Food Carriers Recalled by California Innovations Due to Freezer Gel Pack Ingestion Hazard

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product.

Name of Product: Travelin’ Chef Expandable Thermal Food Carrier

Units: About 55,000

Importer: California Innovations Inc., of Toronto, Canada

Hazard: Gel that contains diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol can leak out of damaged freezer gel packs, posing a poisoning hazard if ingested by children or adults.

Incidents/Injuries: None

Description: The recalled product is a four-piece food carrier set, which includes a light blue thermal carrier with black carrying handles, a medium plastic food container, a large plastic food container and a freezer gel pack. The recalled thermal carrier has the code “1-38018-69-07″ printed on a white label on the inside of the main compartment on the left hand side. The thermal carrier is 18 inches wide, 10.5 inches deep and 4.7 inches high and made of vinyl and polyester. The medium food container measures 9.75 inches by 6.25 inches by 3.5 inches. The large food container measures 11.75 inches by 8.75 inches by 3.5 inches. The gel pack is an 8.5-inch by 8-inch, opaque blue plastic pouch filled with liquid gel. The words “Cryofreeze” and “Ice Pack/Hot Pack” are printed in white letters on the front of the pouch.

Sold at: Walmart between August 2008 to December 2011 for about $22.

Manufactured in: China

Remedy: Consumers should immediately stop using the gel packs and dispose of them according to federal, state and/or local regulations. It is recommended that consumers contact their local waste disposal authority for instructions. Consumers may return the gel pack to Walmart for a refund of $6 or contact California Innovations customer service at (800) 722-2545 for the same refund.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, call California Innovations at (800) 722-2545 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday or visit the firm’s website at www.californiainnovations.com

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That second year, some of the more colorful students I lived with had an unhealthy love of hip-hop artist DMX’s song  Party Up (Up in Here). I probably heard that song 500 times as I walked through the hall during those 8 months.

Totally unrelated to the overplaying of that song, according to TMZ, DMX was taken to a Charlotte NC area hospital after coming down with food poisoning after eating shellfish on a flight from Miami.

According to DMX, he had some “bad shrimp” at his baby mama’s house in Miami before he got on a plane — commercial — and then spent most of the flight tossing his cookies in the lavatory.

X tells us … as soon as he touched down he went to Gastonia Memorial Hospital outside of Charlotte … by limousine. Puking, but still balling!!

X spent about four hours in the emergency room getting treated for food poisoning, and then headed home.

 1.  inspector entered restaurant as door was opened for customers – found food left out in kitchen out of temp-found appox 50 pounds of cooked-brown rice at 76.4 F approximately 30 pounds of white rice at 74.3 –approximately 30 pounds of beef bone with meat on bone at 71.3 F.  

2, AT INSPECTION found only one 2 door ( 7 up ) display cooler operating refrige–not enough cooler space for storage-( note violation food found in kitchen out of temp.) PROVIDE proper refriges for food storage -

3. AT TIME OF INSPECTION -staff could not locate the proper ” pocket” thermometer for testing foods for proper temps-PROVIDE

4. AT INSPECTION – found case of peanuts & lettuce- stored on kitchen floor -PROVIDE proper storage

5. AT TIME OF INSPECTION – inspector observed – staff rinse (only) pans & return to use

6. AT INSPECTION – found handsink NOT ACCESIBILE for use -blocked with

 (overflowing ) trash container

7. BASEMENT – at inspection -found small flies through-out basement

8. CLEAN floor through-out kitchen of very heavy built-up soil & grime -include under & around all equiptment – BASEMENT -clean floor through-out of heavy soil & food spills- & patch floor of broken or missing floor tiles in kitchen -

9. PROVIDE proof that at least one full-time staff has completed the SERVE / SAFE certification course OR has signed up for course – ( course information given by inspector)

Editor’s note: US Food Safety School provides ServSafe and Prometric Certified Food Safety training and HACCP classes throughout New England.

