Totino's and Jeno's pepperoni pizza recalled due to E. coli

[Divine Discontent]

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Almost five million Totino's and Jeno's frozen pizzas with pepperoni toppings are being recalled because the pepperoni may be contaminated with E. coli, General Mills Inc said on Thursday.

The possible E. coli contamination was uncovered by state and federal authorities investigating 21 E. coli-related illnesses in 10 states. General Mills said nine of the 21 people reported having eaten Totino's or Jeno's pizza with pepperoni topping at some point before becoming ill. The people became ill between July 20 and October 10, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said, adding that all the patients recovered.

The people did not have packages with dates codes or other information General Mills needs to narrow down which pizzas might be affected, General Mills spokesman Tom Forsythe said, adding that, for the same reason, the company could not determine which of its suppliers provided the pepperoni.

[shain from kane]

1. I'm guessing cardboard is next. n/t

[TommyO]

3. Cardboard is included in the recall

both the box and crust are made of it.

Is my local pizza place any safer? I don't know, but I do know that the pizza is better than 99% of the frozen stuff out there.

[shain from kane]

9. You stole my joke, but made it better. n/t

[MissB]

2. I've never quite understood the attraction to frozen pizza.

It isn't terribly time consuming to make. Dough takes all of 30 unattended minutes.

[TommyO]

5. Convenience, plain and simple

There are a few frozen pizzas that I actually like. California Pizza Kitchen Roasted Garlic Chicken (both self-rising and thin crust) is very good.

[TwilightGardener]

8. Unwrap, slam into oven, done in 15 minutes, no mess, and with two

teenage/almost teen boys, they can make it themselves.

[HereSince1628]

10. Home-made isn't inherently safer...but I think it's the clean-up

that makes frozen pizza popular.

Even home made pizza can be made of temperature abused components and leftover can be contaminated and temp abused easily enough. Lots of pizza gets eaten as breakfast without ever having done an intervening interlude in the frig.

[tomreedtoon]

22. Are you talking about that crappy Chef Boyardee Pizza?

That was the only pizza I ever ate as a kid. My parents didn't have money for anything else. I was astonished as a teenager to discover there were places that made pizza, and had raised-yeast crusts and real meat, meltable cheese and veggies on it.

That "thirty unattended minutes" for a more realistic pizza crust, made with yeast, is preceeded by 15 messy minutes blending and kneading dough. I assume that "thirty unattended minutes" is where you take a shower and clean up the spilled flour in the kitchen.

Take-out pizza is the cheapest damned food on earth. It's even cheaper to make. Remember it was food designed to feed the Italian people after World War II destroyed most of their cities. And the miniscule amount you save by making it yourself is more than offset by the cleanup work involved. They also have these miracle things called "coupons" that can make it even cheaper to buy.

[tridim]

25. Dough is not hard to make!

I can do it with about 5 minutes of labor, a single bowl, a juice glass and a fork.

I only use a mixer for bread, you don't need it for pizza dough.

[tomreedtoon]

30. Not only do you need a mixer...

...unless you have arms like the late Andre the Giant, and can slap around dough (in hands you must coat heavily with flour several times to keep it from sticking) but you need a lot of homemade glass spray and paper towels to clean up the MESS made by kneading. Also trying to find a place to make it raise, punching down the dough, kneading again, second rise, and then trying to slap it into a pan. Again with the Dust of Ages Hands.

As a teen I made bread dough, rolls and other yeast stuff by hand. Those were the days before home mixers were powerful enough to include dough hooks. I KNOW what a mess this process is. And even with a hand mixer it's a mess, and you're unable to find cans of an appealing pizza sauce on your grocery store shelves anyway. Oh, and chopping the meat and veggies for the finished pizza - and what the hell do you do with leftover chopped green pepper?

Thanks, but I'd rather call Donatello's, or a good local independent pizza shop, rather than spending half a day making a pizza that everyone will say isn't as good as Hungry Howie's (yecch!) anyway.

[MissB]

32. Hell no!

:rofl:

Homemade pizza is a Friday night tradition in our family. I do have a stand mixer and that does make it easy and painless. The dough hook does a fine job of kneading the dough in just a few minutes. It doesn't take much to heat up a bit of milk, add a pinch of sugar and sprinkle it with yeast and let it sit for a few minutes until it is bubbly. It takes another moment to grab an egg from my fridge (courtesy of my chickens) and then add some flour and let the dough hook do its thing. Oil the bowl, cover it with a damp tea towel and let it sit for a half an hour then form the crusts.

Since I buy yeast in bulk, it costs me about a quarter to make dough for two family sized (4 people) pizzas. I buy the pepperoni from the deli counter (costs about $1 for enough for two pizzas). The mozzerella is bought by the brick at Costco and I make the sauce from scratch (most of the time using tomatoes and herbs that have come from my own garden).

So I couldn't buy a pizza for what it costs me to make it. Plus, mine tastes better. And I know that some cranky teenager hasn't spit in my pizza.

[Cha]

36. Brawhahahah..

"So I couldn't buy a pizza for what it costs me to make it. Plus, mine tastes better. And I know that some cranky teenager hasn't spit in my pizza."

