"The collective review of the current traceback investigation and harvesting dates, matched with the dates that people became ill, have combined to indicate that the contaminated jalapeño pepper (only one?)originated in Mexico. Additional traceback and traceforward information obtained this week has led to the determination that the Agricola Zarigosa produce-distribution center in McAllen, Texas--from where FDA took the positive jalapeño pepper sample--was not the original source of the contamination."

Mexican officials said the findings were "premature."

Initially, tomatoes seemed the most likely source of the outbreak. The FDA told consumers to avoid certain raw tomatoes on June 7, prompting grocery chains and some restaurants nationwide to stop offering them. As a result over $100 million in tomatoes have been destroyed. The agency lifted that ban last week.

So far, 1,294 people infected with the same type of Salmonella Saintpaul have been identified in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada, according to the CDC.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01865.html, http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/07/25/fda.salmonella/

This is London | Jul 24, 2008

The European Food Safety Authority found that animals involved in cloning suffer pain and ill-health linked to miscarriages, organ defects and gigantism. It also flagged up the possibility that clones and their offspring could pass animal diseases to humans through meat and milk.

The inquiry was launched in January 2007 after the Daily Mail highlighted the fact that Dundee Paradise – the offspring of a clone – had been born on a British farm.

Last month, the Mail reported that a total of eight 'clone farm' calves have now been born on British farms.

Frozen embryos taken from the clones of prize-winning Holstein cows in the U.S. were flown to the UK and implanted into farm animals.

Advocates claim it will allow prize-winning animals to be copied to create a new generation of animals, able to produce vast quantities of milk or lean meat.

But the report by the EFSA, set up in 2002 to improve EU food safety, said: 'The health and welfare of a significant proportion of clones have been found to be adversely affected, often severely and with a fatal outcome.'

Professor Vittorio Silano, of the EFSA, said: 'It is clear there are significant animal health and welfare issues for surrogate mothers and clones that can be more frequent and severe than for conventionally-bred animals.'

The cloning process involves taking the nucleus of cells from the ear of an animal and implanting them in an egg from a female. The fertilisation process is kick-started with an electric charge.

There are large number of miscarriages of embryos. Organ defects lead to death in pregnancy or soon after birth.

EFSA said clones are also more likely to show 'gigantism'. They are so large the only way they can be born is through caesarean section.

The study highlighted the need to find out why clones and their offspring are more vulnerable to some diseases and if these could be a food safety threat.

The report said: 'It should be investigated whether consumption of meat and milk derived from clones or their offspring may lead to increased exposure to transmissable agents.'

The developments in clone farming have outpaced moves by the British Government and EU to put in place a policing mechanism.

There is no system to monitor the existence and welfare of clones and their offspring. Nor is there any system to ensure that meat and milk from these animals is labelled to inform shoppers.

The final decision on whether to allow clone farming and food rests with the European Commission.

Peter Stevenson of Compassion in World Farming, said: 'Britain and the EU should ban cloning, not just farming but also food from cloned animals and their offspring because of the very serious health and welfare issues.'

RSPCA senior scientist, Dr Nikki Osborne, said: 'The RSPCA believes cloning of animals for food production should be banned on animal welfare and ethical grounds.'

Sue Davies, Chief Policy Adviser at consumer group Which?, said: 'This EFSA opinion highlights why it is far too premature to think about using cloned animals for food production.'

Director of Eurogroup for Animals, Sonja Van Tichelen, said: 'The EU is now obligated to follow its own rules. Under the general farm directive a breeding technique that causes suffering should not be allowed.'

Last night Defra said it would expect food companies or farmers to seek advice from the Government before attempting to put meat and milk from clones or their offspring on the market.

by Steven Reinberg

WEDNESDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- Eating half a serving of soy food a day lowers sperm concentrations and may play a role in male infertility, particularly in obese men, Harvard University researchers report.

The reason for this relationship between soy and sperm count isn't clear. However, researchers speculate that soy increases estrogen activity, which may have a negative affect on sperm production and also interfere with other hormonal signals.

"There have been a lot of interest in estrogen and isoflavones in particular and a potential relationship to fertility and other reproductive disorders," said lead researcher Dr. Jorge Chavarro, a research fellow in the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Research in animals has shown that isoflavones and estrogen can have a potentially negative affect on reproduction, including decreased fertility, Chavarro said. However, there is very little evidence of how these findings apply to humans, he said.

The new research, he added, lends support to how results of animal studies apply to humans. But Chavarro considers the findings preliminary and inconclusive. "It's way too early to say stop eating soy foods," he said. "It's not time to worry about whether you're eating too much soy. There's not enough information to conclusively say that. "

His report was published in the July 24 online edition of the journal Human Reproduction.

