Americans of Reddit, with the FDA and other government bodies scaling back food and safety testing, what can we do as individuals (if anything) to lower our risk of food borne illness?
Americans of Reddit, with the FDA and other government bodies scaling back food and safety testing, what can we do as individuals (if anything) to lower our risk of food borne illness?
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I’m going to stop eating cereal so I don’t have to buy milk anymore
Cook from home more. Make your own staples, like learning how to make homemade bread, butter, pasta, sauces, condiments, etc.
Go to farmers markets more and buy produce locally. Find local chicken farms to get eggs.
I don’t eat very many things uncooked, and I avoid foods that are often recalled
Personally, I’m expanding my vegetable garden at home, signed up for a farm share box (CSA), and plan on buying more food from farmer’s markets.
My understanding is that food that you fully cook at home is less risky, but foods which come pre-cooked that you don’t reheat (like deli meats) and foods that you eat raw (like lettuce) are relatively higher risk.
wash produce thoroughly,avoid pre packaged salads and fruits, use soap when washing produce, I like Dr Bronners, for parasites, a 10% peroxide bath, then rinsed, should take care of that (I use that when juicing raw veggies and fruits). Cook meats as reccomended, no more cold lunch meats!
Register to vote and show up next time for fucks sake
Is it bad that in some cases id rather take my chances? Like im not washing a chicken breast. Ive always rinsed my veggies and berries in water but thats it. If i have to wash them with soap well I probably just wont. Just water, unless i can visually see a decline in cleanliness in produce
You will want to look for ultra-pasteurized milk!
Move country
Food scientist here with over 20 years food safety experience.
Handle food appropriate. Respect the cold chain. Cook / heat thoroughly. If you have great concerns stay away from higher risk foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables you will eat fresh, and not cook, or other raw foods eaten raw (sushi).
Honestly, we shouldn’t see to much of an impact as most food companies do the right thing. It is their brand at risk if they don’t (think of Chipotle). A few bad actors for sure, but overall they are limited.
This is why people used to cook the absolute shit out of things.
wash everything … even the stuff that says its pre-washed and ready to eat
cook the living hell out of it
Eat stuff well done, wash stuff, even though you should always do that, and vote and get the non voters out pointing at what’s already happened and if they really think both sides are just as bad.
Buy a sous vide stick wand (low temp, cooking via pasteurization science baby)
Ditto the instantpot multicooker..
Wash, scrub, clean ingredients properly.
Buy from trusted sources.
Cook at home
Buy less meat but it better reared quality.
Insist on European food standards. (Mostly better)
Import Canadian food with their standards, often matching European food standards)
..Get out of america.whilst you can!? 🤔🔬🙈
Start cooking all your food OR wash raw produce in a solution of lots of water + a few drops of bleach. (Another Redditor said this is SOP in her third-world country, where government safety standards are lax)
For milk: this might change the flavor a bit, but you can boil and cool it. That’s what folks in my grandparents’ rural European farm community used to do.
Stove, oven, or grill. No microwaving. Microwaving doesn’t kill bacteria.
Really? I thought that Kennedy guy was all about bringing healthy food back?
If you’re in place that you can do it, farm to table is awesome. Meet your farmers and really know where your food comes from. Heck, this was good advice when the FDA was functioning.
It’s wilder to me because the US already didn’t have great standards compared to European counterparts.
My family stopped buying dairy.
Wash everything, buy from local sources, and when you do shop for food, attempt to research brands and stores. For instance, I am more trusting of Costco’s vetting and standards than, say, Winn-Dixie.
Clean your produce. Avoid pre-cut fruit and veggies that you plan to eat raw, especially bagged lettuce. Pre-cut that you will cook is fine.
If you are eating out, restaurants/grocery stores are still inspected and regulated by local authorities. City/county health department in most areas.
You can look up health inspection reports online before going to restaurants. Some municipalities require restaurants to post their inspection score at the entrance to the restaurant as well.
Although there may no longer be a way to know if the supply of food a restaurant is receiving is safe, you can at least know that it was handled and cooked safely.
Boil everything.
Buy a meat grinder. Purchase primals (or big uncut chunks of meat) and process your own hamburger, sausage, ground pork ect. Grow your own lettuce or veggies.
Move to a more civilized country. Impeach Trump. Toss him in jail and kick out all the MAGA morons in government.
Fuck Trump and his stupid fucking idiotic agenda.
I just know Teddy Roosevelt is rolling in his grave.
You really can’t do this by yourself.
That said, the basic level of food safety knowledge is pretty low. Here’s what I tell people:
*Pasteurization is your friend. Only 47% of Americans knew pasteurization makes milk safe.
