While living in Guelph (that’s in Canada), I listened to sports talk radio from Buffalo NY sometimes and the only thing I remember about the station were low-budget Mighty Taco commercials (sort of like the one below).
And now I equate Mighty Taco a refried bean-linked outbreak – which sounds like it might be perfringens (thanks to Schaffner for the link). According to WKBW, the outbreak continues to grow.
Mighty Taco got a bad rep last week when customers in Erie County started complaining they got sick after eating at the fast food chain.
According to the Erie County Department of Health, there are now 142 reported illnesses linked to nine different Mighty Taco locations.
The Public Information Officer for the ECDOH, Mary St. Mary, says it is important to note that no one has reported getting sick after the suspected refried beans were removed from the restaurants.
Folks that sell food that makes 142 ill deserve a bad reputation – especially if they can’t tell you what their suppliers are doing.
I love the berries, especially the tart blackberries.
They grew voraciously in my aunt’s backwoods where as kids, we’d pick them by the bucketful. She also made great pies.
According to Tove Danovich of NPR, blackberries also grow voraciously in the Pacific Northwest and it’s not rare to stumble across rural barns or abandoned homes that have been completely consumed by the thorny vine. Let them grow too close to a window, and they’ll break the glass. They’re common — easy to forage and hard to get too excited about. At least compared to the marionberry, a type of blackberry that has become an Oregon obsession.
One of the reasons the marionberry is so beloved is because it is entirely a product of Oregon. It’s “born and raised” in state, so to speak.
The marionberry, a cross between Chehalem and Olallie blackberries, was bred at Oregon State University as part of a berry-developing partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that dates back to the early 1900s. It’s named for Marion County in the Willamette Valley, where most of the field trials took place (not for former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, right, exactly as shown).
When the berry was introduced in the 1950s, it was widely hailed as the most delicious blackberry commercial cultivar around. Even today, people rave over its tart-yet-sweet flavor — think of a cross between raspberries and blackberries. (Though there is some raspberry in its DNA, the red fruits are more like a genetic great-great grandparent to the marionberry.)
In an investigative piece today, Sinar Harian reported on the existence of several “rogue” ice factories in the Klang Valley that use waste water to produce ice cubes and ice slabs.
Besides using obviously filthy water unfit for human consumption, the ice is manufactured in extremely unhygienic surroundings as well.
According to the report, one factory that allegedly “recycled” waste water into ice, even channelled this water to the ice-producing machine via pipes that had moss growing on the inside.
It was learned that waste water was preferred as it was already in a cold state and hence froze faster.
This short cut also invariably translated into more products in a shorter time span, and higher profits for the manufacturers.
And the horror does not stop there. If the sight of stray animals scavenging around in the ice processing area at some factories was not enough to make you gag, how about ice cubes stored on rusty trays?
The report said the toilets at these premises were also in a filthy state, and pools of stagnant water in other parts of the factory due to clogged drainage systems only made the manufacture of ice cubes and ice slabs all the more unhygienic.
Osage Gardens Organic 2oz Micro Greens was distributed to Whole Foods stores in Colorado and Kansas. The Osage Gardens Organic 2oz Micro Greens product is packed in a clear plastic clamshell and has a label on the bottom with a UPC Code 709376615008 and affected product are dated with a Julian codes from 266 to 279’.
No illnesses have been reported to date.
The recall was a result of a routine sampling by the FDA which revealed that the finished products contained the bacteria. Osage Gardens Inc. has ceased the production and distribution of the product as FDA and Osage Gardens Inc. continue their investigation as to what caused the problem.
We were going to do Canadian Thanksgiving in Australia, but too much hockey (the ice kind, including world women’s hockey day, which garnered international attention for Brisbane – that’s Sorenne at the front with the candy-cane stick, and Amy behind her) and the lack of turkeys at this time of year, meant a postponement until the end of November (we’re American too, eh?).
But it didn’t stop the people at the annual Turkey Trot Festival in Yellville, Ark., from throwing a live turkey from a moving airplane 500 feet above the ground on Saturday.
If history is any guide, one of three things will happen next.
Option 1: The bird drops like a rock and dies on impact.
Option 2: The animal awkwardly flutters to the ground, where it’ll be mobbed by excited townspeople who jostle for control of the frightened animal before it’s slaughtered.
Option 3: The bird catches a stiff, serendipitous breeze and glides into the sunset to freedom.
Anywhere else, you might call it animal cruelty, or maybe the “annual turkey sky death lottery.”
In Yellville (pop. 1,204), they call the turkey drop “an Ozark Mountain tradition” — one that has more or less remained intact for 71 years.
Due to protests and weather concerns, the drops were put on hold from 2012 to 2014. But they’re back and resumed like old times on Friday, and many locals are rushing to defend the practice.
Terry Ott, a county judge, downplayed concerns about the well-being of the birds during an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
“They’re not going to crash,” Ott told the paper. “They’re birds. They can fly.”