For the study, Chavarro and colleagues collected data on 99 men who attended a fertility clinic for evaluation. The men were asked about how much of 15 soy-based foods they ate in the past three months.

The foods men were asked about included tofu, tempeh, tofu or soy sausages, bacon, burgers, soy milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream and other soy products like roasted nuts and energy bars.

Because different foods have different levels of isoflavones, half a serving of soy is equal to about one cup of soy milk or one serving of tofu or soy burgers every other day, Chavarro noted.

Chavarro's team found that men who ate the most soy had 41 million fewer sperm per milliliter of semen compared with men who did not eat soy foods. Normal sperm counts range between 80 million and 120 million per milliliter, according to a press release from the journal, a monthly publication of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology.

In addition, the researchers found that the link between soy and sperm concentration was stronger among overweight and obese men. Overweight and obese men produce more estrogen than thinner men, and soy may increase those estrogen levels even further, they speculated.

Moreover, the link between soy and sperm concentration was strongest in men with higher sperm concentrations. Men who have normal or high sperm counts may be more susceptible to soy foods than men with low sperm counts, Chavarro said.

Infertility expert Dr. Hossein Sadeghi-Nejad, an associate professor of urology at UMDNJ New Jersey Medical School and Hackensack University Medical Center, agreed that soy may be one factor affecting fertility, especially in overweight and obese men.

"When patients are overweight, the fat tissue converts male hormones to more female hormones," Sadeghi-Nejad said. "So, it is possible that the combination of this estrogenic source [soy] and the extra internal estrogen that is caused by the conversion of androgen to estrogen through the fat has a more deleterious effect in that group of patients."

In addition, Sadeghi-Nejad noted that although sperm counts decreased most among men who have the highest counts, that should not affect fertility, since sperm counts were still in the normal range.

"But this is a good reminder that if you have an overweight patient, with abnormal semen parameters, and a very high soy intake, it may be wise for them to decrease this factor," Sadeghi-Nejad said.

The Slow POISONING OF MANKIND
This is pretty interesting.

We the public do not want to be rats in one giant experiment!

MSG. The food additive MSG (Mono-Sodium Glutamate) is a slow
poison. MSG hides behind 25 or more names, such as 'Natural
Flavoring.'

MSG is even in your favorite coffee from Tim Horton's and
Starbucks coffee shops!

I wondered if there could be an actual chemical causing the
massive obesity epidemic, and so did a friend of mine, John Erb. He
was a research assistant at the University of Waterloo in
Ontario ,
Canada , and spent years working for the government. He made an
amazing discovery while going through scientific journals for a book
he was writing called The Slow Poisoning of America .

In hundreds of studies around the world, scientists were
creating obese mice and rats to use in diet or diabetes test studies.
No strain of rat or mice is naturally obese, so scientists have to
create them. They make these creatures morbidly obese by injecting
them with MSG when they are first born.

The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates,
causing rats (and perhaps humans) to become obese. They even have a
name for the fat rodents they create: 'MSG-Treated Rats.'

When I heard this, I was shocked. I went into my kitchen and
checked the cupboards and the refrigerator. MSG was in everything --
the Campbell 's soups, the
Hostess Doritos, the Lays flavored potato
chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy,
Swanson frozen prepared meals, and Kraft salad dressings,
especially the 'healthy low-fat' ones.

The items that didn't have MSG marked on the product label
had something called 'Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein,' which is just
another name for Monosodium Glutamate.

It was shocking to see just how many of the foods we feed our
children everyday are filled with this stuff. MSG is hidden under
many different names in order to fool those who read the ingredient
list, so that they don't catch on. (Other names for MSG are 'Accent,
'Aginomoto,' 'Natural Meat Tenderizer,' etc.)

But it didn't stop there.

When our family went out to eat, we started asking at the
restaurants what menu items contained MSG. Many employees, even
the
managers, swore they didn't use MSG.

But when we asked for the ingredient list, which they
grudgingly provided, sure enough, MSG and Hydrolyzed Vegetable
Protein were everywhere.

Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, every restaurant
-- even the sit-down eateries like TGIF, Chili's,

Applebee's, and Denny's -- use MSG in abundance. Kentucky Fried
Chicken seemed to be the WORST offender: MSG was in every chicken
dish, salad dressing. and gravy. No wonder I loved to eat that

coating on the skin -- their secret spice was MSG!

So why is MSG in so many of the foods we eat? Is it a
preservative, or a vitamin?

Not according to my friend John Erb. In his book The Slow
Poisoning of America , he said that MSG is added to food for the
addictive effect it has on the human body.

