Evacuees from quake-hit Cotabato, Philippines, were rushed to the hospital in November (can you tell I’m still playing catch up with what I find interesting as my 8 broken ribs and broken collarbone heal) due to suspected food poisoning from donated packed meals.
Acting Vice Governor Shirlyn Macasarte said 30 evacuees were brought to hospitals after vomiting and experiencing diarrhea. The evacuees from Malabuan and Patulangon evacuation centers in Barangay Malasila in Makilala ate packed foods given to them.
Bienvenida Lagumbay, 71, said she vomited and experienced diarrhea after eating rice with dried fish and pork wrapped in banana leaf. She said four other people in the evacuation center ate the food and all of them experienced vomiting and diarrhea.
Distribution of hot meals or packed foods to quake-affected residents is now prohibited after the incident. Macasarte said despite their order to ban donated hot meals in evacuation centers to avoid food poisoning, the public can still help in other ways.
Macasarte said she instructed her staff to check on the patients’ conditions, including the hospital bills of those admitted in private hospitals.
Fed up students at UMass Lowell say millions of dollars from taxpayers and their tuition are being wasted on food that they can’t eat — and now that 7NEWS Investigates got involved, the university is threatening to cut ties with its food provider if the issues aren’t addressed.
A 7NEWS investigation of the food being served at the university uncovered mold, worms, and purple-colored undercooked chicken.
Freshman Matt Gorham is among those sounding off, saying, “We just want food that’s edible.”
Freshman Ronan Rogier agreed, saying, “It’s not healthy, it’s not safe.”
These students, and their classmates, are so upset with the food being offered in their dining halls, hey sent 7NEWS videos and pictures taken last semester, that show bugs in their pasta, black substances on their lettuce, and worms in their broccoli.
“It got so bad they had to stop serving broccoli because they always had bugs in them,” said sophomore Nate Polgreen.
University Dining stopped serving the broccoli in November, stressing that “food safety is always a top priority.”
In addition to being grossed out, students say they are paying a lot of money for food they can’t eat.
Meal plans at UMass Lowell range from $4,500 to $5,000 a year. Freshmen are required to get one.
The great university meal plan rip off; was going on when I started as an undergraduate in 1981, still going on today.
“It’s undercooked, it’s moldy, it’s even been soggy a few times when it’s not supposed to be,” Rogier said.
Gorham added, “What we are spending on that meal plan each semester, is unacceptable for this food.”
All the food is purchased and prepared by Aramark Education Services, a national company that UMass Lowell paid $18.5 million for this school year.
Aramark refused our request to talk on-camera, instead of issuing a statement, saying “Our top priority is to ensure a positive, safe, and healthy dining environment for the entire UMass Lowell community and we will continue to give this matter our constant attention. We maintain rigid food safety operating procedures for the entire flow of food production. This includes providing an environment that protects the safety and integrity of food from its delivery, throughout its storage, preparation, transport, and ultimately, to the point of service to the customer. We encourage anyone with a concern about their dining experience to contact any of our Managers on Duty in the dining location so that we can provide immediate attention to any concerns, comments or suggestions on the spot.”
I started working when I was 9-years-old, biking out to the Brantford private golf course on weekends and weekdays during the summer and carrying a heavy bag of clubs around a 5-mile-course.documented my time in the bullpen, where we would wait for our name to be called.
The 1980 movie, Caddyshack, perfectly and accurately captured me in 1973.
By the time I was 13, I had a couple of regular gigs so I didn’t have to wait around, and was caddying for the club pro around Ontario (that’s in Canada) who would give me an extra $10 for every stroke under par.
In high school I often worked the graveyard shift at the gas station, pumping petrol in the middle of the night, trying not to get robbed and then going off to fall asleep in grade 12 math and French.
I’ve always worked and have concluded after years of therapy I need to work.
I started bashing Chipotle about 2006, when driving through Kansas City with a trailer full of stuff as I moved to Manhattan, Kansas, to follow a girl, and cited this billboard.
Any company focused on this stuff usually meant they were somewhat oblivious to basic food safety.
Unfortunately for all the thousands of sick people over the next 14 years, I was right.
Now it appears that feel-goody Chipotle don’t know much about child labour laws.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey ordered the largest child labour penalty ever issued by the state against the Mexican restaurant chain after finding an estimated 13,253 child labour violations in its more than 50 locations.
“Chipotle is a major national restaurant chain that employs thousands of young people across the country and it has a duty to ensure minors are safe working in its restaurants,” Healey said in a statement.
“We hope these citations send a message to other fast food chains and restaurants that they cannot violate our child labour laws and put young people at risk.”
The fine detailed that Chipotle had employees under the age of 18 working past midnight and for more than 48 hours a week.
Teenagers told investigators their hours of work were so long that it was preventing them from keeping up with their schoolwork. The company also regularly hired minors without work permits.
The settlement total is closer to $US2 million, including penalties for earned sick time violations in which managers granted employees paid time off only for certain illnesses.
I’m sure those tired kids have Chipotle food safety at the top of their priority list.
The popular review site Yelp started warning Southern Californians about restaurants that get low health inspection grades Wednesday, and some of those places are famous, fancy eateries.
