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From the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service Web site: A New York company called Fairbank Farms is recalling more than a half-million pounds of ground beef feared to be tainted with e.coli. There is some concern that the product could be responsible for illnesses in the New England area.

I've skimmed the list of stores that carry Fairbank Farms beef and it does not look like we have any of those stores in The Roanoke Times coverage area. In fact, the only store names I recognized were Trader Joe's and Giant. But for the full list, click the link above.

We've been talking lately about the safety of ground beef here on the old Fridge Magnet blog. Find a link to a New York Times story here, and information about grinding your own beef at home here.

Do you think you deserve to know the details of your food's journey from the field to your plate? I do, and it seems like a reasonable enough request. But apparently, some large food producers don't see it that way.

Yesterday, The New York Times published an investigative article about the safety of ground beef in America. The article centers around a 22-year-old dance instructor in Minnesota who will probably never walk again because she contracted a severe case of E. coli from a single hamburger her mother grilled on a Sunday evening.

Tracing the journey of that hamburger and millions of others produced and sold in the United States led reporter Michael Moss to some startling conclusions. Among them:

* "a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses." Given that, imagine how difficult it is to finger the offending company when someone gets sick from eating a tainted burger.

* Cargill, the company that made the burger the girl in the article ate, used a mixture of slaughterhouse timmings and other scraps, as well as ammonia-treated fat. "Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli," Moss wrote.

* The United States Department of Agriculture prohibits the sale of E. coli-tainted beef. But there is no requirement that grinders test their ingredients for E. coli. In fact, many do not test because the companies they buy from will not sell them scraps if they DO test. CostCo is one of the few big companies that do test all trimmings before they run them through the grinder. And because of that, CostCo's safety director told the Times, Tyson will not supply them.

* Properly cooking meat and washing up afterward the standard way, with hot soap and water, is not enough to kill all E. coli bacteria.

* "While the Department of Agriculture has inspectors posted in plants and has access to production records, it also guards those secrets," Moss wrote. "Federal records released by the department through the Freedom of Information Act blacked out details of Cargill's grinding operation." The New York Times was only able to see the redacted part when other sources provided them with the same documents, unaltered. They probably came from anonymous sources.

These are just snippets from the article. Clearly, to establish your own informed opinion, it would be best to read the Times article in its entirety. I am personally getting a little tired of hearing about things like this. We are a huge, civilized country with laws out the wahoo and we still can't be guaranteed a burger that isn't laced with crap? Or maybe that's the problem.

I wouldn't jump to point fingers at only the huge producers, either. Yes, local food is generally a safer bet, but even that cannot carry a 100% guarantee.

I see the grinder on my KitchenAid mixer getting a lot more action in the future. What do you think?

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The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services would like for you to know that Virginia peanuts are safe to eat.

Today, they put out a press release saying "Virginia peanuts, because of their superior quality, are generally sold as shelled or in-shell peanuts, and these products are safe to eat. They have not been implicated in the recent recall of manufactured products using peanut paste from a single supplier."

VDACS has good reason to want people eating Virginia peanuts. According to the most recent data from the National Agricultural Statistical Service (2007), peanuts are one of the top 25 farm commodities in the state. During that year, there were 21,000 acres of peanuts harvested in our state for a total of $12 million in cash receipts.

Not to mention the fact that they are darn good. I don't think I've had a peanut I enjoyed as much as the big, jumbo salted Virginia peanuts that always show up at our house during Christmas. Ironically, the latest issue of Cultivate, the Virginia Farm Bureau magazine, features a cover story about a Prince William County couple who own a chocolate shop called Chocolaterie Wanders. They make chocolates using almost all Virginia products. Not surprisingly, one of their favorite Virginia products to incorporate into the chocolates is peanuts!

Support Virginia farmers and don't turn down those peanuts.

A reader named Craig has asked a very compelling question of Fridge Magnet readers. In case you didn't see it in the comment section, here it is:

As a frequent reader of 'Restaurant news' at the Fridge Magnet I am always curious as to how many of you ever bother to visit the Virginia Department of Health website and review the health inspection records of your 'favorite' restaurants - such as Alejandro's. With all the recent furor over the problems in the Market Building why is it that no other dining establishment in Roanoke is deemed too dirty to eat in? Just how many 'critical violations' is too many for you guys?

This is my response:

To be quite honest, Craig, I haven't checked health inspections in a very long time. And that's because I think the Virginia Department of Health does those inspections for a reason -- so they can shut a restaurant down when it gets "too dirty to eat in." That's what happened at the Market building.

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Michael Sutphin with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech wrote me this afternoon with some valuable information about handling raw fruits and vegetables.

He thought it would be particularly timely in light of the recent salmonella scare involving tomatoes.

To read the article, click here.

The Food and Drug Administration yesterday updated its list of states and countries exporting SAFE tomatoes. Namely, Florida tomatoes have been approved. But here's the whole list, followed by a few paragraphs of additional information that I found on the FDA Web site. If you have other questions, I would encourage you to visit the site.

The list of APPROVED states:

Alabama
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Delaware
Florida (counties of: Jackson, Gadsden, Leon, Jefferson, Madison, Suwannee, Hamilton, Hillsborough, Polk, Manatee, Hardee, DeSoto, Sarasota, Highlands, Pasco, Sumter, Citrus, Hernando, Charlotte)*
Georgia
Hawaii
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Minnesota
Mississippi
New Jersey
New York
Nebraska
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Belgium
Canada
Dominican Republic
Guatemala
Israel
Netherlands
Puerto Rico

* Shipments of tomatoes harvested in these counties are acceptable with a certificate issued by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Consumers who are unsure of where the tomatoes are from that they have in their home are encouraged to contact the store or place of purchase for that information.

Consumers should also be aware that raw tomatoes are often used in the preparation of fresh salsa, guacamole, and pico de gallo, are part of fillings for tortillas, and are used in other dishes.

Restaurants, grocery stores, and food service operators have been advised by the FDA not to offer for sale or service raw red plum, Roma, or red tomatoes and products made from these types of tomatoes unless they are from one of the areas listed above.

Since mid April, there have been 167 reported cases of salmonellosis nationwide caused by Salmonella Saintpaul, an uncommon form of Salmonella. At least 23 hospitalizations have been reported.

Source: Food and Drug Administration.

In case you've missed it, the Food and Drug Administration is advising against the consumption of certain kinds of raw tomatoes, including red plum, red Roma and red round. Apparently, folks across the country have fallen ill with salmonella infection and the FDA believes it has been linked to tomatoes.

I'm really disappointed by this outbreak. It's almost tomato season here, which should be a time of joy for tomato lovers everywhere. It's a time to savor that first tomato sandwich or a big bowl of warm, juicy fruit with cottage cheese. And while the best tomatoes, hands down, come right out of a backyard garden, people with no time to garden deserve the very best of the season, too.

When I went grocery shopping on Sunday, many tomatoes had all been pulled from my Kroger store. Cherry, grape and on-the-vine tomatoes are still okay, according to the FDA. The administration has released a list of states where tomato production has NOT been affected by the outbreak. Read on for the list.

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