Food-safety fears revived as Taco Bell pulls onions

[jayfish]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-061206taco-bell,0,2038464.story?coll=chi-business-hed

As Taco Bell Corp. pulled green onions from all of its 5,800 U.S. restaurants Wednesday in the wake of an E. coli outbreak linked to some of its restaurants, questions emerged about whether the current testing procedures on produce entering the nation's food system are adequate.

The fast-food chain said preliminary testing by an independent lab found three samples of green onions that tested positive for E. coli O157:H7, a potent strain of the bacteria.

Taco Bell executives said the tests were not conclusive. But the chain was taking no chances Wednesday when it decided to remove the onions after at least 46 confirmed cases of E. coli sickness were linked to Taco Bells in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania over the past few weeks.

"In an abundance of caution, we've decided to pull all green onions from our restaurants until we know conclusively whether they are the cause of the E. coli outbreak," said Greg Creed, Taco Bell's president.

With all the food supply problems we have benn having lately, all I can say is hooray for Republican regulatory oversight. They're doing a great job.

Jay

[cboy4]

1. Oh please, E. coli is just as big a myth as Global Warming,,,,

:sarcasm:

Keep up the good work Republicans! :puke:

[Quantess]

2. I don't fully understand how E. coli gets in vegetables.

I mean, I understand that vegetables may grow in manure.... But, one would think that washing them or cooking them would get rid of it. Can someone explain this?

[cboy4]

3. It's because it's an internal contamination....it gets inside the root

system, which is why washing does no good.

[Kagemusha]

4. Maybe we'll get lucky and it's just a false positive.

I wouldn't take any chances either though. And regardless, I'd question whether the testing's tight enough too.

[pitohui]

25. it ain't a false positive, people already died EOM

.

[cap]

5. It's a 3rd world problem

common in 3rd world countries due to inadequate sanitation in the fields or improperly treated irrigation water.

So Taco Bell has imported vegetables from a 3rd world country or we arent regulating our farms properly.

Heckava Job there...

[phantom power]

8. We are not regulating *anything* properly. And we *are* a 3rd-world country.

It's mostly inertia and ego that has prevented us from seeing that, and/or trying to do something about it.

[RamboLiberal]

13. Excuse me - the spinach that was contaminated a few months

ago came from California.

I do agree that it does worry me that much of the food coming in from 3rd world countries are not well policed as to safety.

But same thing can be said for vegetables and meat here in U.S.

That's another thing I hope the Dem congress addresses.

[cap]

20. that's precisely my point...

we arent regulating irrigation properly in this country!

[pitohui]

26. the folks growing and picking the crops in california are not californians

i don't think we need to tiptoe around this issue, they are using migrant slave labor in unsanitory conditions

you would not eat raw veggies in mexico, why would you eat them grown in california when the work on the ground is done by the same people under the same (literally) shitty conditions?

[Name removed]

29. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kath]

33. "same thing can be said for vegetables and meat here in U.S."

Yep. And let's not forget the fact that the USDA will not allow beef producers to test every animal for mad cow disease. :scared: :scared:

[pinniped]

6. It should be a bigger story but this is not California....

and spinach.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. The bacteria gets inside the vasculature.

So washing it off isn't a sure fire solution. Cooking it to 165 degrees or so will do the job, but most people don't check the doneness of their onions when putting them on their "tacos."

[jmowreader]

31. These are scallions. They're always served raw at Taco Bell.

When I saw the head, I thought they were pulling white onions from the restaurants...this is worse. Some white onions in their food are cooked, but scallions are always eaten raw.

[aquart]

7. Now we can't eat scallions? I love scallions!

Who on earth calls them "green onions"?

[customerserviceguy]

9. Booker T. and the MG's???

You have to be as old as I am (or older) to get that reference without Googling it.

[Frank Cannon]

15. I didn't think I was that old

I LOVE that song. I have it on my MP3 player. :hi:

[Retrograde]

10. East vs West

I used to occasionally hear them called scallions when I lived in New York, but out here on the West Coast they're green onions. Same plant.

[RamboLiberal]

14. Green Onions in Pittsburgh, PA

Took me awhile when someone said scallions in a recipe they were referring to what we called green onions.

[kath]

32. My parents were raised in the Pgh. are and they call them scallions...

[pitohui]

27. green onions are younger than scallions

they have to get fairly sizeable before they get called "scallions" around here, same plant, different age, with a lot more of a "bulb" at the bottom than when they are sweet tender green onions

grow your own, it's easy and if you have a fence you can be pretty sure no one was shitting in your garden

[KoKo]

11. Wasn't the "Chilie's Chain recall couple years ago for Green Onions/Scallions?

I remember most restaurants pulled green onions from their food for a long while after that.

