food borne illness

[houseelf]

How much do you alter your diet when you hear that beef, spinach, or tomatoes have been tainted?

Honestly, I haven't ever altered my eating habits that much in light of these scares and I'm wondering if I'm playing the odds a bit to recklessly.

In fact, I probably eat more fish than recommended by the FDA (I could easily be a fish only type of vegetarian (pescovegetarian I think is the term, but I'm not sure?). I wonder if I have as much mercury as the experts warn I could have. I guess if magnets start sticking to my body, I'll know.

No seriously, who has altered their water or food consumption based on any of these events? Tell it to me straight.

Kelly

[Auspicious]

Re: food borne illness

I usually first hear about them because they're missing from the supermarket shelves with an explanatory note in their place, so the choice is kind of made for me (spinach, tomatoes). We don't keep much beef around home, so I've never been affected by a beef recall.

The fish/mercury thing I think is a bit different because it's not like it's recalled, it's just accepted that the mercury is in there and you're supposed to cut down to the amounts they say. I do comply with that one, especially when pregnant.

Re: food borne illness

I'm definitely staying away from tomatoes right now. The last thing I need is salmonella poisioning while pregnant.

Re: food borne illness

I usually first hear about them because they're missing from the supermarket shelves with an explanatory note in their place, so the choice is kind of made for me.

Ditto. I went to eat lunch at Granite City with a friend a couple days ago, and we were told the salads would be missing any tomatoes or tomato-based ingredients. We grow a lot of veggies in our garden, and we don't buy a lot of meats, so usually it doesn't affect us much. We do eat more fish than recommended, though.

[SuzySunshine]

Re: food borne illness

I bought tomatoes the day before the recall came out but they were still on the vine so we still ate them, today we bought more and made sure to buy the ones on the vine.

I don't usually alter my eating much, though I was more aware when I was pregnant or breast feeding.

[DCJenn]

Re: food borne illness

I'm using a local source now (see the things I love section) and I'm growing my own peppers, tomatoes, squash and herbs so that helps. I have two new fruit trees but they won't flower this year.

I generally avoid most meat- raw chicken grosses me out more often than not, I don't bother w/ steak- if I want a good steak, San Antonio has more than it's share of fabulous sources for steak, I feel guilty about eating pork (four years with my Jewish room-mate in college- I got her guilt and the aversion to pork). I do like fish but I really believe that we're over-fishing and that fish farms are no great solution. I will eat the occasional burger. I love duck but only eat it when I'm out.

I'm about one more meat related food scare away from going completely veggie (again) and after the spinach thing and this one, I'm pretty much only going to buy local and in season. No one needs peaches in January.

Jenn

Re: food borne illness

After tonight I can say it will be awhile before I eat shrimp again. That wasn't even on the list was it?

[Meenah]

Re: food borne illness

I do alter things. Afer many years of working both ER and Endoscopy (GI) I have seen way too much!

[PrincessFiona]

Re: food borne illness

I'm with Lily....waiting for my own garden to grow (without the MN sun though, we might not get much this year!!!!). Generally speaking, I buy produce from the grocery store and make sure to wash everything well. :huh:

Kris

Re: food borne illness

I didn't know there was a beef recall. We don't buy that much meat. I've mostly stopped buying any bag lettuce and buy local bulk greens. I've been buying grape tomatoes. I didn't know about that one until we were in a restaurant and they said no tomatoes today and then saw a sign at the grocery store.

Aside from mostly avoiding bag lettuce, I'm not changing much.

[Tenacious_D]

Re: food borne illness

With the pregnancy, I am staying away from anything on the FDA's do not eat list. Before that....not so much.

[Vishenka69]

Re: food borne illness

I try to buy local as much as possible, so the recalls don't usually affect what I buy and what we eat. For places where local is not an option, I guess most stores/restaurants make the choice for you.

[planet]

Re: food borne illness

I do look at what we buy and try to use common sense about food alerts. That means I washed our spinach extra well.

We don't have tv so if it isn't on the headlines of yahoo or I'm not meandering about the web, I'd never know anyways without actually checking.

Who knew cattle tonsils were dangerous?
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/ ... /index.asp

Bleh.