CALIFORNIA HARD HIT WITH CHICKEN RECALLS

The currently ongoing Foster Farms chicken recall is now in 20 states and Puerto Rico. But California has been hardest hit. Not just raw chicken, but also cooked chicken products have been recalled. And a lot of California residents are not feeling very well.

As of last Friday (and don't expect the CDC to update numbers over the weekend with most of its staff on furlough)there have been 317 confirmed illnesses linked to the bad chicken. Of these, fully 73% (230 very unhappy people) live in California. Do we eat more Foster Farms chicken here? I doubt it. It probably has something to do with the distribution of the Salmonella chicken. After all, the three Foster Farms plants that produced these lots of poultry are located in Central California - two of them in Fresno. A good proportion of the products obviously ended up for sale close to home.

On top of this, we have a recall of supposedly fully cooked and "ready to eat" chicken by a COSTCO store in South San Francisco. COSTCO has had to recall 9,000 of its rotisserie Foster Farms chickens and related Kirkland Farms products such as soup, chicken salad and leg quarters. These products were reportedly sold at Costco’s South San Francisco store between Sept. 11 and Sept. 23.

Wait a minute...It is now October 13. The products were recalled yesterday - October 12. Do you really keep your chicken for 2-4 weeks? Clearly this is another case of "recalling" what we have already eaten... A recorded message at the COSTCO warns customers to discard or return any leftovers of the Foster Farms chicken products and aplogizes "for the inconvenience this may have caused." Great. Thanks a lot.

While we are at it, the symptoms of this common type of food poisoning are usually diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever. But you could also have a headache, muscle cramps, vomiting, chills and even blood in your stool. Usually you become ill within three days of eating the a contaminated product. People who are healthy and fit, would normally take longer to become ill than those who are elderly, young or not in good health.

So if you are worried that you may have eaten it two weeks ago, but are feeling fine, relax....

To your good health,
TSF

YES, YOU CAN EAT CHICKEN - BUT....

True, there is a large ongoing outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg bacteria in U.S. chicken. The company involved is Foster Farms, which also sells under other labels. Contaminated poultry has now been found in the food supply of 20 states and Puerto Rico. Over 300 people have become ill, with the largest number in California, where the 3 Foster Farms plants are located that produced the lots that were contaminated.

So what should be do about eating chicken? Is it safe to eat?

Yes, under certain conditions. But you need to be extra careful for two reasons. First, this is a particulary virulent type of Salmonella bacteria. Over 40% of those who catch it end up in hospital (about twice the usual rate). However, the actual percentages could be lower. I would assume that there is even more under-reporting of the related food poisoning illnesses than usual. After all, the food safety information and reporting systems are not functioning normally because of the forced furlough of thousands of staff at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Hospitals are more likely to have kept accurate records. Even then these numbers are rather frightening.

A second reason to take special precautions is because this bacterium is very resistant to antibiotics, which makes treatment more difficult.

However, having said this, if you are careful, your poultry lunch or dinner can be perfectly safe. Remember, when handling the raw chicken to do it in the sink, which you can wash down immediately afterwards. You may also want to wear disposable gloves, to be rolled off carefully and thrown straight into the garbage when you are finished touching the poultry. And avoid contaminating any surface or any other food item with the raw chicken. Finally, make sure the chicken is thoroughly cooked to an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

As for eating chicken out, or buying chicken takeout or "ready-to-eat" chicken - I would avoid this for a while. You can't always rely on thorough cooking of such poultry. Remember the cooked chicken that was found to be contaminated at a COSTCO store yesterday - resulting in a recall by COSTCO of 40,000 pounds of cooked chicken!

To your good health,

TSF