Even the
propaganda website sponsored by the food
manufacturers lobby group supporting MSG explains that the reason
they add it to food is to make people eat more.

A study of the elderly showed that older people eat more of
the foods that it is added to. The Glutamate Association lobbying
group says eating more is a benefit to the elderly, but what does it
do to the rest of us?

'Betcha can't eat [just] one,' takes on a whole new
meaning
where MSG is concerned! And we wonder why the nation is overweight!

MSG manufacturers themselves admit that it addicts people to
their products. It makes people choose their product over others,
and makes people eat more of it than they would if MSG wasn't added.

Not only is MSG scientifically proven to cause obesity, it is
an addictive substance. Since its introduction into the American
food supply fifty
years ago, MSG has been added in larger and larger
doses to the pre-packaged meals, soups, snacks, and fast foods we are
tempted to eat everyday.

The FDA has set no limits on how much of it can be added to
food. They claim it's safe to eat in any amount. But how can they
claim it's safe when there are hundreds of scientific studies with
titles like these:

'The monosodium glutamate (MSG) obese rat as a model for the
study of exercise in obesity.' Gobatto CA, Mello MA, Souza CT ,
Ribeiro IA. Res Commun Mol Pathol Pharmacol. 2002.

'Adrenalectomy abolishes the food-induced hypothalamic
serotonin release in both normal and monosodium glutamate-obese
rats.' Guimaraes RB, Telles MM, Coelho VB, Mori C, Nascimento CM,
Ribeiro.

Brain Res Bull. 2002 Aug.

'Obesity induced by neonatal monosodium glutamate treatment
in spontaneously
hypertensive rats: An animal model of multiple risk
factors.' Iwase M, Yamamoto M, Iino K, Ichikawa K, Shinohara N,
Yoshinari Fujishima. Hypertens Res. 1998 Mar.

'Hypothalamic lesion induced by injection of monosodium
glutamate in suckling period and subsequent development of obesity.'
Tanaka K, Shimada M, Nakao K Kusunoki. Exp Neurol. 1978 Oct.

No, the date of that last study was not a typo; it was
published in 1978. Both the 'medical research community' and
'food
manufacturers' have known about the side effects of MSG for decades.

Many more of the studies mentioned in John Erb's book link
MSG to diabetes, migraines and headaches, autism, ADHD, and even
Alzheimer's.

So what can we do to stop the food manufactures from dumping
this fattening and addictive MSG into our food supply and causing the
obesity epidemic we now
see?

Several months ago, John Erb took his book and his concerns
to one of the highest government health officials in Canada . While
he was sitting in the government office, the official told him,
'Sure, I know how bad MSG is. I wouldn't touch the stuff.' But
this
top-level government official refuses to tell the public what he
knows.

The big media doesn't want to tell the public either, fearing
issues with their advertisers. It seems that the fallout on the fast
food industry may hurt their profit margin. The food producers and
restaurants have been addicting us to their products for years, and
now we are paying the price for it. Our children should not be
cursed with obesity caused by an addictive food additive.

But what can I do about it? I'm just one voice! What can I
do to stop the poisoning of our children, while our governments
are
insuring financial protection for the industry that is poisoning us?

This message is going out to everyone I know in an attempt to tell
you the truth that the corporate-owned politicians and media won't
tell you.

The best way you can help to save yourself and your children
from this drug-induced epidemic is to forward this article to
everyone. With any luck, it will circle the globe before politicians
can pass the legislation protecting those who are poisoning us.

The food industry learned a lot from the tobacco industry.
Imagine if big tobacco had a bill like this in place before someone
blew the whistle on nicotine?

If you are one of the few who can still believe that MSG is
good for us and you don't believe what John Erb has to say, see for
yourself. Go to the National Library of Medicine at
www.pubmed.com
.

Type in the words 'MSG Obese' and read a few of the 115
medical studies that appear.

We the public do not want to be rats in one giant experiment,
and we do not approve of food that makes us into a nation of obese,
lethargic, addicted sheep, feeding the food industry's bottom line
while waiting for the heart transplant, the diabetic-induced
amputation, blindness, or other obesity-

induced, life-threatening disorders.

With your help we can put an end to this poison.

Do your part in sending this message out by word of mouth,
e-mail, or by distribution of this printout to your friends all over
the world and stop this 'Slow Poisoning of Mankind' by the packaged
food industry.

Blowing the whistle on MSG is our responsibility, so get the word
out.

By the time the FDA gets around to telling us there's an outbreak of salmonella or E.Coli, we've probably already eaten the product. When many of us buy ground beef or fresh tomatoes, we go directly home and have them for dinner.

