FDA – in thriver words

Bad to Worse

Since last week’s post about growing container vegetables to ensure the safety of your salad, problems in the food supply have gone from bad to worse. The recent recall of 19.2 million eggs was upgraded to a highest-risk warning and Hampton Grocers, Inc. recalled its Lacnola Lactation Granola over possible salmonella contamination.

None of us want to endanger ourselves or our families. A few years ago, recalls didn’t come at the fast and furious pace they do currently. Watching the news or reading the morning paper (remember those days?) seemed sufficient for staying on top of what we need to avoid. Now, it’s easy for a new notification to blend into one you heard yesterday or slip through the cracks when you’re muting a political ad.

In order to maintain the same level of safety, you may need to consider signing up for recall notifications. The FDA’s notification service requires you to fill out this form.

https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USFDA/subscriber/new

Additional sources of information include:

The FDA Website www.fda.gov has many levels of information on food, drug, and product recalls.

The CDC website contains information on Current Foodborne Outbreaks. It lists active investigations by germ, has a table of outbreak notices with links to each individual notice, plus additional information. These can be found here https://www.cdc.gov/foodborne-outbreaks/outbreaks/index.html

There’s a federal government website managed by the US Department of Health & Human Services called FoodSafety.gov https://www.foodsafety.gov/recalls-and-outbreaks This site contains safe internal food temperature and other information on food safety in addition to recalls and outbreaks.

Foods overseen by the USDA will have recalls posted on the Food Safety and Inspection Service website https://www.fsis.usda.gov/recalls

Some retailers publish recalls on their websites.

For example, Walmart publishes food, drug, and product recalls here https://corporate.walmart.com/recalls

Costco posts recalls here https://www.costco.com/f/-/recalls

Target’s recall page can be found here https://www.target.com/help/articles/news-safety/product-recalls

Whole Foods has a recall page https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/legal/product-recalls

Kroger lists recall alerts here https://www.kroger.com/i/recall-alerts and here https://www.ralphs.com/i/recall-alerts

Trader Joe’s posts recalls under announcements https://www.traderjoes.com/home/announcements?category=store-openings&id=74537090

The Amazon list of announcements with links resides here https://www.amazon.com/product-safety-alerts and contains a link to take you to recalls of any products you’ve purchased through Amazon.

If the government sites and retailer sites aren’t sufficient for your family, you may want to consider a paid notification service.

Subscription services that push recall notices to you:

Recall Watch https://getrecalls.com/

Recall Ping https://www.recallping.com/

RecallGuard https://recalledbrands.com/#/

SecureRecalls https://www.securerecalls.com/

Recall Radar https://recallradar.company/manage-subscription

I have not used and cannot vouch for any of these services. Most of the paid services have a free trial or unpaid tier so you don’t get locked into paying for a service that doesn’t bring the information you were seeking.

You can also get updates by following some of these sources on social media. For me, this isn’t ideal because I primarily use BlueSky and some of the government sites do not post there.

It’s important to stay safe and I prefer to do so without having to scramble around looking for information resources. Having these links readily accessible removes a lot of stress. We hope this list of resources will serve to reduce your stress as things go from bad to worse.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Holiday Baking – Keep it Safe!

shortbread I’m getting ready to begin some holiday baking and I want to make sure I keep it safe! Yes, that means I’m going to try not to burn the cookies to a crisp like I did a cheesecake crust at Thanksgiving. And yes, it means I’ll try to keep my paper towels away from the burner flame when I’m melting chocolate. Okay, I’ll try not to drop a knife by my toe either; but even more importantly, I’m going to check for food recalls before I begin.

If you’ve watched the news at all this year, you have probably seen numerous food recalls. I remember seeing one involving natural peanut butter. Since peanut butter cookies are on my baking list, I want to make sure that the natural peanut butter in my pantry is not the one I saw on the news. The fastest way I know to find out is to visit the FDA website http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/.
recall list
A quick review of the site this morning assured me that my peanut butter is not on the list. It also reminded me that the most common sort of recall seems to be a failure to include some ingredient or other on a label. Sometimes this sounds serious. Other times it’s a bit comical, like when a company has to recall edamame because they failed to note it contains soy. It IS soy for cryin’ out loud, but maybe it’s good to make sure we know that.

One of the most common reasons for recall in the current FDA list is failing to note that a product contains nuts of some sort – walnuts, peanuts, etc. If you are severely allergic to nuts, it is probably wise to avoid all processed food all the time since the failure to label their inclusion appears to happen with an uncomfortable frequency.

In addition to periodically checking the FDA site, I am a vigilant washer of fruits and vegetables. I know it may seem silly to wash an orange if I’m just going to throw away the peel, but I do it anyway. My mom once had a fungus growing in her lungs that was attributed to orange peel. Whether that was the real culprit or not, it was enough to convince me that taking the time to wash the produce was not too inconvenient. An, of course I’ll make sure my cutting boards and countertops are clean before I start slicing fruit and rolling dough.

Now that I’ve done my homework to keep it safe, it’s time to get in the kitchen and do some baking! I can’t wait to smell warm cookies in the oven.

Have fun preparing your holiday treats & keep it safe in the kitchen!

A list of recent recalls is also available here:

http://www.fda.gov/AJAX/All/default.htm

Breaking News from Cooking2Thrive: FINALLY – A Standard for Gluten-Free Labeling!

If you’ve seen the news today, you know that The Food and Drug Administration of the United States has finally determined its definition of gluten-free. Following a previously accepted standard in Europe and consistent with the Codex Alimentarius labeling guidelines of the World Health Organization, all food labeled gluten-free in the US one year from now must contain less than 20 parts per million (ppm) gluten.

While this has been a long time coming (a standard was first proposed in 2007) a uniform measurement requirement for labels is good news for those with Celiac Disease as well as the gluten-intolerant. For the next year in the US, it will still be necessary to read the list of ingredients on products displaying a gluten-free label to make sure that there are no questionable items listed. After that, less vigilance will be required to feel assured that your risk of exposure is low when consuming a product bearing a gluten-free label.

It will be interesting to see whether this labeling standard will remain in place for the long term. After using the standard of labeling any product with 200 mg gluten/kg or 20 ppm as gluten-free for over 25 years, in 2008 the European Union revised its labeling to a dual standard. The two categories are:

1)Foods containing less than 20 ppm gluten – labeled as gluten-free

2)Foods that contain 21 – 100 ppm gluten – labeled as very low gluten

As more research emerges, it may be beneficial to change our standard as well. Hopefully, having now established a definition of gluten-free will make any future revisions go much faster. For now, let’s just celebrate this progress with a big bowl of ice cream and, perhaps, a piece of flourless cake!

References:

http://glutenfreepassport.com/food-service-how-to-serve-guests/food-product-labeling/

http://www.coeliac.org.uk/healthcare-professionals/diet-information/new-labelling-legislation