Joel Grover and Amy Corral of NBC Los Angeles report that starting Wednesday, if you try to read Yelp reviews of any LA County restaurant that has a C rating or worse, you’ll first see a big, bold warning that says “Consumer Alert: Low Food Safety Score.”
”The goal of the ‘health score alerts’ that we’re placing today is to both warn consumers, but also provide further incentive for businesses to improve their cleanliness and their hygiene at their establishment,” said Yelp senior VP Vince Sollitto.
Here’s what the new alert will look like on Yelp.
Among the dozens of restaurants that now have Consumer Alerts on Yelp is the upscale Rosaline in West Hollywood. Rosaline was honored as a “favourite for good value” by the prestigious Michelin Guide last year, but also received C grades on its last two inspections.
On Nov. 5, the health inspector cited Rosaline for 13 violations, three of them major, including vermin. In his report, the inspector observed “at least a dozen live adult and nymph cockroaches” and “at least a dozen soft, fresh rat droppings.”
…at least a dozen live adult and nymph cockroaches” and “…at least a dozen soft, fresh rat droppings.
But customers might not know Rosaline got a “C” –70 out of 100 — because the letter grade is not prominently placed at eye level at the entrance.
Rosaline told the I-Team it has fixed the vermin problem and is waiting for a re-inspection.
“After the Health Department found vermin in a wall cavity, Rosaliné closed for 10 days to repair damage found in two of our walls we believe was caused by neighboring construction. The health department thoroughly inspected and approved our reopening on November 15th. Over the past two and a half months, we have made multiple requests to the Health Department provide a current grade,” the Rosaliné team said in a follow-up email.
The LA County Health Department began giving restaurants letter grades in 1998, after the I-Team’s Joel Grover went undercover and exposed LA restaurants with filthy conditions and practices, like workers picking their noses while preparing food, and sneezing right into food that was about to be served to customers.
Before 1998, the health department kept restaurant inspection scores secret. Until then, if a restaurant failed an inspection, consumers remained unaware.
For the last 21 years, restaurant inspection information and scores have been made available on the LA County Public Health Department’s website, but finding information about specific restaurants requires several steps of digging.
The county’s online information is also sometimes inaccurate or incomplete; the I-Team noticed that one prominent Beverly Hills restaurant got a C rating last October, but then paid a fee for a reinspection and got an A. The C no longer appears on the county’s site. A restaurant inspection history is supposed to be publicly posted.
Yelp says its new Consumer Alerts will make information about low scoring restaurants easily accessible to consumers.
“The goal of the Yelp program is to make health hygiene scores for restaurants both more accessible to consumers and more easily understandable for them,” Yelp’s Vince Sollitto said.
But the I-Team found errors in Yelp’s Consumer Alert program too. As of this morning, more than 70 LA county businesses had Health Score Alerts –meaning their grades were C or below. But the I-Team found at least five of those businesses actually had As or Bs, on their most recent inspections listed on the county’s website.
When the I-Team asked Yelp about the discrepancies, a spokesperson said they “get an updated data feed from the Los Angeles County Health department on approximately a weekly basis,” and were factoring the most recent information into their consumer alerts.
Food contamination during air travel presents unique risks to those affected. Foodborne pathogens can cause serious illness among all on board, and potentially jeopardize flight safety. These risks are likely to increase with current trends of “densification” and a predicted massive expansion of air travel. While aircraft are being equipped with ever newer designs with a focus on efficiency and comfort, regulations remained largely unmodified in terms of basic hygiene requirements.
Strict guidelines for food hygiene exist for on-ground food settings and catering kitchens. There is uncertainty about hygiene standards on board commercial aircraft, and little regulatory oversight of what happens to food in-flight. In two hypothetical scenarios we indicate the potential risks associated with poor food handling practice onboard aircraft, with the ultimate aim of bringing aviation food safety in line with on-ground regulations. Changes in cabin design alongside adequate training in safe food handling have the potential to increase public health protection. We urge a review of existing in-flight hygiene protocols to better direct the development of regulation, prevention, and intervention measures for aviation food safety.
In-flight transmission of foodborne disease: How can airlines improve?
AP News reports an unlicensed food delivery service in the Sacramento area has been fined more than $100,000 after several customers were sickened.
The owner of Anna’s Kitchen “repeatedly delivered hundreds of meals that had not been kept properly hot or cold for extended periods of time, increasing the likelihood of foodborne illness,” the Yolo County district attorney’s office said in a statement Monday.
The business used the popular Chinese app WeChat to market its homemade Chinese food to Chinese foreign exchange students at the University of California, Davis, authorities said.
A health investigation began after several students reported becoming sick.
The business owner, Xin Jiang, agreed to settle a civil enforcement action by paying nearly $107,000 in costs and penalties. The agreement was approved by a judge last month.
Jiang admitted wrongdoing and is no longer operating Anna’s Kitchen but he could face another $90,000 in penalties if he reopens it or is found selling any type of food without a valid county permit, the DA’s office said.
Adele Ferguson of The Age writes that food safety is again in the headlines following an investigation into the Grill’d burger chain.
