Let’s not eat raw meat or wear it like Lady Gaga

Rob Mancini, a health inspector with the Manitoba Department of Health, writes:

I have become extremely cautious when I prepare and serve food to my child maybe because I am aware of the possible microbial risks or perhaps due to being a new parent. As an adult I can make informed lady.gaga.raw.meatchoices on what I want to eat, but my son doesn’t have that luxury. It is therefore incumbent upon me to make sure that my son doesn’t eat anything that will make him barf, for example steak tartare. 

Steak tartare and cultural variations — Americian prepare (Belgium), befsztyk tatarski (Poland), beef carpaccio crudos (Chile),  filet americain (Netherlands, Belgium),khemya (Armenia), kibbeh nayyeh (in the Levant),  kitfo (Ethiopia), steack a l’americaine yukhoe (Korea), and yukke (Japan) — are  meat dishes made from finely chopped raw beef. They are typically served with an oil emulsion and seasonings (the latter typically incorporating fresh ground pepper and Worcestershire sauce), sometimes with a raw egg yolk, and served with crostini bread.

Health risks associated with steak tartare include Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., and Listeria monocytogenes. Salmonella enteritidis acquired through raw egg yolk which is often served with steak tartare

There have been a number of foodborne outbreaks associated with the consumption of steak tartare — Salmonella Typhimurium (Dutch) phage-type 132 in the Netherlands, Japan E. coli O111 Outbreak where 2 children died and  56 ill, Wisconsin107 confirmed and 51 probable cases of Salmonella Typhimurium.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires a prescribed disclosure reminding consumers of the increased risk associated with this product, a disclosure that doesn’t exist in Canada.

Personally I don’t get it. It is clear that there are absolutely no critical control points to minimize the risk of infection: if the meat is contaminated on the farm, the meat will be contaminated on your plate, farm-to-fork concept.  Needle tenderizing will further exacerbate the risks of infection via translocation. We’ve seen this happen before.  It seems to me that searing the meat (whole-intact) prior to slicing may be better way to go but I’d like the research backing this up.  My point is, don’t feed raw meat to your kids, not worth the risk.

Restaurant inspections apply to celebrities and mortals; Lady Gaga’s parents pissed

If you’re the father of a celebrity, expect to get covered when complaining about something – like a restaurant inspection grade  — especially in New York City.

As reported in the Daily Mail, Lady Gaga’s father, Joe Germanotta, was so angry after his restaurant’s hygiene rating was downgraded to a B, he took lady-gaga-meat-dress-01to Twitter to vent his frustrations and reveal the hygiene inspector’s identity.

“Great story of NYC making progress, money and corruption. We had a bad potato in a bin with 40 good potatoes.

“It wasn’t being served to a customer, it was raw, and when the inspector pointed it out we threw it away. How many bad veggies do you toss?

“Regardless, the inspector gave us seven points for a bad potato in a storage bin on our health department inspection, that shifted us from an A to a B or Grade Pending, inspector said it was our choice. (sic)’

The restaurant, Joanne Trattoria, which Mr Germanotta opened with his wife Cynthia last January, has received a number of negative reviews in the past year.

In August, the New York Post reported that New York City’s health department slapped it with a C rating, after discovering various violations that added up to a whopping 42 negative points.

And Leo Carey, The New Yorker’s senior editor, wrote that the restaurant’s homemade focaccia was ‘good in the same way that the garlic bread at Domino’s is good.’ 

Lady Gaga vomits on stage in Spain

Who knew when we started barfblog.com that barfing would be so embraced by pop culture. First, Justin Bieber, now Lady Gaga has decided to throw chunks in concert.

Or as the USA Today says, it’s the new, hot on-stage thing to do!

Gaga tossed her cookies midsong on stage in Barcelona on Saturday night at the Palau Sant Jordi arena. According to Buzzfeed, she was was singing The Edge of Glory, the 23rd song of her regular 24-song set.

She tweeted out a link to the YouTube video of it, saying, “Was praying nobody saw but actually its quite a good laugh if u need one!”

Gaga also turned heads with the claw handgear she wore on Sunday in London to promote her new fragrance, Fame. According to Sky News, fans booed Gaga after she arrived an hour late and didn’t stop to chat with her little monsters.

I need some real rock, where stars died when they barfed; in honor of Pete Townsend’s new memoir.

Lady Gaga wears raw meat bikini, risks E. coli outbreak

Lady Gaga graces the September cover of Vogue Hommes Japan wearing an ensemble of thinly sliced cuts of presumably prime beef (kobe?) that barely covers her body.

Connecticut News recommends that if you are not vegetarian and do happen to eat meat once worn by Lady Gaga, be sure to cook it thoroughly and use a meat thermometer to ensure it reaches an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees F.

Frogs in frozen food and on Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga’s outfits are getting wonkier and wonkier. This week’s creation involved a disturbing violation of Kermit the Frog (pictured, right). Equally as wonky, a Texas woman found a dead frog (or most of it, pictured below) in a bag of frozen vegetables, reports KLTV 7.

Chasity Erbaugh was heating up a Great Value brand of steamable green beans – making lunch for her kids when she discovered a nasty surprise.

Erabaugh explained,

"Thank goodness I had put butter in the bottom of the bowl. I went to stir it and there’s this brown clump."

After a close examination, Erbaugh was sick to her stomach at what she discovered. The "brown clump" was part of a frog… She found the whole front end of a frog, with the spinal cord and everything attached, in her green beans. The frog’s tongue was even hanging out.

Shocked, she said,
 
"That’s a frog! Or worse than that, it’s part of a frog – 75% of it. They didn’t even give me the frog legs with it."

Chasity bought the beans from the Walmart on Troup Highway. We gave the lot numbers to the health department, and Monday afternoon, they had the store pull the rest of the bags from that lot.

Brenda Elrod with the Northeast Texas Public Health District, said,

"What we try to do is coordinate with the manufacturer inspectors to make sure we can track it from our store back to the factory where it was made and back to the lot.”

Since being made aware of the incident, a Food and Drug officer is now sending the complaint up to the FDA.

"When you’re washing field vegetables, you’re going to get certain little pieces and parts, but we certainly don’t want something so large you can identify what it is."

As for Erbaugh, she says from now on, it’s fresh veggies only.