CALIFORNIANS - BEWARE OF BEAN TORTILLAS!

Yes, would you believe it: yet another processed food is being recalled in the U.S. because it could cause botulism, which can be deadly. This time it's tortillas sold at certain California stores.

United Natural Foods, Inc. is recalling selected types of Gentes Foods Gordita Black Bean Tortillas, because they could be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum bacteria. And, some - not all - Safeway and Pak N Save Stores ended up with this deadly production lot. As I keep saying, ready-to-eat foods may be dangerous.

The date code is on a white sticker applied to the packaging reads “12 7 11.” Here are the places these tortillas were sold. This date code sold at other retail outlets has not been affected.

--California Safeway stores in Salinas (on Main St.) and Watsonville (Freedom Blvd.).
--California Pak N Save Stores in Emeryville (on San Pablo) and S. San Francisco (on Gellert Blvd.)

I think I'll take a trip down to that Emeryville Pak N Save this morning, to see if they have pulled the products off their shelves. You would be surprised at how often stores are lax in doing it, even when informed by their head office.

And..I am also going to check further on where Gentes Foods got their beans. My guess is that there is are connections between some of the recent recalls (see my next post). So far, the food companies involved haven't responded. But I'll persist.

To your good health,
TSF

SAFEWAY AND THE TOMATO RECALL

Safeway shoppers check your refrigerators!

Safeway stores are one of the several supermarkets involved in the latest tomato recall (see previous posts) which began with a recall by Six L Packers in Florida. First, Safeway stores sold Taylor Farms Pacific Inc. ready-to-eat fresh salads at the deli counter, several of which may contain Salmonella-infected grape tomatoes. The states in which these products were sold by Safeway include Arizona, Oregon, California, Nevada, Washington, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.

Secondly, Safeway has discovered that the ready-to-cook kabobs (all kinds of fish, chicken, turkey, pork and sausage ones) in its full service meat counter were also made with Six L tomatoes, so a long list of kabobs are being recalled as well. These are likely to be less risky than the fresh salads because we would cook them.

The kabobs were sold between April 26 and May 3. The sell-by date on the packages are up to May 3. The kabobs were sold in Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, and Pak N Save stores in 10 states. If you don't want to return them to the store, you could also just pick off the tomatoes and throw them out.


TSF