The long list of food safety transgressions at hamburger chain Grill’d outlined in a series of leaked internal food and safety audit reports, internal documents, a council report, and dozens of photos from staff, triggered a social media backlash.
In an attempt to dilute the public’s disgust Grill’d announced it would hire a global food auditor to review its food safety and work practices.
But in the process of exposing the worker exploitation and uncleanliness scandal it became clear there was another scandal that has been festering away: an overall lack of enforcement by the relevant authorities of food hygiene regulations and fines that are so low they fail to act as a deterrent.
Take for instance, Grill’d in Windsor, Victoria, the local council, Stonnington, issued an inspection notice of “major non-compliance” in October 2018. It said it didn’t have effective cleaning systems in place, which is the basic requirement of any restaurant.
What was even more disturbing was the council admitting that the same non-compliances were happening every year and that “infringement notices may be issued if this continues”.
In other words, the council’s inspection notice and wishy-washy threats were ineffectual.
This was no better demonstrated in early December when a photo was taken and posted on The Age and Sydney Morning Herald websites of a mouse inside a tray of hamburger buns sitting on the floor at Grill’d in Windsor.
The council’s reaction was to keep the public in the dark. It refused to say how many years of non-compliance it had recorded at the Grill’d Windsor restaurant and its only reaction to the buns stored on the floor, which attracted a mouse in the pest infested restaurant, was that it would act if someone lodged a complaint.
On a broader level, it illustrates shortcomings in the food safety system in Australia. It seems the public only get to know what’s going on when it is too late.
The Victorian Health register of convictions of food safety is an eye-opener. In 2019 only a few cases went to court and received a conviction, which attracted a minuscule fine.
The laws may be strict but if they aren’t properly monitored and enforced then things fall apart.
The video shows the rodents scurrying around the floor of the Maverick Square Dunkin’ while the store was closed late Monday night.
“[Tuesday], the Inspectional Services Department launched an investigation into the complaints and video of rodent infestation at the Dunkin’ located at 13 Maverick St. in East Boston,” the city agency said in a statement. “After reviewing the video, an inspector was immediately dispatched to the location to conduct a full compliance inspection of the establishment.”
“The health and safety of customers is our top priority,” Dunkin’ said in a statement. “We take this matter very seriously, and upon learning of the issue, the restaurant was immediately closed.”
Bristol News reports employees at a Bishopsworth café have been fined for food hygiene offences after pleading guilty to a string of safety standards breaches.
Laura West and Donna Flanagan, who were running the small Butter Me Up premises at Highridge Road, were also ordered to pay totals including prosecution costs of £2,937 and £2,855 respectively at Bristol Crown Court last week after pleading guilty to a number of offences at an earlier hearing.
The pair were also given an open-ended Hygiene Prohibition Order, banning them from participating in the management of any food business which, if breached, amounts to a criminal offence which could lead to a prison sentence.
Environmental Health officers from Bristol City Council launched an immediate investigation and visited the café in July 2018, having been alerted to the death of an elderly gentleman from suspected food poisoning after he and a friend were hospitalised.
Officers discovered that the business had been operating since November 2015 but had not registered with the Council since it opened. The café was also displaying a food safety sticker with a rating of 5, the highest rating, which belonged to a previous business at the same address.
Environmental health officers noted a range of further food safety offences, including little to no food hygiene and safety training, no written food safety management, poor pest control and lack of reliable disinfection practices. Environmental swabs and a cloth that had been used for handling equipment showed that food poisoning bacteria were widespread throughout the premises, indicating poor cleaning practices.
CBS Local reports that with food delivery platforms like Uber Eats, GrubHub and Postmates bursting at the seams, we wanted to know what some delivery people were doing with your food before you took a bite.
One food delivery driver – whose identity is concealed – told CBSLA’s David Goldstein he’s heard drivers talk about helping themselves to your order.
“Taking sips of soda all the time….sticking a straw in it and drinking it and putting another top on it,” he said.
So Goldstein’s team set up hidden cameras in restaurants and watched as food delivery people came to pick up – many of whom walked out with open bags where they can easily taste your food.
Cameras caught one man pick up a delivery order at a Fatburger restaurant in North Hollywood. After he put the bag on the front seat of his car, he proceeded to eat what looks like French fries.
As he backs out, he appears to put another fry into his mouth.
He proceeded to make two deliveries within minutes. On the first, the driver was seen wiping his fingers on his leg and then appears to lick them clean in his mouth.
The second delivery was the Fatburger order to a house in North Hollywood.
Goldstein then showed the video to Naimie Ojeil, who said the order was for his teenage kids.
“Horrible, disgusting,” he said.
When Goldstein confronted the driver at a later date, he didn’t have much to say.
Cameras caught another driver pick up a delivery, placing the bag on the passenger seat in his car, and then a minute or so later, he moves the bag, puts his hand inside and grab some fries before he drives away.
Acting Vice Governor Shirlyn Macasarte said 30 evacuees were brought to hospitals after vomiting and experiencing diarrhea. The evacuees from Malabuan and Patulangon evacuation centers in Barangay Malasila in Makilala ate packed foods given to them.