But then the next time we go to the market, we avoid ground beef and fresh tomatoes. Now we find out the FDA is wrong about tomatoes. It's the jalapeno pepper that might have caused the recent salmonella outbreak. So now we're avoiding jalapenos.

When the FDA issues such a warning, it has severe consequences for growers. According to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, one Kentucky farm family has lost a contract to sell jalapeno peppers to a major retailer because of the FDA's guidance, even though they grow their peppers under Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) guidelines and there is nothing connecting their products to this outbreak.

Kentucky vegetable growers and processors follow guidelines set up by the GAP program, which educates farmers on the best practices for growing, transporting and handling produce to minimize the risk of food contamination. The state and the University of Kentucky launched GAP last year. Since then, 855 Kentucky producers have been trained on GAP principles.

We can feel confident when we buy Kentucky Proud fruits and vegetables that they're safe.

Today: Tomatoes good; jalapeños bad.

Yesterday:  Jalapeños good; tomatoes bad.

Tomorrow: Will the media help us realize that the current Salmonella saintpaul mini-outbreak does not necessarily have a single-point source?

Nah.

The USDA reports that 10% of all chickens inspected at U.S. slaughterhouses last year had Salmonella contamination. So did 4% of all ground hamburger.

Produce-borne contamination tracking is new to the FDA and CDC, and the epidemiological effort does not follow the actual farm-to-market chain. Harvested produce is culled in the field and then re-sorted again by size and quality in packing houses, where fruit and vegetables from multiple sources are combined. Additional re-sorting and mixing occurs in the distribution chain and at the retail level.  Out-of-season produce from the Southern Hemisphere may be easier to track and isolate than North American produce.

But so what?

There are 50,000 culture-confirmed cases of Salmonella gastroenteritis in the USA every year. The current number of veggie-borne Salmonella saintpaul cases in this ballyhooed "outbreak": 900.

This scare is tabloid journalism of the worst kind and displaces real front-page news.

And that is really sick.

Image cooked up by Mike Licht.

Once again, our friend Ben would like to join our old friend Tom Paine in making a plea for common sense. Rather than panicking and avoiding produce altogether, or punishing innocent, hardworking veggie growers for one bad crop produced by someone else, let's take this as a wake-up call, a reminder that knowing who's growing your food really matters.

If you're able to grow your own, you know exactly what goes into it---and what stays out of it. We're passionate, lifelong organic gardeners here at Hawk's Haven, and would as soon roll around in a vat of plutonium as dump toxic chemicals on our crops. We know our food is safe to eat right off the plant, and we like it that way. Ditto for the eggs that our healthy, well-fed chickens provide for us. No frantic sterilizing of eggshells around here!

But we don't grow everything we eat, not by a long stretch. We'll get our jalapenos from our heat-loving friend and fellow blog contributor Richard Saunders, who grows a variety of hot peppers in containers in his small-town backyard. And if we need more hot peppers, we'll pick them from the U-Pick garden at our CSA, Quiet Creek Farm. Or buy some from the farmers who grow them at our local farmer's market. Or stock up at the Bowers Chile Pepper Festival in September, which features locally-grown hot peppers. Or head out to hot pepper headquarters, Jim Weaver's Meadow View Farm, for a few cartons of his colorful heirloom peppers or one of his custom hot-pepper powders or a beautiful ristra of dried peppers.

Worried about salmonella? Not us. We know where our food is coming from. We know who's growing it, and how. We plan to enjoy an abundance of veggies---including spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, and jalapenos---all summer, and support local growers (and the local economy) in the process. Everybody wins!

So please, don't turn your back on tomatoes, hot peppers, or whatever the next veggie in the typhoid train is this year. Instead, check out the locally-grown produce at your grocery and/or farmers' market. You may be lucky enough to live in an area, like we do, that has a wealth of farm stands selling produce directly from the farms themselves. We also have health-food stores that carry a range of organic produce, and buy from them (selectively; they tend to be pricey) in winter, when local sources are less available. But we refuse to be intimidated or panicked by food scares, which, after all, are blown out of all proportion to make more exciting news. It's all about ratings, isn't it?

So be an informed consumer. Make a point of knowing who's growing your family's food. Then, instead of obsessing about whether it's safe to eat, you can focus on enjoying its delicious flavor and healthful properties. Or, say, the good companionship and conversation of your fellow diners.

Our friend Ben feels that America's had an unhealthy relationship to food (not even counting these salmonella and E. coli scares) long enough. It's time to stop endlessly analyzing our food to the last carb or calorie, obsessing about food, hating ourselves for eating food, and eating prepackaged chemical conglomerations that are sold as food. To me, this is the worst form of narcissism, yet another way to waste our time and energy on our precious, precious selves instead of focusing outward. Surely we have better things to think about!

