- Author: Marissa (Palin) Stein
On October 7, 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a Public Health Alert that linked Foster Farms chicken produced in three California facilities to illnesses caused by salmonella. Since then, according to the CDC website, Costco's El Camino Real store in South San Francisco has recalled over 23,000 units of rotisserie chicken products, and 25 ill individuals have been identified after eating products purchased at the Costco...
- Author: Trina Wood
For home gardeners, spring is a busy time of year and there’s never a tomato with more flavor than one grown to full ripeness on the vine. But there are also many safety precautions to follow to prevent contamination of fruits and vegetables with pathogens that cause serious food-borne illnesses.
Michele Jay-Russell, a veterinarian and research microbiologist at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security (WIFSS) and program manager of the Western Center for Food Safety (WCFS), recently co-authored a study that highlights the need to be aware of...
- Author: Janet Byron
The news this past week that nearly three tons of Trader Joe’s prepared barbeque chicken salad were recalled due to possible contamination by Listeria moncytogenes had me wondering anew about this mysterious foodborne pathogen. And today, seven tons of Garden Fresh prepared salads were also recalled.
I’ve spent precious minutes worrying about E. coli (ubiquitous, especially in poop) and Salmonella (the reason we must take care with raw eggs), but why doesn’t...
- Contributor: Ann King Filmer
- Author: Pat Bailey
An ambitious effort to sequence the genomes of 100,000 infectious microorganisms and speed diagnosis of foodborne illnesses has been launched by the University of California, Davis, Agilent Technologies, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Bart Weimer, professor in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, serves as director of the 100K Genome Project and co-director of the recently established BGI@UC Davis facility, where the sequencing will be done. Other collaborators include the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S....
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
For as long as I can remember, Independence Day has not been about being alone and independent, the Fourth of July is traditionally spent with family and friends, barbecuing, overeating and watching fireworks. Come to think of it, aren’t all American holidays celebrated with abundant quantities of food? And those mass quantities of food tend to be set out on July 4 and left within easy reach for hours.
It’s a wonder July 5th isn’t national foodborne illness day. According to UC food safety experts, food left at room temperature for two hours can become unsafe to eat. If left out in summer heat above 90 degrees, bacteria get busy and can grow to unsafe levels in food in one hour.
UC...