He added that the event is “important to the community” and “brings in a lot of money.”
Max Brantley, a senior editor at the Arkansas Times, decried the practice in a blog post earlier this week, calling the drop “inhumane.”
“They could probably get a good crowd in Yellville for a drawing and quartering, too,” he wrote. “Here’s an idea for sport: A drop of frozen Butterball turkeys from 500 feet over the cheering crowd.”
Brantley went on to quote Yvonne Thaxton, a professor of poultry science at the University of Arkansas, who told the Democrat-Gazette that the birds naturally remain at an altitude of 100 feet or less. The turkey drop occurs at an altitude of 500 feet, the paper reported.
“Placing turkeys in an environment that is new to them is stressful,” she said. “In the case of an airplane, the noise would also be a stress-producing fear reaction.
“Dropping one from 500 feet is a horrific act of abuse,” she added. “There is no justification for this practice.”
Mark Hutchings, a biologist supervisor for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, told the Democrat-Gazette that wild turkeys are adept fliers.
We’ve been inundated with wild turkeys in Kansas and Brisbane.
I’ve never seen one fly.
Although I love that this clip end with CCR’s, It Came Outta the Sky.
Ian Brock, 31, was caught on CCTV pulling his trousers down and defecating in a corner.
He then smeared his own excrement on the walls and threw a lump of it at the camera.
Brock, of Rectory Road, Llangwm, pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage when he appeared before Haverfordwest Magistrates Court on Tuesday (October 4).
Prosecutor Vaughan Pritchard-Jones said Brock had been arrested for an unrelated matter and was “highly intoxicated” when he carried out the dirty protest.
“In interview, he admitted what he had done and said he was disgusted with himself,” said Mr Pritchard-Jones.
Andrew Mytelka of The Chronicle of Higher Education reports four philosophy professors who were involved in a dust-up with Brian Leiter, an influential figure in the field, received packages of excrement in the mail last summer, and critics of Mr. Leiter are accusing him of being at the bottom of the fecal attack, reports BuzzFeed.
Mr. Leiter, a professor at the University of Chicago and founding editor of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, a powerful ranking of graduate programs, is known for his combative style and caustic judgments of colleagues and programs, but he has forcefully denied the accusations.
“This is about trying to embarrass me,” he told BuzzFeed. “This isn’t about the recipients.”
The four professors — Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins of the University of British Columbia, Sally Haslanger of MIT, J. David Velleman of NYU, and Carolyn D. Jennings of the University of California at Merced — said the poop packages were unequivocal threats and attempts to silence them. The incident presumably stems from Ms. Jenkins’s criticism two years ago of philosophers who don’t treat their colleagues, especially “professionally vulnerable” junior scholars, with respect — an implicit critique of Mr. Leiter and his Philosophical Gourmet Report. The other professors supported her perspective.
Coaching little kids hockey is just as bad (not the kids, the parents).
The Food Hygiene Rating Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 and associated regulations have come into force, and this new legislation means that the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme is now mandatory, replacing the voluntary scheme run since the end of 2011 by district councils and the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
No matter what the rating of the food business, they will have to by law display the rating sticker given by the district council following inspection. This can range from ‘5’ which means the food hygiene standards are very good, down to ‘0’ where urgent improvement is necessary. This instant and visible hygiene rating information will help people choose where to eat out or shop for food, including restaurants, pubs, cafes, takeaways as well as supermarkets, other food shops and hospitals, care homes and schools.
The FSA has built a case for mandation in England using evidence from Wales where display is mandatory and where there has been an increased positive impact on hygiene standards compared with England. It is also exploring how a viable statutory scheme could be delivered in the future in line with the FSA’s Regulating our Future programme. In the meantime the current voluntary scheme in England is being aligned with the statutory schemes in Wales and N Ireland as far as possible without legislative requirements.
Tim O’Brien of The Irish Times reports a Starbucks outlet was among 10 food businesses to receive temporary closure orders during September from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.
The agency ordered the outlet at 21 Great Georges Street in Waterford to close its doors on September 27th. It remained shut for more than a week, reopening on October 5th.
The FSAI declines to give details of why closure orders are served on any outlet, but its chief executive, Dr Pamela Byrne, said they are only issued for serious risks or regular breaches of hygiene regulations.
“Enforcement orders and most especially closure orders and prohibition orders are never served for minor food safety breaches,” she said.
“They are served on food businesses only when a serious risk to consumer health has been identified or where there are a number of ongoing breaches of food legislation and that largely tends to relate to a grave hygiene or operational issue.”
A spokeswoman for Entertainment Enterprises Group, which operates the Starbucks chain in Ireland, said the Waterford closure was a result of contaminated water flowing into the shop.
“The problem was with the main drainage pipes,” she said.
“There was a rupture of the main pipe in the middle of the road outside our store. Water then seeped under the road and pavement into our basement.
“The pipes were repaired and the store is restored to its proper condition. The store reopened yesterday afternoon.”
