Protection From Food

It didn’t take long for the 143 million pound recall of frozen beef to begin an E-Mail circulation that probably hit your Inbox as well as mine. Last month, I received an E-Mail taking on a humorous outlook on our food industry only three days after the recall story was reported.

Can’t eat beef, Mad cow

Can’t eat chicken, Bird Flu

Can eat eggs, Salmonella

Can’t eat pork, Trichinosis

Can’t eat fish, Water Poisoning

Can’t eat fruits and veggies, Insecticides and Herbicides

I believe that leaves CHOCOLATE!!!!

Of course chocolate isn’t an option because that, too, comes from the cocoa bean plant as well as does damage to our dental work.

But right when you think it ends there, it doesn’t. Just two days, Michigan-based Meijer Inc. recalled over 2,000 pounds of their “Discover Cuisine” frozen dinners for possible contamination oflisteria, a microorganism that can cause illness or death. The good news is there’s no need for a worldwide alert, this only affected four states. The bad news is what is happening to our food supply?

While that is an entire topic that will be discussed later, I really want to focus on how can we protect ourselves from these dangers. I don’t want to fright you from opening your favorite pack of ground beef and making your world-famous meatloaf, but it always better to be safe than sorry. It’s okay to be a bit paranoid of what’s going on, but ridiculous to ignore it.

• GROW YOUR OWN GARDEN is one of the best steps to take. This is especially great for homeowners and very cost effective. After all, wouldn’t you trust the food that you grow and prepare yourself? Of course, you would. The Simple Dollar posted an excellent article on “Planning A Kitchen Garden”. If that sounds like a great route for you to take, I urge that you read this article.
• SHOP AT A FARMER’S MARKET, if you’re not a homeowner, like myself in the meantime, but still want the safety and quality from your fruits and veggies. Farmer’s Market is just that, a market where local farmer’s come and sell their products. This protects you from the farmers of huge grocery conglomerates that use heavy insecticides or any other chemicals that manage to make a simple apply look 5 pounds large. I found my farmer’s market from a Google Map Search. After a bit more searching, it leads me to a couple of websites that provides more information on when and where these farmers meet up.
• WASH EVERYTHING. And I mean everything, wash your food throughly, your hands, dishes, clothes, EVERYTHING. Bacteria live on practically everything and if it so happens to find a way into your body, well…you know the rest.
• DON’T USE SPONGES. Bacteria live on sponges as well. I think we’ve all seen the commercials where demonstrating the use of sponges.
• COOK YOUR FOOD THOROUGHLY. Especially for meats (including chicken and fish) and eggs. Heat can kill bacteria in meats and under cooked eggs where the yolk is still runny can lead to salmonella poisoning. So those “sunny-side up” egg lovers may want to consider scrambled.
• LESSEN THE PROBABILITY by lowering your grocery bill. Try to take in less food and ultimately lessen your grocery bill. The more ground beef you have in your freezer the more likely of a chance you may have a contaminated product waiting for you. Fix yourself on a regular diet to lead you to a healthier outcome.  The news and the media will continue to cover these stories as laws and regulations on the handling at slaughterhouses and farms will hopefully become even stricter as time progress. The worse case scenario is we’ll lose our food supply.

Even then there’s no need to worry. If push comes to shove, The Global Crop Diversity Trust is the only one organization that has provided an answer to the food crisis if the worse scenario levies about. They are planning to store seeds of the world’s plants in one huge vault in the coldest point on the planet, the Arctic Circle. This is something fascinating to read about, so be sure to visit their site as well.