The TRUTH about Food BORNE Bacteria

Salmonella, E-Coli, Listeria, Campylobacter are ONLY found in the intestinal tract.  They are ANAEROBIC bacteria, meaning they DO NOT need oxygen to live or survive.

So everyone is talking about how to prepare food, handle food, cook food to prevent Food Borne Bacteria from making you and or your family sick.

We have a BETTER IDEA !!!!!! Buy food that is NOT contaminated. Novel idea...... see we hand harvest and hand butcher our animals.  By doing this we do NOT interrupt nor Damage the intestinal tract of the animal where all of the bacteria lives and exists.  By NOT allowing animal poop onto your food to begin with, none of the food borne bacteria is on your food.

Unfortunately, clean, safe food is NOT something you can get from your grocery store. The CDC states that Organic meats have an even higher percentage chance of making you sick from a bacterial infection than processed meats from your grocery store. 

WE, at Premier Foods Group, do not believe you should have to worry about bacteria on your food.  Your grandmother did not, this is a new problem and it is PREVENTABLE. Do not buy your meat from a place that allows bacteria to get on your food in the FIRST PLACE !!!!

Sneaky Salmonella: It’s Common, Costly, and Preventable

Jun 08, 2011

By Capt. Christopher R. Braden, MD, Director of the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, CDC

Each year, roughly 1 in 6 people in the United States gets sick from eating contaminated food. Each of those illnesses represents something that went wrong somewhere along the pathway from a farm to our table. Behind these illnesses are familiar culprits (like Salmonella) and causes (like poor food safety practices in farms, factories, restaurants, or homes).

Salmonella are bacteria that cause over one million illnesses each year. This “bug” causes more hospitalizations and deaths than any other type of germ found in food and $365 million in direct medical costs each year. At CDC, we’re concerned that Salmonellainfections have not declined in 15 years. So, how does Salmonellasneak into foods, what foods do they get into, and what can be done?

How does Salmonella get into foods?

Simply put—it gets into food through the poop of animals, such as cows, birds, and mice. Because the natural home for Salmonella bacteria is in the gut of these animals, their poop becomes a carrier of the germ if it gets into food or water. For example, if water used to irrigate a field has animal poop in it, the water can contaminate the food growing in the field. 

Where does E. coli come from?

E. coli O157:H7 bacteria and other pathogenic E. coli mostly live in the intestines of cattle, but E. coli bacteria have also been found in the intestines of chickens, deer, sheep, and pigs. [1, 35]

A 2003 study on the prevalence of E. coliO157:H7 in livestock at 29 county and three large state agricultural fairs in the United States found that E. coli O157:H7 could be isolated from 13.8% of beef cattle, 5.9% of dairy cattle, 3.6% of pigs, 5.2% of sheep, and 2.8% of goats. [36] Over 7% of pest fly pools also tested positive for E. coli O157:H7. [36] Shiga toxin-producing E. coli does not make the animals that carry it ill. [1] The animals are merely the reservoir for the bacteria. [35]

According to a study published in 2011, an estimated 93,094 illnesses are due to domestically acquired E. coli O157:H7 each year in the United States. [25] Estimates of foodborne-acquired O157:H7 cases result in 2,138 hospitalizations and 20 deaths annually. [25]

What makes E. coli O157:H7 remarkably dangerous is its very low infectious dose, and how relatively difficult it is to kill these bacteria. [4, 27]  “E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef that is only slightly undercooked can result in infection.” [4] As few as 20 organisms may be sufficient to infect a person and, as a result, possibly kill them. [28]  And unlike generic E. coli, the O157:H7 serotype multiplies at temperatures up to 44 Fahrenheit, survives freezing and thawing, is heat-resistant, grows at temperatures up to 111 F, resists drying, and can survive exposure to acidic environments. [27, 28]  And, finally, to make it even more of a threat, E. coli O157:H7 bacteria are easily transmitted by person-to-person contact. [4, 13] 

Trace-back and source identification

E. coli O157:H7 and other non-O157 STEC are now routinely “fingerprinted” as part of surveillance of foodborne disease. [52] This surveillance was first initiated in response to the major outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections in 1993.  As described by the CDC on the PulseNet website:

In 1993, a large outbreak of foodborne illness caused by the bacterium Escherichia coli O157:H7 occurred in the western United States. In this outbreak, scientists at CDC performed DNA “fingerprinting” by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and determined that the strain of E. coli O157:H7 found in patients had the same PFGE pattern as the strain found in hamburger patties served at a large chain of regional fast food restaurants. Prompt recognition of this outbreak and its cause may have prevented an estimated 800 illnesses. As a result, CDC developed standardized PFGE methods and in collaboration with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), created PulseNet so that scientists at public health laboratories throughout the country could rapidly compare the PFGE patterns of bacteria isolated from ill persons and determine whether they are similar.

Knowledge is key in making food decisions for your family

Now you can not know what you are not being informed about.  It is becoming more and more important to know who is supplying your family food. To have a relationship and know the supply chain and the transparency in delivering food the food to your table is the only way to keep your food safe and healthy.

FROM FOOD SAFETY NEWS:

Watchdog group sues USDA for names of poultry companies

Food & Water Watch says new poultry inspection system gives companies too much autonomy

BY NEWS DESK | JUNE 13, 2017

Food & Water Watch has filed suit against the USDA because the agency will not release the names of companies that have applied to switch to a voluntary program that allows for non-government poultry inspections.

A USDA poultry inspector checks carcasses as the production line moves. Photo courtesy of USDA

In its complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., the watchdog group refers to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “New Poultry Inspection System” (NPIS) as a privatization deal.