Refrigerate or freeze perishables right away.

Foods that require refrigeration should be put in the refrigerator as soon as you get them home. Stick to the "two-hour rule" for leaving items needing refrigeration out at room temperature. Never allow meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, or produce or other foods that require refrigeration to sit at room temperature for more than two hours—one hour if the air temperature is above 90° F. This also applies to items such as leftovers, "doggie bags," and take-out foods. Also, when putting food away, don't crowd the refrigerator or freezer so tightly that air can't circulate.

Keep your appliances at the proper temperatures.

Keep the refrigerator temperature at or below 40° F (4° C). The freezer temperature should be 0° F (-18° C). Check temperatures periodically. Appliance thermometers are the best way of knowing these temperatures and are generally inexpensive.

Check storage directions on labels.

Many items other than meats, vegetables, and dairy products need to be kept cold. For instance, mayonnaise and ketchup should go in the refrigerator after opening. If you've neglected to properly refrigerate something, it's usually best to throw it out.

Use ready-to-eat foods as soon as possible.

Refrigerated ready-to-eat foods such as luncheon meats should be used as soon as possible. The longer they're stored in the refrigerator, the more chance Listeria, a bacterium that causes foodborne illness, can grow, especially if the refrigerator temperature is above 40° F (4° C).

Be alert for spoiled food.

Anything that looks or smells suspicious should be thrown out. Mold is a sign of spoilage. It can grow even under refrigeration. Mold is not a major health threat, but it can make food unappetizing. The safest practice is to discard food that is moldy.

Refrigeration Tips

Marinate food in the refrigerator. Bacteria can multiply rapidly in foods left to marinate at room temperature. Also, never reuse marinating liquid as a sauce unless you bring it to a rapid boil first.

Clean the refrigerator regularly and wipe spills immediately. This helps reduce the growth of Listeria bacteria and prevents drips from thawing meat that can allow bacteria from one food to spread to another. Clean the fridge out frequently.

Keep foods covered. Store refrigerated foods in covered containers or sealed storage bags, and check leftovers daily for spoilage. Store eggs in their carton in the refrigerator itself rather than on the door, where the temperature is warmer.

Check expiration dates. If food is past its "use by" date, discard it. If you're not sure or if the food looks questionable, throw it out.

Click here to learn more about Food Safety compliance

1. Keep HOT foods HOT, and Cold foods COLD

The danger zone for food is between 41 and 140 degrees. Simply put, microbes thrive in this temperature zone. When outdoors, serve all composed salads super cold by putting the serving container into a bowl of ice. All hot foods should be served immediately or kept warmer than 140 degrees. Keep all food covered when not in use. Make sure that all your ingredients in your composed salads are cold before mixing them together (everybody at one time or another has added hot eggs or warm potatoes to a salad then added mayo to make it; this is not safe).

2. Wash all utensils, food prep surfaces, and your hands after handling meat

Keep a container of warm soapy water handy to wash all food prep surfaces, being careful not to cross-contaminate other surfaces. Keep hands clean by using utensils to handle meat. Wash your hands thouroghly BEFORE and AFTER you handle meat ( and after you use the bathroom, no exceptions). Use a different container to transport raw meat, another to transport cooked meat

3. Do not re-use marinades. EVER.

If you want to baste that chicken with some of that lovely marinade that you made, think ahead and make extra. Marinades can be a perfect anaerobic environment to bacteria that causes all sorts of nasty germs.

4. Keep a thermometer handy

A probe-type thermometer can be bought at any grocery store for about $8, and can keep you in check tor making sure hot foods stay hot, and cold foods stay cold.

5. Cook meat thouroughly

Make sure all meat is cooked thouroghly. Here are the temperatures needed to assure meat is cooked and free from bacteria:

Rare beef- 130°

Pork, Beef, Lamb, Seafood - 145°

Hamburger or ground beef- 155°

All poultry- 165°

Keep these few facts in mind, and your outdoor gathering should be a safe one!

Enjoy!

- Rebecca

The bags are printed with instructions to "Wash Fruits and Vegetables Before Serving," and they're being provided to markets throughout the state as part of a food safety initiative. Later on, they want to send us a bunch of surveys to find out if the message "stuck" with our customers.

I said, "Sure!" because, you know, free stuff from the state is cool! Especially for our little market!

Here's what I got in the mail a couple weeks later:

This is a 48lb. box of plastic. It contained approximately 1500 plastic bags, plus a bunch of handouts about washing fruits and veggies printed on cardstock. And when I opened it, I thought, Oh. Oh no. In saying yes to this, I have said yes to raping and littering the planet.

