Poo-matoes

**Warning** salmonella risk for uncooked tomatoes. June 2008, over 800 people got sick from eating contaminated tomatoes. Testing cleared the farms, inferring that the contamination was coming from further down the supply chain, possibly warehouses or distribution centers.

According to Wikipedia:

Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which project in all directions (i.e. peritrichous). They obtain their energy from oxidation and reduction reactions using organic sources and are facultative anaerobes; most species produce hydrogen sulfide,[1] which can readily be detected by growing them on media containing ferrous sulfate, such as TSI.

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What is an enterobacteria?
It means it lives in your shit, or, more precisely, the intestinal tracts of animals, including humans and birds.

How is shit contaminating tomatoes?
The number one way that shit gets into food is during slaughter. The animal's intestines are pierced, contaminating the flesh with all that nice shit, that we then eat.

Eggs get salmonella because the eggs are laid in shit and during processing the outside of the shell contaminates the stuff we eat.

Another very common way to get salmonella is by having a food worker NOT wash their hands after going poo. Then their shit gets into your food.

Doesn't that make you hungry?

As the world gets more populated, our water and food are getting contaminated. What we call food has turned into a mega-business and we are getting more and more removed from our food. Kids don't know what they are eating - many have never seen the animals they are eating - and neither do the adults.

Did you know that fruit freeze has ZERO fruit in it, or that ice cream doesn't have any dairy in it, or that "whipped topping" is another petroleum product!!??

I remember one vacation to Mexico. I did great all week, no Montezuma's Revenge [also known as E. Coli - another enterobacteria or fecal contaminant]. On the way back to the states I had a hamburger in the Mexico City airport and Montezuma came home with me. My best estimation is that the lettuce on the burger had been washed in the local water - which had E Coli in it.

Wash your hands. Wash your food. Drink clean water. Quit eating shit - and lose weight!

When you pick up a pretty little package of food just ask yourself; "How much shit do you think is really in there?"

Jabba the Hut

My first boyfriend was a real piece of work. He was a 21 year old high school drop-out and he lived with his parents. To his credit; he had blonde hair, which he feathered back on the sides and the handle to his big black comb looked really good in the back pocket of his 501 jeans.

The girls thought he was hot, and he could buy beer so, I kept him around.

One of our constant fights was over money. I worked, went to school and saved my money. He didn't. His ultimate relationship consisted of waking up at 1PM, picking me up from school at 2:30, mooching money off of me while he drove me to work, spending whatever I gave him, repeat the next day.

If he got a job, it never lasted long. He worked construction, in a rental yard and for a water softener company but the job I remember was when he worked for a fast food supplier.

I think his paycheck actually had the fast food company name on it but he didn't work in the brightly colored store with a drive up window. He worked in the factory that baked the sesame seed buns.

He used to crawl out of bed at 4:30 in the morning in order to be working at 5:30. He wore a big jumpsuit kinda outfit and a hair net and he came home smelling like chemicals.

Anyone that has worked in the food industry has gross stories about what they did to the food. Most employees are teenagers that haven't figured out how to use deodorant or that the red pustules on their faces actually go away when you wash.

My neanderthal was just like his co-workers, stupid and immature. Their favorite game was how big a lugie they could spit into the batter without getting caught. Eventually mine was caught and we returned to the 1PM wake up ritual.

I tried to eat at that big brightly colored fast food restaurant after that but, each time I did all I could see was a lugie the size of Jabba the Hut and my hunger miraculously subsided.


Come on now - your turn! What gross restaurant stories do you have?

How Much Rat Poo Did You Eat Today?

According to the FDA's "Food Defect Action Levels" Guidelines, there are certain amounts of poo, bugs, maggots, etc in our food that are unavoidable and present no health hazards for humans.

Here's the disclosure from the FDA: The FDA set these action levels because it is economically impractical to grow, harvest, or process raw products that are totally free of non-hazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects. Products harmful to consumers are subject to regulatory action whether or not they exceed the action levels.

It is incorrect to assume that because the FDA has an established defect action level for a food commodity, the food manufacturer need only stay just below that level. The defect levels do no represent an average of the defects that occur in any of the products--the averages are actually much lower. The levels represent limits at which FDA will regard the food product "adulterated"; and subject to enforcement action under Section 402(a)(3) of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act.

I never really thought about what was in the pretty packages that we call food until I was about 6. I was helping my mom with the shopping and I picked up a pretty yellow package of "beef".

At the time we were living on the edge of San Jose, California with wide open fields all around us. We were the first ones to move into the precise little row of partially built homes leading straight to the foothills. Our favorite past time was running wild in the fields of mustard greens, dreaming up games to play and watching out for the farmer that shot rock salt at the kids. I knew what cows were. I had seen them up close.

With wide eyes I looked from the pretty pink ribbons in the package up to my mom's face,"Where does it come from?"
Looking down at the shopping list she replied, "Cows"
As my mom said the word I felt my stomach turning. I had seen the squirrels my dad brought home from hunting. I had helped clean them and turn them into dinner but not the moo cows. Dropping the package back into the big commercial fridge, I plopped down on the ground.
"No mom, not a moo cow"
"Rebekah Victoria get up off that filthy floor and put the package in the basket".
Our moo cow discussion was over.

One of the side effects of "processed" food - which is just about everything we eat - is poo, maggots, and bugs. If they aren't in the food to begin with, they get in the food while it is being processed, put into those pretty little packages and delivered to the store for our consumption.


So, the next time you pick up a pretty little package of food ask yourself one question: How much rat poo do you think is in there?