The work presented in a USDA article demonstrates the utility of surface pasteurization to greatly reduce levels of Salmonella from the surfaces of cantaloupes.

In addition, heat penetration analysis coupled with computer simulation of heat transfer indicates that the edible portions of cantaloupes remain cool while the temperature of the rind outer surface elevates rapidly.

 This is an added benefit to the use of hot water surface pasteurization. Experiments are currently under way to examine the quality and shelf life of melons exposed to various thermal treatments.

For the entire article the link is: http://ddr.nal.usda.gov/bitstream/10113/1811/1/IND43797605.pdf

But according to experts at the Jaffe Allergy Center, disregard for allergies is, to some extent, justified. That’s because, even though just three or four percent of Americans have a full-blown allergy to some food, over 20 percent of Americans claim to be allergic.

Researchers admitted than some of the huge gap between these two figures can be attributed to “food intolerance,” which describes a range of non-life-threatening reactions to foods. And some allergies, especially to peanuts and tree nuts, really have been on the rise, for some inexplicable reason, over the past few decades. According to one authoritative study, food allergy prevalence is more than twice as high in children as it is in an adult, with eight percent suffering from the ailment.

That means that the next time you encounter someone who claims to be allergic to a food you like, you should feel free to ask them pointedly whether their claim is medically valid. But if they maintain that it is, just defer to them. And as for “peanut-free schools”? HuffPost Food would like to humbly recommend you try out cashew butter.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/food-allergies_n_1230726.html?ref=food

The son of French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been hospitalized with food poisoning in the Black Sea city of Odessa, French and Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

Pierre Sarkozy, a rap producer in his twenties, has been taken to a hospital after feeling ill, French Embassy spokesman Emmanuel Berard told The Associated Press.

Anna Osipchuk, a spokeswoman for the city administration, said Sarkozy had food poisoning apparently contracted outside Ukraine, and was to be flown home to France Wednesday.

Sarkozy, also known as DJ Mosay, was in Odessa to perform at an elite club called Tchaikovsky on Tuesday, but the show was canceled after he fell ill, the club said.

Contaminated cantaloupe at Jensen Farms, a small Colorado grower, triggered an outbreak last fall that killed 30 people.

By November, people in 28 states had fallen ill. By the time federal authorities declared the outbreak over in December, 146 people had been stricken, including a woman who had a miscarriage, and 30 were dead.

You’d think that the deadliest food-borne outbreak in nearly 90 years would change the way business is done in the produce industry. No such luck.

• OPPOSING VIEW: Food safety is more than about audits

The first line of defense remains independent auditors hired by food producers to monitor their performance, much as companies hire outside auditors to certify their financial statements. But just six days before the Colorado outbreak, Jensen’s auditor gave the company stellar ratings.

The system has an inherent conflict of interest: While retailers generally require audits before buying from a supplier, the suppliers often hire and pay the auditors who evaluate them. It’s like authors hiring their own book reviewers.

A similarly flawed system contributed to the nation’s 2008 financial meltdown. Credit-rating agencies, which are supposed to objectively rate the risk of debt securities for investors, gave AAA ratings to bundles of toxic mortgages. Guess who hired and paid them? The sellers of the shaky securities. At least toxic mortgage debt can’t kill. Listeria can.

Primus Labs audited sanitation practices at Jensen’s packing house immediately before the outbreak and gave the company a 96% rating. The Food and Drug Administration later cited problems — including the facility’s design and flawed sanitizing procedures — as potentially contributing to the contamination. Primus also gave passing grades to 98.7% of those it reviewed in 2010, according to a House Energy and Commerce Committee report released this month.

In 2009, another major auditing firm, AIB International, gave the Peanut Corp. of America a “superior rating” at its Texas plant even as it was churning out salmonella-tainted peanut paste. PCA’S products ultimately sickened 600 people and might have killed as many as nine.

