I’ll Pass On The Cookies, Thank You.
I recently read that a cookie factory in Virginia had to shut down for two weeks to “change the recipe” for frozen cookie dough it manufactures. The same plant had a recall of cookie dough last year for some other reason. This time there was e coli in the dough. No cookies, thank God, were shipped this time.
But E. coli tainted cookie dough? And they had to change the recipe to get rid of it? What the hell did the recipe call for, two cups of flour, a half-cup of sugar and a spoonful of manure?
I Googled E. coli and this came up at http://www.about-ecoli.com:
The CDC has estimated that 85% of E. coli O157:H7 infections are foodborne in origin (Mead, et al., 1999). In fact, consumption of any food or beverage that becomes contaminated by animal (especially cattle) manure can result in contracting the disease. Foods that have been sources of contamination include ground beef, venison, sausages, dried (non-cooked) salami, unpasteurized milk and cheese, unpasteurized apple juice and cider (Cody, et al., 1999), orange juice, alfalfa and radish sprouts (Breuer, et al., 2001), lettuce, spinach, and water (Friedman, et al., 1999).
How does animal manure get into cookie dough under any reasonable situation? I’m trying to imagine such a scenario.
“Hey Louie, did you get the cow shit mixed up with the chocolate chips again?”
I know we often hear certain political groups bitch about over-regulation, but when crap and cookies can get cross pollinated under any circumstance, there needs to be more regulation, not less. This is our food we’re talking about here.
After seeing Food, Inc. a few months ago, however, it should not surprise me that this can happen. I’ll just be foregoing the cookies and milk for a while. From the article I found on the Web, it seems both are possibly a good source of poop in your diet.