*Raw meat is dangerous, don’t wash it, do keep it cold. Do cook it completely according to standards. Cook your raw eggs, especially with bird flu (whether the outside of a raw egg should be washed and how is one of those interesting differences in food safety between the US and Europe, but you do really need to keep US eggs cold). Steak is safer than hamburger. If you can go to a butcher and have them grind it fresh and cook it same day, that is potentially safer than pre-packaged if it sits longer.
*Deli meat they cut in front of you is not safer than pre-packaged. Also Boar’s Head is… yeesh.
*Actually, just assume everything in the deli case has listeria. Don’t eat it, even the jello salad or whatever, if you’re under the age of 5, over the age of 70, or pregnant.
*Don’t eat raw sprouts if you’re under the age of 5, over the age of 70, pregnant, or just paranoid. Seriously raw sprouts are the one thing I ate before I did a postdoc in food science microbiology, and I no longer eat.
*Extremely specific advice, but if you are in on of those listeria risk categories, do not cut your cantaloupe and put it back in the fridge for a week and then eat it. Wash the rind. Listeria loves that rind.
*Salad spinner? Don’t blindly trust “pre-washed”. Wash produce immediately before use. Don’t wash your mushrooms when you get them home and put them back in the fridge.
*If you’re pregnant, you can heat your deli meat to make it safe. Just throw it in the microwave (you want them steaming hot/165F). But you have to make sure you don’t have uneven heating/cold spots with the microwave.
*If you are cooking a large item of meat you do not cook regularly (e.g. thanksgiving turkey), get a thermometer and follow food safety recommendations.
*Trust nothing. People know about raw hamburger. People do not always suspect raw flour, peanut butter, tahini, mac and cheese… but a surprising variety of things can be tainted with salmonella.
*Do not trust canned items from home kitchens unless you really think the people making them understand spores. Botulism is awful.
*Wash your hands with soap for 30 seconds. Wash your kitchen implements well, in this home of two PhDs in microbiology we soak pretty much everything in bleach (NB: there is very little need to do this with pots/pans that are getting heated very hot, but I do think it’s wise for silverware).
I don’t know if you are old enough to remember OP. But us elder millennials and genXers probably grew up with parents and grandparents that boiled everything to cook it until it was absolute mush and had no flavor left. Generational trauma from lack of food safety standards was why.
We are going to have to go back to that. Grow your own vegetables if you can, but every thing you buy at the store will need to be washed more thoroughly than you’ve ever washed anything. Stay away from things like lettuce which is the culprit in a lot of listeria outbreaks. Don’t buy milk. Be diligent with your meat thermometer instead of eyeballing it, especially with pork products, etc.
Republicans are testing the “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” mantra
Buy Canadian
Well…. there’s the thought that by the time untested products make it to market, we won’t have any money to buy them with anyway….
I really am banking on the US government caving to pressure before we get there, honestly. I don’t think Trump has what it takes to keep this up.
I do a thing already where I try not to eat a ton of any one thing I get if it tends to be on the risky list. I don’t. Eat a huge salad with the lettuce I just bought. I don’t eat a ton of cantaloupe or strawberries or deli meat all at once. That way if I bought a bad batch, at least I don’t eat a huge amount of it.
Eat the rich.
The milk is still being tested. They paused the proficiency testing as cuts happen and they switch labs. Here is a statement on milk safety
https://www.idfa.org/news/rigorous-milk-and-dairy-safety-testing-continues
Buy Canadian
Go to Canada, buy food. Return home.
I’ve bought two raised garden beds to add to the one I already have.
Grow your own if possible. Every little bit helps.
Fruits and vegetables: Shop from the source as much as possible. Produce from the farmers market isn’t usually handled by as many steps in the process that could potentially expose you. Wash and cut your produce before you eat it rather than buying pre-washed and pre chopped veggies and fruits. It takes more work but it will probably taste fresher and more flavorful too.
Funny enough, we are finally getting rid of artificial dyes. So it’s not all doom and gloom
Stay away from deli eat and most packaged food items
Wash your hands. Cook your food.
I’d imagine that this becomes a state by state thing. This will most surely mean it becomes more costly as each state will need to have its own agency instead of a communal agency. It also would mean that certain states (probably all southern redneck places) wouldn’t invest yet again in their people and the big problems will happen there (unless businesses want to do business with liberal states and don’t want to have two classes of product, safe and maybe safe).
I am very careful where I spend my money, which is now going beyond boycotting target, Amazon, hobby lobby etc. I’m spending more time do research on companies that appear to be ethical, until I learn otherwise.
Guess we’re going back to grandma’s “Cook it until it has no flavor” technique.
Move to Europe.