropped as an elderly co-worker told of how her husband spent a night in the hospital last week and was told he had salmonella, when she heard the news she checked their jar of 'Great Value' peanut butter and sure enough it was one of those listed as recalled.

Ms. X happens to enjoy a good PB&J sandwich and the look on her face was one of worry. We have talked about whether or not illegal aliens contribute to food borne illnesses in the North Texas area after I myself contracted salmonella at a restaurant where they pre-heat their meat then finish grilling/microwaving it later - a recipe for salmonella according to a Dallas health inspector, who also told me of a sharp rise in food borne illnesses in Dallas in the past five years. It was then that Ms. X told me she doesn't eat out too much and gets her produce at the store and makes her food at home, but when she does eat out it's something simple like.... a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich from a local sandwich shop.

The spinach and lettuce didn't seem to bother her because she said she washes all of her veggies at home before eating them, but you can't wash peanut butter.

The latest news combined with horror stories of South American food handling from a hispanic friend of ours seems to have finally jarred this liberal lady into thinking that maybe we do need to do something.

Now when the topic comes up from me or co-workers she seems less supportive of the illegal aliens and finds her self saying that we need to do something if our food supply is getting tainted with disease.

This is a major threat to the American public and our health. The sudden increase of widespread food borne illness could be disastrous if not caught in time or if associated with a plague like disease such as the bird flu. Lets Take Back our America and stop the poisoning of our food, our children and our country!

The vicious stomach flu that is affecting millions of people nationwide this winter, is it really the stomach flu or is it a result of food contamination?

It's all side effects of a global economy. Please, someone remind me again of why importing our food is beneficial to the average American? Do we grow enough food in the United States to feed our population? Perhaps it's time for our growers and meat producers to stop exporting our food goods and supplying tons of it to impoverished nations. I don't really know what the answer is, but one thing is for sure, you never know what you're getting when you eat foods exported from other countries.

What is our CDC doing about all of this?

I only heard once (once) when that E-Coli scare pertaining to spinach was on the news, that the salmonella was attributed to the "human" strain, not animal which was widely talked about. That was communicated by the CDC, but did not get much exposure to that fact!

Since that one and only time being attributed to the human strain of the cause, I have never heard anything more from the CDC on the matter, or any other for that matter. Wonder who is putting a muzzle on the CDC?

Seems like this Illegal Immigration is reaching so many Americans on several fronts and issues.

Conagra also makes Healthy Choice frozen dinners as well. Lord know what else. I did do a search on Conagra a while back. Their hands involve several things. True Value is a WalMart brand, no? Isn't the first time items have been recalled from True Value!

Scary thought, but it isn't going to be much longer, before the American soil itself is contaminated. (among other places of businesses which employ immigrants) Imported foods is always risky. Seems like the latter is common with all these lousy trade agreements.

but one thing is for sure, you never know what you're getting when you eat foods exported from other countries.

Isn't that the truth!!!! I know my husband worked at an unnamed pack your own stuff grocery store that the majority of lower income people shopped at. ALOT of the items were imported from other countries. One thing that they did have them do was take bulk packaged meat and break them down into smaller weights......weigh, seal and price them and just slap a USDA inspected meat sticker on it. If I'm not mistaken the meat was from Argentina, packed there as well........do they have US inspectors there? Heck they just actually check a small percentage of our own here! I'm not all that convinced that the plants in other countries even come close to any inspection codes we have. Then after seeing the clip of that warehouse and the guy whizzing on the fresh produce and rats running around, no bathrooms or hot water.......I'm not so sure they are doing any sort of a job. They are certainly compromising our saftey here........God only knows what it's like in countries that have no standards to ignore!

Could one of your women on here please tell me how you could get salmonella from peanut butter? I thought all that was in PB was nuts and maybe a little oil, what is in the PB that would cause this?Thank God, I am a jiffy PB kind of person, guess it could affect it to, lord it is getting to where you are afraid to eat anything anymore!

Your guess is as good as mine nittygritty...melting it on toast I don't think would be hot enough to kill anything. I'm a Jiff mom myself. But in this day and age......who knows where the peanuts are from or anything else. (One time my husband was glad I bought Jiff )

It could most likely be due to lack of hygiene of employees or cleanliness of the equipment in the facility where it was made. If the peanuts were contaminated in the field it could have gotten to the actual peanuts during processing. I know now that it made my daughter sick as she was the only one that ate the peanut butter and was the only one sick. No one is safe any more when it comes to food. Even if you cook from scratch or are a vegetarian. Unless you live like the Amish and grow your own fruits and vegetables and keep your own chickens, cows and pigs. This reminds me of a friend of mine in Canada who worked in the school of argiculture in the top university for that field. He grew his own food and kept chicken in his garage. Most his his meat came from the university where it came from cattle he knew never got fed with antibiotics or hormones. He never told myself or other friends why he did what he did but after all these food recalls and stories of antibiotic resistant disease, I now see the reasoning behind his behavior.
How many people have to die before the CDC and government do something about it?

I thought you had to have eggs or some kind of dairy to get salmonella I guess that is not the case all the time.

I think some employees are doing this on purpose.
Within a week ConAgra had the peanut butter and now their Banquet meatball dinners...

A few weeks ago. I read an article saying that 83% of our chicken was tainted in one way or another, and cooking throughly is the only way to kill the bacteria......just turned me off chicken!