Even If It Takes All Of Your Willpower,Try To Avoid Processed Foods!

If you saw an earlier posting I did on food safety,you would have read about my own personal experience as a grocery store clerk.People will work in unsanitary conditions without complaint because they are just there to make money.And that's exactly what happened at that Georgia peanut plant that has killed 8 people.Making a profit was more important than getting rid of the product & finding out the source of the salmonella.Instead the processing plant retested the contaminated peanut butter until they got the result they felt would cover their ass.They knew that people would get sick. Is the dollar really that almighty? I guess to those inhumane creatures that purposely sold bad peanut butter it was.How could anyone live with themselves after they've done something like this? I don't purport to know.Here's more on this unbelievable story from CNN:

"The maker of peanut butter linked to a nationwide outbreak of salmonella shipped tainted product it knew had tested positive for the bacteria, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.The FDA report said the Peanut Corporation of America's own testing program found strains of salmonella 12 times in 2007 and 2008 at its Blakely, Georgia, plant. The problem does not appear to have been resolved.

When FDA inspectors visited the plant this month, they reported finding still more salmonella contamination.

According to the inspection report, posted on the FDA's Web site, the "firm's own internal microbiological testing" found salmonella in peanut paste, peanut butter, peanut meal, peanut granules and oil-roasted, salted peanuts. Watch what violations occurred at the plant »

However, it added, "After the firm retested the product and received a negative status, the product was shipped."

That's not the way it ought to have been handled, according to one expert. "They were lab shopping," said Tommy Irvin, Georgia's agriculture commissioner. "They were trying to find a way to clear their product, so they can ship their product out," he told CNN.
He said proper practices demand that if any food product tests positive for salmonella and another test comes back negative, "you believe the one that is positive."

In a written statement, the company denied accusations it had been "lab shopping" to get a negative test result in order to ship the product.

"PCA uses only two highly reputable labs for product testing and they are widely used by the industry and employ good laboratory practices," the company said. "PCA categorically denies any allegations that the company sought favorable results from any lab in order to ship its products."

But according to Irvin, once salmonella is found in a product, "that lot should be destroyed, but [in this case it] wasn't."

The Georgia Department of Agriculture is working with the FDA on the investigation of the outbreak, which has been linked to the plant.

"The inspection also revealed no steps were taken in terms of cleaning or cross-contamination" after the salmonella was found in the plant, said FDA's director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Dr. Stephen Sundlof.

The company did not clean the production line after Salmonella Typhimurium, the bacterium implicated in the outbreak, was found there last September, according to the FDA report. This is the same type of bacteria found in 502 people who have become ill in 43 states and Canada since September. At least eight deaths have been linked to the outbreak.

Violations also include contamination of plant surfaces and equipment by other microorganisms, the discovery of roaches near production and packaging areas and the inability of the company's ventilation system to prevent the salmonella from contaminating other parts of the plant.

Sundlof said the reported problems indicate the plant deviated from the good manufacturing practices companies are supposed to follow."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the full story here.

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