Food & Water Watch contends the system results in government inspectors “evaluating up to three birds per second in broiler chicken plants, and one turkey per second in turkey slaughter facilities.”

The activist group was last in federal court in 2015 over the USDA’s New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) when their challenge was tossed by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.    She found the group and two of its members, who she said were advancing a”myopic view” over “sheer speculation that bad things might happen,” were without standing.

As of Monday, the USDA had not filed a response to the latest federal court complaint.

Since October 2014 the nonprofit group has been asking USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to release the names of companies that applied to participate in the new inspection procedure.

“Consumers deserve to know if the meat they’re serving their families is mostly inspected by the companies themselves. If these facilities are really more effective at ensuring that food doesn’t contain deadly contaminants, then what is USDA and FSIS hiding,” asked Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, in a news release about the federal court action.

USDA poultry inspectors use a variety of tests to gauge the effectiveness of food safety measures. Photo courtesy of FDA

“If USDA wants to claim that NPIS is on track to prevent thousands of cases of foodborne illness a year, as it estimated in 2014, it should easily be able provide such an evaluation. But the agency won’t even tell us which plants plan to join the program.”

The government won’t provide the names of the companies, which Food & Water Watch has requested through numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, because of protections built into federal law regarding “confidential corporate information.”

“(The requested) records consist solely of confidential future business plans that were submitted by the establishments,” USDA said in a response to Food & Water Watch.

The advocacy organization says in its legal complaint that it doesn’t want secret plans, rather, “only sought the identities of those companies that had begun operating or had requested permission to operate under the new system.”

In addition to expecting to annually prevent 5,000 foodborne illnesses from Salmonella and Campylobacter under the new inspection program, USDA officials have said the NPIS allows poultry companies to sort their own products for defects before printing the to FSIS for inspection.

USDA has said with the new system FSIS inspectors will be able to more frequently remove birds from the evisceration line for close examinations, take samples for testing, check plant sanitation, verify compliance with food safety plans and observe live birds for signs of disease or mishandling.

With the new inspection program rules, poultry companies must meet new requirements to prevent Salmonella and Campylobacter contamination, rather than addressing contamination after it occurs.

Also, all poultry facilities must perform their own microbiological testing at two points in their production process to show the two pathogens are being controlled. Those in-house tests are in addition to testing by FSIS.

Is ORGANIC food SAFE?

This article reminds us that LOCAL is better than A LABEL !!!!!!

http://expand-your-consciousness.com/organic-food-from-china-found-to-be-highly-contaminated/?t=MAM

“Organic” Food From China Found To Be Highly Contaminated

December 12, 2016

With more and more people learning about the importance of eating healthy and safe produce, consumer demand for all things “organic” has skyrocketed. In the US alone, annual organic food sales have grown by 20% and the increased demand is significantly outpacing domestic supplies, forcing many grocers and food vendors to look internationally to keep their businesses stocked. Most of these organic imports are grown in the European Union, where organic standards are weaker than those of the US. However, many of these “organic” products are from China, whose food industry standards for safety and quality are notoriously low. Much of this “organic” produce grown in China is so unsafe, that the farmers who grow it won’t eat it themselves. Isn’t that the whole point of choosing organic in the first place?

It turns out that much of the food labelled “organic” was never grown with the intention of being organic, but rather as a means to circumvent China’s reputation for substandard produce. US Customs personnel often reject entire shipments of food from China due to the addition of dangerous and unsavory additives, the presence of drug residues, mislabeling, or the poor hygienic state of the food. In an effort to get around these bulk rejections of food, some Chinese food exporters have taken to labeling their products “organic,” especially those foods that appear dirty or unusual. In addition, the “organic” label in China has no meaning as collusion between the government and manufacturers has led to rampant mislabeling, and China’s government has no established system for determining what is or is not organic.

Even if “organically grown” food from China was in fact that, the quality of the water used in the production of food intended for export is so contaminated that a person could fall ill just by handling it. Much of China’s industrial-scale agriculture is found along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, both of which are extremely polluted. This is because thousands upon thousands of Chinese factories also line these same rivers, adding their chemical waste to the same water used to irrigate the country’s food supply. In one such recent case, a chemical fertilizer plant dumped such excessive amounts of ammonia into the Fu river, a tributary of the Yangtze river, that an estimated 110 tons of dead fish had to be removed. However, the ammonia-laden river continued to be used for industrial and agricultural use.

Other chemicals and heavy metals have been found in very high and unsafe amounts in these rivers, as well as the food produced with that water. Perchlorate, a precursor to rocket fuel, has been found in China’s sewage as well as its rice, bottled drinking water, and milk. It is throughout the entire water supply and contaminate any would-be organic produce. Perchlorate is an endocrine-disruptor and is also toxic. It can cause improper regulation of the metabolism, thyroid problems, as well as developmental problems in children and infants. Does that sound healthy and organic? Obviously not. Luckily, some of China’s “organic” products are more likely to be contaminated than others. Fish, chicken, apples, rice, mushrooms, green peas, black pepper, and garlic were found to be the most contaminated foods from China and are to be avoided. As always, the only way to be completely sure that your food is free of chemicals and additives is to grow it yourself. Vegetable gardens can fit in even the smallest of spaces, are attractive, help local insects (including bees), and can provide you and your family with delicious food that is completely safe.

This article, by Whitney Webb, (“Organic” Food From China Found To Be Highly Contaminated) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com. Dead fish being removed after a fertilizer factory dumped huge amounts of ammonia into the Fu river      Credit – NYT