Pundit’s Mailbag — Thermometers
In Refrigerators
Received a note from Joe McGuire, Division Vice President of Ready Pac, Inc. Joe is based in Branchburg, New Jersey, and I absolutely must publish his missive, which responds to a piece we wrote suggesting that we might need “…a law that requires new home refrigerators to have built-in thermometers and the ability to set […]
PulseNet Explains Why It Doesn’t
Work Weekends
We’ve been exploring the story both here and here that PulseNet, which is the major mechanism for identifying foodborne illness outbreaks — whether caused by terrorism or other reason — closes on the weekend In the spinach crisis, the key report connecting the dots of people getting sick and their consumption of bagged spinach was […]
Lorri Koster Co-Chairs Mann Packing
Filial devotion is always an appealing trait and so, as Lorri Koster assumes co-chairmanship of Mann Packing Company, thus taking up the mantle of her father, Don Nucci, who passed away unexpectedly during the summer, one cannot help but have admiration for this valiant woman. That her assumption follows the death of her older brother, […]
300 Million Hungry Mouths To Feed
Sometime Tuesday, it is believed that the 300-millionth American was born — or perhaps, immigrated, legally or illegally. The almost complete silence on that matter illustrates how America’s traditional sense of optimism about the future has been replaced by uncertainty. In 1967, the population broke 200 million, and it was a major national event. President […]
Spinach Crisis Summary Rewind XV
With so much having been written in so short a time, thought it would be helpful to publish a sort of round-up of available material to help people understand the whole situation regarding spinach and this E. coli breakout: The Perishable Pundit itself has dealt extensively with the subject in several major pieces. On September […]
Botulism And Carrot Juice Summary V
We’ve been asked to make available in one place our coverage of the recall by Wm. Bolthouse Farms of certain 100% carrot juice products and the broader implications of this issue for food safety. This piece is updated regularly and will be re-run to include new coverage of this outbreak and issue. We initiated our […]
Will Hydroponics Be A Solution
To Spinach Woes?
Almost as soon as the spinach/E. coli crisis broke, we raised the issue as to whether the spinach situation might not create an opportunity for greenhouse growing. Now Lou Cooperhouse, Director, Rutgers Food Innovation Center, elaborates on the issue: A technology that has been with us for years, hydroponics, may offer increased interest to agricultural […]
Human Behavior And Perishable Foods
Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has filled my shelf with more than a few review copies of books over the years. He has a new one out. I haven’t seen it yet but it seems to be getting some press. The gist of the […]
Three Notes
I decided to declare this day almost free of spinach, carrot juice and all diseases and illnesses — although we continue to run our reference pieces at the end for those researching the subject. Apologies to those who tried to log in yesterday during a few hours when servers were down. Despite redundancies in our […]
Spinach Crisis Summary Rewind XIV
With so much having been written in so short a time, thought it would be helpful to publish a sort of round-up of available material to help people understand the whole situation regarding spinach and this E. coli breakout: The Perishable Pundit itself has dealt extensively with the subject in several major pieces. On September […]