[RamboLiberal]

12. That was Chi Chi's - and yes it was green onions

but in that case it was hepatitis. It was in the salsa made from the green onions. I remember it because it was Beaver County which is next door to Allegheny County, PA where I live. In that case several people died. It also killed off the Chi Chi's chain.

BTW in my section of PA we call them green onions.

On edit here's story.

Pennsylvania State health officials first learned of a potential HAV outbreak from emergency room doctors in Beaver County, who reported an unusually high number of hepatitis A cases in late October, 2003. Investigators from the health department began investigating the people who had fallen ill, and determined that the common thread for all was having eaten at the Chi-Chi's restaurant at the Beaver Valley Mall. Once the department isolated the restaurant as the probable source of the outbreak, Chi-Chi's closed the restaurant voluntarily and it remained closed for a number of weeks.

Ultimately, over 650 confirmed cases, both primary and secondary, were linked to this outbreak. The victims included at least 13 employees of the Chi-Chi's restaurant, and numerous residents of six other states. Three persons died as a consequence of their hepatitis A illness. In addition, more than 9,000 persons who had eaten at the restaurant during the period of potential exposure, or who had been exposed to ill persons, obtained immune globulin shots as protection against the hepatitis A virus.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), conducted further studies investigating the incident. Preliminary analysis of a case-control study indicated green onions were the probable source of this outbreak.

The green onions were typically shipped to the restaurant in boxes, and stored and refrigerated in a bucket of ice. They were eventually chopped up, and utilized in food served at the restaurant, often uncooked, as in the preparation of the mild salsa. "Preliminary trace-back information indicated that the green onions supplied to Chi-Chi's had been grown in Mexico."

http://www.marlerblog.com/2006/03/articles/-legal-cases/chichis-beaver-valley-mall-hepatitisa-outbreak/

[pitohui]

28. o'charley's also in 2004

my mom knew a man who died of the green onions at an o'charley's in east tennessee

i thought it was hep A that time tho, not e. coli

[Telly Savalas]

16. I was worried that "pulling the onion" was some new youth slang

for unspeakable acts.

[kestrel91316]

17. Ok, where are they buying their green onions from that they put

RAW COW POOP on crops?????

This is usually the problem.

[Endangered Specie]

19. Taco Bell... the best one stop cure for constipation...

guaranteeeeed.

[THUNDER HANDS]

21. so people are getting upset stomachs and diarrhea from Taco Bell

this is news, why?

:sarcasm:

[RamboLiberal]

22. Bad Scallions traced to California - Same brand as Spinach

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16089596/

The scallions suspected in the E. coli outbreak linked to Taco Bell came from a Southern California grower, an official with the company that washed, chopped and packed them for the restaurant chain said Thursday.

Ready Pac Produce, the sole supplier of green onions to Taco Bell restaurants in the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia areas, stopped all production of scallions at its Florence, N.J., plant, which was visited Wednesday by federal food inspectors.

“As soon as we heard news from Taco Bell about the positive yet inconclusive results, we took immediate action to do everything we could,” said Steve Dickstein, marketing vice president for Irwindale-based Ready Pac, one of the nation’s leading produce packers.

<snip>

This is the second E. coli scare to hit Ready Pac in the past four months. In September, spinach with the Ready Pac label was among dozens of brands pulled from the shelves when federal authorities traced a nationwide E. coli outbreak to a San Juan Bautista processing plant that bags its spinach and dozens of other brands. The spinach was traced to California’s Salinas Valley, on the Central Coast.

[opihimoimoi]

23. Them workers had better be provided with Sani Toi-s...so dey don't have to shit in the fields...

[mcougy]

24. Taco Bell Column

Here is an excerpt from a column about Taco Bell. It's funny.

"Since running into E. coli problems, Taco Bell executives have decided to temporarily pull the contamination suspect, green onions, from their menus. It wasn't that I was shocked that people got sick from Taco Bell -- in fact, I thought extra time in the bathroom was an accepted risk when you go "south of the border." Instead, I was shocked that Taco Bell actually uses real onions.

"Amidst rumors I had grown up with that the ground taco beef was Grade D meat, rat meat or meat mixed with oatmeal, I guess I just expected everything else to be an imitation product as well.

"But is anyone surprised that this E. coli (which comes from human and animal fecal matter) outbreak happened at, of all places, Taco Bell? After all, there were warning signs. Consider the post-Bell bathroom experience. Let me tell you; it stinks. Hell, I've even thrown it up. Aren't these obvious signs that Taco Bell does not belong in our bodies? No wonder my friends call it "Toxic Hell."
..."
There's more at http://sayist.blogspot.com

[wickerwoman]

30. "An abundance of caution" after 46 people have gotten sick...

whatever, boss man.