Maybe I was being a little over-dramatic, but 48 pounds of plastic bags is more than our market will likely use in five years! And it also occurs to me that, if they want to get a message out that people will remember, why didn't they print it on something that people would hold onto?

Many of our customers at the farmers market bring their own bags these days. They actually feel guilty if they forget their bags and have to take a plastic one. I've seen people putting cukes in their purses to avoid yet another plastic bag. For goodness sake--entire countries have banned the use of plastic bags!

A quote from the CNN article here:

Often, the flimsy bags are used once and discarded, adding to waste in a country grappling with air and water pollution as a result of rapid economic transformation, officials said.

"Our country consumes a large amount of plastic bags. While convenient for consumers, the bags also lead to a severe waste of resources and environmental pollution because of their excessive use and low rate of recycling," the statement at the Web site Gov.cn said. "The ultra-thin bags are the main source of 'white' pollution as they can easily get broken and end up as litter."

The government statement added, "We should encourage people to return to carrying cloth bags, using baskets for their vegetables."

Congratulations, China, for being a world leader in environmental policy!

Not only do many of our customers bring their own bags, our farmers market has a new vendor (she'll hopefully be coming more regularly now that VAAC Art Camp is ending) who is making lovely up-cycled grocery and tote bags from all kinds of fabulous remnants and doilies and table linens she finds in thrift shops.

Would you prefer plastic, or this?

Now, it's not that we don't appreciate free stuff from the state. Believe me, we're happy to be getting some recognition and help! And we appreciate all the free advice and support that our extension agents have given throughout the years.

But my gentle suggestion is this--don't send us 1500 plastic bags that will end up in rivers, streams, fields, and landfills. Send us 50 cloth bags that we can use as a giveaway promotion for our regular customers (or just customers who forgot their bag that day), and those bags and the message they're printed with will continue to show up at the market and around town--and not because they were blown into trees by the wind or scattered by the roadside when they sailed out a car window.

Heck, they're even making bags out of recycled plastic soda bottles now. So, if you get a little more grant money for a project like this, and you want your message to endure in consumer's minds, put the message on an enduring and reusable product that will also provide markets with a cool "freebie" to reward their customers. It will probably also cost a lot less in shipping!

One case, in Kentucky, is close to the Ohio border, but the other victims -- in Indiana and New York -- have not gone near the states of origin. Health officials are continuing to investigate any links.

Meanwhile, consumers are still wary of tomatoes, previously the prime suspect, and still not cleared by the FDA.

He was speaking at the launch of the Sixth National Food Safety Week in Accra yesterday.

He said that the total number of yearly out-patient cases reported with food-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera and hepatitis, is about 420,000 with annual death rate of not less than 65,000.

The launch, on the theme: "Clean markets, safe food — a healthy people", aimed at establishing a framework for the creation of food safety awareness among stakeholders such as the Ministry of Health, Food and Drugs Board (FDB), Ghana Standards Board (GSB), and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

It also sought to demonstrate the way in which safe food delivery can be attained through activating the right partnerships between regulatory institutions, industry, academia and consumers.

The minister said poor hygiene is associated with these diseases adding, "Diarrhoea diseases from consumption of raw and rotten vegetables and fruits, meat and fish production and processing, including street foods, are usually closely linked to poor hygiene".

More - Modern Ghana

• 167  228 552 613 756 869 922 1017 1090 1148 1167 1196 1220 1237 confirmed cases of Salmonella Saintpaul poisoning from contaminated raw tomatoes, peppers, and/or cilantro.
• At least 23 25 48 53 69 95 107 111 203 210 220 228 hospitalizations have been reported.
• 2 deaths are believed to be associated with the outbreak.
• 17 23  28 30 34 36 40 41 42 43 states involved. Texas has the largest number of cases with 131 384 448 people affected while Ilinois had 34 100 104,  followed by New Mexico at 70  98 102.
• Illnesses began between April 16 and May 27.
• Patients range in age from 1 to 82 years; 49% are female
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that for every salmonella case reported, 38 are not brought to the attention of physicians.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/saintpaul/

Apparently, studies by Federal scientists found virtually no difference between cloned foods when compared to food from conventional livestock. In a recent CNN.com article, “FDA: Cloned Livestock Is Safe To Eat,” Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine, stated “Meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day.”

Do you remember back to September 2000, when Kraft Foods voluntarily recalled Taco Bell brand taco shells because they were believed to contain a protein from an insect-resistant corn called Starlink, approved for animal feed, but not for human consumption? If Starlink livestock feed isn’t safe for human consumption via the meat we eat, doesn’t it seem hundreds of steps backward to consider cloned meat and dairy to be safe? Nothing further was ever reported about the taco shell incident, but the fact is when cows eat the controlled corn, the chemical properties of food the animal eats, feeds the muscle that we consume as meat or dairy.

