IS TRUMP'S RESTAURANT ENCOURAGING FOOD POISONING?

Not good news for Trump’s “Winter White House.” Mar-a-Lago’s restaurant didn’t do well on the latest inspection on January 26. Inspectors found 13 health and sanitation code violations.

Is this a case of paying $200,000 membership fee for a nasty case of food poisoning? Maybe even worse if the victim is a visiting head of state being wined and dined there. Talk of embarrassing!

All U.S. restaurants are inspected on a regular basis by inspectors from local public health departments. There is some variation between how often they do it and what they look for, but usually it covers things like cleanliness of the kitchen area and food handling, cooking and storage procedures. They also try to make sure that food is not cross-contaminated or contaminated by employees or by cockroaches, flies or rodents running around. I checked out the actual list for Florida. It has fully 50 “high priority” categories on it, meaning that failure on any one of these could pose a risk of food poisoning for diners.

At Mar-a-Lago raw meat (chicken, duck, beef and ham) were stored at temperatures that were far too high for safety. What, they are now trying to save on their electricity bills? Or, was it because their refrigerators were not operating properly and needed repairs?

Also, it seems that the restaurant's fish that was to be served either raw or undercooked had not undergone proper inspection for parasites. If you have been reading the news or this blog about the recent unpleasant experience of two California newlyweds with rat lungworm disease (which they probably caught from food in Hawaii) you will know that parasites can be very nasty indeed.

Even some of the lesser violations at Mar-a-Lago (such as inadequate hand-washing facilities for employees) have been found to often lead to food poisoning. It seems that not only do they have paying for refrigerator repairs and for replacing rusting shelves, but also can’t afford to heat the water!

Maybe Trump should take a break from playing golf and go back to checking the kitchen himself. Apparently, when he used to do so in the past, Florida’s “Sanitation and Safety Specialists” (that is their proper name) cited Mar-a-Lago with far fewer violations. Or should he sent Ivanka down there? She seems to get things done.

TSF

TRUMP ILL WITH FOOD POISONING?

No, this isn’t the case yet, at least as far as I know. Though it could be. He is a senior – and therefore in a high risk group. The fact that he is overweight – verging on obese – puts him at even greater risk for food poisoning. Research suggests that being seriously overweight is linked to a weakened immune system, which means he would have less protection against dangerous foodborne illness.

And I know this sounds mean, but I am kind of wishing for an outbreak of food poisoning at Mar-a-Lago, particularly at a time when he was entertaining a head of state there (hopefully President Putin of Russia, or Kim Jong-un of North Korea) which would really ensure that it hit the global news.

I think a first-hand experience is the only way President Trump will understand the importance of food safety, and hopefully begin to grasp the importance of regulations and inspections of our food. True, such regulations will never eliminate food risks completely, but at least they will reduce them.

Today, when announcing the drastic scaling back of federal regulations – something he had been threatening to do for months – he paved the way for exposing the American consumers to even more outbreaks of food poisoning than we are already having.

Even if regulations are not completely eliminated, Trump and Congress can financially starve the Federal food safety agencies from doing anything much to protect our food supply. Want to bet it will happen?


TSF