If retailers paid for audits, as a few do, there’d be more incentive for impartial audits. Retailers could also demand that auditors be assigned randomly to jobs from a pool. That, too, would reduce the conflicts.

Outbreaks of food-borne illness have prompted change in the past, but only when industries have stepped up to take responsibility. After contaminated spinach sickened scores of people in 2006, producers agreed to make leafy greens less vulnerable to bacteria. In 2004, after a salmonella outbreak in almonds, California growers researched a pasteurization process to make their products safer.

As government shrinks, more of the nation’s food supply will depend on private audits. They won’t provide much comfort as long as auditors are evaluating the folks who pay their bills.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2012-01-24/contaminated-cantaloupe-food-auditors/52780580/1

For Immediate Release

Contact: Mimi Golub

mimi@callananklein.com

617-431-1172

Be Healthy Boston Premieres at the Westin Boston Waterfront

January 28-29, 2012

Two-day Retreat Will Uncover Revolutionary Approaches to Living Well

Seth Goldman, President and TeaEO of Honest Tea is Keynote Speaker

(January 2012; Boston, MA) –Be Healthy Boston, a new kind of urban wellness retreat to be held at the Westin Boston Waterfront on January 28-29, 2012, will introduce visitors to the best way to incorporate health and wellness into a busy lifestyles. Local bestselling author Brett Blumenthal, whose new book 52 Small Changes; One Year to a Happier, Healthier You is a Kindle bestseller, is the event founder.

 More than just an event, Be Healthy Boston assures a unique experience that connects community members with local health and wellness businesses, service providers and experts in a highly interactive setting. The event includes cooking demonstrations with Ana Sortun of Oleana and Jody Adams of Rialto, stress reduction through music and living well seminars, massage, acupuncture, mini trial fitness classes such as Zumba, Gyrotonics, Kettlebells and Pilates and more. There will be healthful lunches each day, a Saturday evening reception and a silent auction highlighting all participants and local vendors to benefit the Dana Farber Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies.

Be Healthy Boston is supported by national and local health-minded companies such as Whole Foods, Whole Living Magazine, Camelback hydration system and Coca-Cola’s Venturing and Emerging Brands including Honest Tea.  Seth Goldman, President and TeaEO of Honest Tea, is one of the event keynote speakers.  Additional sponsorships include ZeroEnergy Design and Gaiam media; Boston Green Building and Clevergreen Cabinets; as well as fitness stage sponsor Healthworks. The Be Healthy Boston Marketplace will highlight over thirty exhibitors including Aveda, Massage Envy, Boston Sports Medicine, Marino Center for Integrative Health, Spa InterContinental, Olivia’s Organics, Tufts Health Plan, Wellesley Sports Medicine, Woodstock Foods, Boston Behavioral Medicine, Cabot Creamery and more. An exhibitor list with descriptions can be found at www.behealthyboston.com/sponsor-exhibit/Tickets for the event can be purchased online at http://www.behealthyboston.com/register/.

“We recognize that today’s consumer is inundated with information on healthy living and greener lifestyles,” explains Brett Blumenthal, health expert and cofounder of Be Healthy, Inc. “Our goal is to organize the information by placing it under one roof and introduce attendees to a wealth of experts that will give them sound advice and direct answers to their important health and wellness questions,” she explains.

Tickets for the event can be purchased online at http://www.behealthyboston.com/register/. A full two-day ticket is $159, student tickets with a current valid ID are $79. A limited number of one-day passes for either Saturday or Sunday can be purchased for $89. For more information about the event and a list of all the participating companies and activities, please visit www.behealthyboston.com. 

Be Healthy, Inc. is dedicated to creating a healthier America, one city at a time. It was founded in 2011 by Brett Blumenthal, author, speaker and founder of Sheer Balance, Inc. who has a passion for health and wellness, and for creating positive change and bettering the lives of others.   For more information, visit www.behealthyboston.com.