You know what you're getting and even better that you have your own garden! My friends, do too.. from garden to table.:9 That's true, exquisite cuisine~

[Cha]

24. Your family is lucky..

I have lots of friends who make pizza for their families, too..ymmmm!

Just have to get a rhythm going.

[MissB]

33. Sometimes I get tired.

So I do end up buying takeout pizza about once every other month. My family always comments that my pizza is better. :)

It isn't all that hard, given that I have a stand mixer. I started to make it about 5 years ago when I was trying to pare down my food budget. That and homemade focaccia bread are two of my favorite yeast based items.

[TwilightGardener]

4. Huh--I just had one of those Totino's pepperoni pizzas last nite--

they're only a buck each, so I buy a lot of them to keep on hand for emergency dinners/snacks. I've been feeling OK, so it's all good here.

[tridim]

11. "Only a buck each" should be your first reason to avoid it completely

Have you priced REAL pepperoni and REAL cheese? It's much more than a dollar.

If that doesn't stop you, check to nutrition label for things like sodium and "calories from fat". That stuff is poison, even without the E-coli.

[TwilightGardener]

12. Yeahhh....but they're tasty.

I do read labels, but sometimes I deliberately turn a blind eye.

[Divine Discontent]

18. my grocery bill is calling out your name... lol

and can you imagine, they're recalling FIVE MILLION OF THESE THINGS! still sad, even if it's high in sodium.

[tridim]

19. I hear ya, but good health is a better value than crappy pizza

And for about $2.00 anyone can make the real deal.. With fresh vegetables!

[Divine Discontent]

20. $2?

please, tell me how, I'd appreciate it, as I'm not a cook by any means!

[tridim]

23. Dough is basically free.. Maybe 10 cents per pie.

6 pizzas worth of sauce costs about $1.75 (See Alton Brown's red sauce recipe)

Cheese is dirt cheap at Costco and you can keep it in the freezer for months.

Toppings probably average about $1.00 per pizza. Veggies are cheap!

You also need a pizza stone and a very hot oven. The whole process seems daunting at first glance, but if you keep trying it gets easy and fun. It doesn't even take that long, you just have to plan ahead by an hour so your dough has time to rise.

[Atman]

26. I used to make homemade pizzas all the time. It's not hard.

If I recall, you had to give the dough about an hour to rise...but actually mixing it was easy. Then you get the fun of spinning it and throwing it in the air. There is a unique (good unique!) taste to homemade pizza that you rarely find at a pizza shop. Well worth the trouble, and you're right, not very expensive at all.

As for the $1 remark...I think that is a rule to live by. Any food like that that costs a dollar should be a red flag. Because that dollar also includes advertising, packaging, shipping, manufacturing, wholesale markup, etc. How much of that dollar could possibly have gone into quality ingredients? Now imagine what must go into a pepperoni or sausage that can be placed on a $1 pizza...or don't. You're better off not knowing.

Don't eat anything that only costs $1, and never eat anything bigger than your head.

.

[Divine Discontent]

27. it sounds daunting at first glance... I guess the first thing is to get the pizza stone..

thanks again :)

[Atman]

28. Usually you get stoned, then the pizza.

I don't recall using a pizza stone back in the day, before Crate & Barrel convinced people to buy kitchen stuff they didn't really need. You can get away with a good insulated cookie sheet. Especially if you're stoned.

.

[Divine Discontent]

29. lol n/t

[tridim]

34. PIzza stones (or cheap quarry tiles) are well worth it for lots of things..

Pizza is certainly one, but they also work great for bread and cookies. You can fill an oven with unglazed quarry tiles for about $4.00.

The best part is the cleanup. Just toss it in the oven when you run the cleaning cycle and it comes out looking brand new. A happy surprise I discovered by mistake a few years ago. :)

[earthboundmisfit]

21. Ya know, the e.coli contaminant takes the term "crappy pizza"

to a whole new level!

[Divine Discontent]

13. glad you & your kids are alright

I wrote my friends with this info quick, because we all buy them every couple weeks. they're good & cheap. some pork producer got a little careless with a batch of meat - that's a shame, because there was only a dozen or so reported illnesses, but a 1/4 million pizzas are going to be thrown away... they should get a big fine to encourage them to not screw up again if they can pinpoint the origination of the meat, so this doesn't have to happen

and look! we can now tell people - see it IS real meat on the Totino's pizza!

[TwilightGardener]

14. Well, if your definition of "meat" extends to pork byproducts...

:rofl: edit to add: mine apparently does!

[BurningDog]

37. You can get them even cheaper now...

1) Goto the grocery store and load up on pizzas with recalled UPCs
2) Clip UPCs
3) Cook pizza throughly and enjoy
4) Send in UPCs
5) FREE PIZZAS!

[gatorboy]

6. It's not E. coli...

It's DiGiorno!

[libnnc]

15. LOL DUzy!!!

:spray:

[mcscajun]

16. If that doesn't get a DUzy, I'll eat my purple hat!

:spray:

[Divine Discontent]

17. the DiGiorno people called

they want your contact info... LOL

[Hubert Flottz]

7. Bush thought General Mills was in Iraq surging!

[dysfunctional press]

31. too bad they can't recall them for just tasting crappy.

nt

[Divine Discontent]

35. they're good!!!! come on now! lol n/t