Consider some little known information about cloned meat and the practice of cloning:
There are many different types of cloning and the basic technology for cloning can be used for purposes other than creating a genetic twin. For instance, therapeutic cloning, or embryo cloning, is used to harvest stem cells for medical research. With all the stem cell controversy today, it should position therapeutic cloning as an acceptable alternative for creating replacement cells to treat Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease, and other life-altering diseases.

Reproductive cloning is the process used to create the food our government is about to introduce into the general food supply, unlabeled. As you may know, reproductive cloning creates an animal, such as Dolly the sheep, with the same nuclear DNA as another existing animal. Dolly was originally created so that cloned organs could be transplanted into humans. She was born on July 5, 1996 and unveiled in 1997 after 277 failed attempts by Ian Wilmut, an embryologist at the Roslyn Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland, the team leader on the project. [caption id="attachment_13" align="alignright" width="128" caption="Dolly the Sheep"][/caption]

Cloned animals come about through a process called “somatic cell nuclear transfer” (SCNT) where the genetic material from the nucleus of an adult donor cell is transferred to an egg whose genetic material has been removed. This newly reconstructed egg is then treated with chemicals or electric current in order to stimulate cell division. Once the cloned embryo reaches a safe stage, it is transferred to the uterus of a female host where it continues to develop until birth.

Unfortunately, if the reprogramming process goes awry then deformity, disability, and death occur. And cows frequently spontaneously abort, or worse, end up with 30-40 pounds of fluid in their bellies due to the abnormally large size of the fetus, which causes great distress to the mother. Other irregularities are premature death at many different stages of life, respiratory failure, absence of an immune response, and inadequate kidney function occur, but these defects do not become apparent until long after birth.

And therein opens another can of what, cloned worms? Ask yourself…just how safe is the food we are eating today? And, exactly what are we eating now?

There certainly are controversies. Let us remember that testing hasn’t been conducted long enough to record the health risks, and most of the tests are being done by the companies doing the cloning. Without even considering the moral implications of cloning, putting cloned meat and milk into our general food supply is experimenting with the public welfare, and most definitely, we are not guinea pigs.

Consider Charlton Heston’s 1973 movie, Soylent Green which takes place in 2020-- a mere 12 years away--when fruit, vegetables, and meat were extinct. To feed 40 million starving people, a new green food from the Soylent Company appears on the market. As the tale unfolds, the viewer finds that the secret ingredient in this food tab is – well, um, dead humans. And that’s definitely the ICK heard round the world!

Just be safe and don’t mess with Mother Nature!

Authors Comment: I found this article on a blog and thought it was highly interesting, especially considering the interest in the apparent addiction factor of Timmy's coffee. I've written on this subject before, (Tim Horton's Nicotene/MSG? ) and that particular article went haywire with readers. After doing some research, I now find I have to alter my opinion on the ingredients of their coffee. Besides the moderation factor of coffee which most ignore, and the unhealthy chemicals so common in non-organic coffee, the Tim Horton's brand may indeed have other highly undesirable ingredients. Check out the interesting read below:

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Speculation abounds on the internet as to why an entire nation can't function without Tim Horton's coffee. Canadians will go to astonishing lengths to wrap their hands around a hot double-double. Theories range from nicotine to MSG, to insane amounts of caffeine to good old all-purpose crack cocaine. Thanks to a CBC investigation, the coffee has even been submitted for laboratory testing and come up clean. A few days after our return from Canada, I was send this email:

From: Chris
Date: Oct 3, 2007 5:30 PM
Subject: Tim Hortons EXPOSED
To: Susannah

I spent some time yesterday evening looking into the mystery of Tim Horton's rocket fuel. Some interesting finds:

Firstly, Tim Horton's claim that none of their coffee contains additives (none of their food, for that matter). A huge and already prosperous business is unlikely to risk their reputation by lying about this, so I assume they're telling the truth.

Harold McGee tells me that Colombian Arabica coffee beans, when roasted, contain small quantities of a substance called lactisole which reduces the apparent sweetness of sugar by two thirds. This is why a cup of 'double double' strength Tim Horton's, which contains a whopping 18 grams of sugar, tastes quite benign. The same amount of sugar dissolved in water would taste unusually sweet.

I did discover that lactisole has been synthesised and used by a company called Domino Sugar in a mixture called Super Envision Flavour and Texture Modifier. Not mentioned on their main website, they've hived off all their more controversial formulas onto www.dominospecialtyingredients.com, which tells me that:

Super Envision® Flavor and Texture Modifier is the latest Domino Specialty Ingredient product of the Envision sweetness inhibitor line. This unique ingredient reduces sweetness and allows the food formulator to use a full range of carbohydrates to maintain the desired attributes of products, such as: moisture retention, mouthfeel and water activity. Super Envision can typically be used at < 1%.

