Tag Archives: USDA

Tailgate Food Safety Q&A

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Tailgate season is an awesome opportunity to show off your impeccable grilling skills and spread the word about Passanante’s Home Food Service’s unbeatable meats and veggies. We know you always want to be the life of the party with delicious and healthy foods to serve your friends and family, which is why we think tailgate food preparation is so important.

A beginner’s mistake as simple as reusing a half cup of marinade to baste steaks can be the difference between a day you’ll always remember and a day you’d love to forget. The USDA is a fantastic resource for food safety tips, recall announcements, and even Podcasts and videos. We found this helpful Tailgate Food Safety Q&A and thought it would be a great thing to share with all of our foodie friends.

We hope you all have a great weekend cheering on your favorite teams and are certain that paying attention to food preparation details will help you get on your way to a great tailgate!

U.S. Chicken Plants to Increase Chemicals

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Poultry Plant

In an unfortunate turn of events, the USDA is expected to approve a number of new regulations for the United States poultry plant industry as early as this summer. In an effort to keep up with the ever increasing demand for chicken and turkey, the new rules would allow for a 25% increase in poultry line speeds — that’s an increase of 140 to 175 chickens, and 45 to 55 turkeys per hour.

Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, right? Unfortunately — wrong.

With the birds moving down the line at such an increased rate, the ability of workers to spot contaminants including fecal matter would be greatly reduced. With the current regulations, when a bird is identified as contaminated it is removed from the line for manual inspection and a cleaning process which involves dousing the poultry with antimicrobial chemicals. With the new regulations, such slow and manual processes would defeat the purpose of the increase rate. The solution? No birds would leave the line, and to prevent massive contamination issues ALL birds would be dosed with large amounts of antimicrobial chemicals.

According to federal officials as reported by The Washington Post, “the problem is government agencies have not conducted independent research into the possible side effects on consumers of using the chemicals. Instead, they review data provided by chemical manufacturers.” But, these are the same chemicals which have been identified by poultry plant workers as catalysts for major respiratory complications, asthma, burns, rashes, sinus ulcers, and even death.

Thankfully, the poultry delivered directly to your home from Passanante’s Home Food Services is not the same poultry whizzing down the conductor belts in these plants across the country. We pride ourselves on being a credible food delivery service who provides fresh, clean and natural grade A poultry. None of our products are CAFO raised or mass produced. All of our poultry is raised on local farms in Maryland and Pennsylvania on a natural, seed based diet — free of hormones and antibiotics.

At Passanante’s we’re serious about the quality of foods we provide to our customers, we even guarantee it. If you’re interested in speaking to someone at Passanante’s feel free to give us a call at 800-772-7786.

“Pink Slime”

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“Pink slime”.  You may have heard the buzz about the use of this ammonia treated meat filler and the recent rejection of this product by major fast food chains including McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Burger King. We, for one, are happy to hear that this bubble gum colored meat paste of animal waste trimmings, connective tissues and fat will no longer grace the buns of drive-through burgers.

Pink SLIME

Photo Credit: Michael Kindt

Once collected, the meat trimmings are sprayed with ammonium hydroxide to kill pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. According to MSNBC, ammonium hydroxide is a powerful chemical with the potential to turn into ammonium nitrate—a common component in household cleaners, fertilizers and homemade bombs. Sounds healthy?

Many members of the health and food community including microbiologists and food safety inspectors agree these “lean beef trimmings”, originally called “soylent pink”, are a high risk product and should not be confused with real meat. Fortunately, an ABC News investigation discovered just how much pink slime has infiltrated America’s meat industry.

Shockingly, up to 70% of the ground beef found in supermarkets across America contain the less than appetizing pink paste. And it doesn’t stop there. The USDA is purchasing 7 million pounds of the slime for school lunches as reported by The Daily.

Naturally, the USDA insists this unnatural and chemically treated tissue paste meets the highest standard for food safety and even argues its nutritional equivalence to ground beef. Fortunately, the public outcry against pink slime is bringing this problem into the forefront of the meat industry conversations, and hopefully our grocery stores and school cafeterias will safe from “pink slime” in the future.

Passanante’s is committed to providing our customers with natural, hormone-free, chemical-free, safe and delicious meats. Treat your family to the real deal, not pink slime. Give us a call today at 1-800-772-7786 to speak to a member of our team about eating better!

2011 Meat Recalls : The Value Of Safe Foods

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The US Department of Agriculture recently released the meat recall statistics for 2011. A shocking 60 million pounds of beef, pork, chicken and turkey products were stripped from store shelves across the nation over the last 12 months. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) website is always being updated with ongoing recalls in an effort to protect you and your family from ingesting dangerous bacteria including Listeria, E.Coli, and Salmonella.

The symptoms of bacterial food poisoning include but are not limited to nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, fever, diarrhea, headache, life-threatening forms of kidney failure, and even death.

Unfortunately, large-scale meat companies have become accustomed to recalls due to contamination of meats, but the punishment for careless distribution of potentially harmful foods is little more than a slap on the wrist for such producers. Small-scale producers, however, often face much more devastating disciplinary action despite the limited distribution of their products which frequently include raw and organic foods.

At Passanante’s Home Food Service we take pride in the quality of the meats we deliver to the homes of our customers. We believe our 96 year history of cleanliness and safety speaks for itself. Let us show you how it feels to forget about the worries of unsafe meats. Call us today at 1-800-772-7786 to speak to someone about your next food delivery!