In other words, this stuff is used to cram more sugar into foods and sports drinks whilst not making it taste too sweet. Possibly why a can of coke is stuffed with 39 grams of sugar in only 12oz and still remains palatable. So the recipe seems pretty simple. Very strong coffee beans carefully chosen for a wide popularity, lots of sugar, lots of cream. Keeps 'em coming back for more.

In short: Tim Horton's coffee has no secret ingredient. Its crack-like qualities arise from its unique ability, thanks to naturally-occurring lactisole, to deliver not only caffeine but a double dose of good old-fashioned sugar -- 18 g, or just under 4 teaspoonsful, roughly as much as you'll find in 8-and-a-half Pixy Stix -- across your blood-brain barrier in a matter of minutes. The fact that a double-double also delivers 7 grams of delicious, delicious fat (4g of which are saturated), or roughly as much as you'll find in 2 teaspoonsful of butter, doesn't hurt either.

From: Susannah
Date: Oct 3, 2007 6:00 PM
Subject: Re: Tim Hortons EXPOSED
To: Chris

This is better than Matthew's calling up Kleenex to cross-question them about the "anti-viral" properties of their latest bird-flu-paranoia-inspired tissue.

That Super Envision stuff is scary. I presume all that bland corporate jargon just serves to conceal the fact that the stuff is used to allow food makers to shoehorn even more sugar into processed foods to give them the true crack effect. From Domino's company history:

During the mid-1990s, the company embarked on an intensive research and development program to develop non-sweet sugar for different food applications. For example, the company's development of such a product, which combined Lactisole, a sweetness inhibitor, with sucrose, enabled it to tone down the sweetness in sports drinks and energy boosting beverages. Another application involved using non-sweet sugar as a fat substitute for frostings, icings, and a variety of frozen desserts. By 1995, the company had received approval for 18 food applications for its non-sweet sugar, including use in low-oil salad dressings.

You're right -- in other words, lactisole is a compound used by the forces of evil to satisfy our monkey brains and give us an "energy" boost without us realizing it's all just sugar. Notice also that the use of "non-sweet sugar as a fat substitute" came about in the mid-90s during the "fat is bad" craze, when pretty much every edible item in the world, including Oreos, sported a badge proclaiming it was low in fat. Never mind how high it was sugar. Thus proving absolutely spot-on the words of Richard E. Grant in How to Get Ahead in Advertising: "[It] must be low in something, and if it isn't, it must be high in something else, and that is its health-giving ingredient we will sell."

Source: hotgingeranddynamite.blogspot.com

Further Information:

• Lactisole is a carboxylic acid salt isolated from roasted Colombian Arabica Coffee beans. Like gymnemic acid, it is a sweet-inhibitor or taste-modifier.

• Kinghorn, A.D. and Compadre, C.M. Alernative Sweeteners: Third Edition, Revised and Expanded, Marcel Dekker ed., New York, 2001. ISBN 0-8247-0437-1

Anti-sweet properties

At concentrations of 100–150 parts per million in food, lactisole largely suppresses the ability to perceive sweet tastes, both from sugar and from artificial sweeteners such as aspartame. A 12% sucrose solution was perceived like a 4% sucrose solution when lactisole was added. However, it is significantly less efficient than gymnemic acid with acesulfame potassium, sucrose, glucose, and sodium saccharin. Research found also that it has no effect on the perception of bitterness, sourness and saltiness. According to a recent study, lactisole acts on a sweet taste receptor heteromer of the TAS1R3 sweet protein receptor in humans, but not on its rodent counterpart.

Lactisole Interacts with the Transmembrane Domains of Human T1R3 to Inhibit Sweet Taste. P Jiang, M Cui, B Zhao, Z Liu, LA Snyder, LMJ Benard, R Osman, RF Margolskee and M Max. J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 280, Issue 15, 15238-15246, April 15, 2005

As a food additive

The principal use of lactisole is in jellies, jams, and similar preserved fruit products containing large amounts of sugar. In these products, by suppressing sugar's sweetness, it allows fruit flavors to come through. In the United States, lactisole is FDA GRAS (Fema number: 3773) and approved for use in food as flavouring agent up to 150ppm. Currently, lactisole is manufactured and sold by Domino Sugar and its usage levels are between 50 to 150 ppm.

JECFA "Specifications for Flavourings"

Sugar sans sweetness - lactisole. Prepared Foods, May, 1995 by Fran LaBell