Scope of salmonella-tainted flavouring recall will continue to grow

[Robbien]

Source: Montreal Gazette

It could take months for some food companies to figure out whether a popular flavouring ingredient contaminated with salmonella found its way into their products, industry experts say.

In the past five days, a batch of the flavour enhancer hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) that was found last month to be contaminated with salmonella has already resulted in the recall of 94 items in the U.S. and nine in Canada, with another five items added to the list late Monday.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned people Monday not to consume Quaker Crispy Minis rice cakes in tomato and basil, Family's Best smokey bacon potato chips, Compliments onion soup mix, and two No Name brands of soup mix — onion recipe and cream of leek.

And the CFIA warns there will be more. The Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. says the contaminated HVP, manufactured by Nevada company Basic Food Flavors Inc., could balloon into one of the largest-ever food recalls in North America.

The ingredient, often mixed in with other spices, is added to thousands of processed foods, including chips, dips, salad dressings, sauces, hotdogs, soups and frozen dinners. And if HVP is part of a flavour mix, it may not be listed as an ingredient on a food package.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Scope+food+recall+will+grow+CFIA/2658393/story.html

---

There are over one hundred products on the recall list in the US. Today Pringles is recalling its product
P&G recalls Pringles as salmonella scare widens
http://www.just-food.com/article.aspx?id=110116

Outside of blogs and industry specific sites, there are very few articles in US media. Canadian media is full of the news.

The US company responsible for this salmonella contamination hates government regulation:
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/03/regulatory-climate-sent-hvp-maker-packing/

Basic Food Flavors--the company at the center of the recall of foods containing hydrolyzed vegetable protein that may laced with a strain of Salmonella Tennessee--was born in California and fled to Nevada for a more favorable regulatory environment.

The North Las Vegas food Ingredient Company is not saying much today, but in 1990 it was the subject of a Forbes magazine article about its expansion to Nevada after encountering too many regulatory obstacles in Pomona, California.

Basic Food Flavors has apparently never looked back. The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that Basic Food Flavors has expanded several times since moving to the Las Vegas area two years ago.

It now offers the food industry 120 varieties of hydrolyzed vegetable protein or HVP, which are used in all kinds of dips, soups, dressings, snack foods, and more.

Basic Food Flavors is a privately held company that does not make its financial information or employment figures public. Its annual sales are estimated in the $20 to $50 million range and its employment at 50-99 workers.

[Demeter]

1. "It's Still the Same Old Story

A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die"

only in this case, it's the customers who are dying...

[Winterblues]

2. Nobody is dying or even getting sick

The recall is pre-emptive, NOBODY has been made sick..

[Demeter]

4. Thank You But I've HAD Salmonella

Those that don't die, wish they did.

[glinda]

5. Me too. I thought I was going to die.

[Hardrada]

9. I had something bad last August. I could only sip ginger ale

and lie around for several days. But I could not figure out what I had eaten to cause that.

[PA Democrat]

23. My husband had an extremely bad case. He would agree with you 100%.

He was misdiagnosed with Crohn's disease and spent a fortune on meds that our insurance didn't cover before we figured out that he actually had salmonella.

[pattmarty]

10. Bullshit. There is no such thing (anymore) of a "pre-emptive" recall...............

..............Is as YOU say NOBODY has been "made sick", then why in the fuck in today's pretty much unregulated food market do a recall at all?

[Nikia]

21. We've recalled preemptively before

Luckily in those cases it had not left the customer company and it wasn't as serious as salmonella.

[pattmarty]

22. I remember back in the 60's & 70's there were "pre-emptive" recalls............

............but I can't remember one since. I am sure there have been a "few", but very, very seldom.

[Zoeisright]

3. HVP is another name for monosodium glutamate.

Which can be hidden under all kinds of names, thereby confounding people who are sensitive to it.

The only answer is to quit eating processed foods and buy organic when you purchase the 'dirty dozen':

Apples
Cherries
Grapes, imported (Chili)
Nectarines
Peaches
Pears
Raspberries
Strawberries
Bell peppers
Celery
Potatoes
Spinach

Read more: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/13737389/page/2/#ixzz0hhFLVbew

[Robbien]

6. It can be MSG but it is not considered to be MSG by the FDA, and it is added to organics too

http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/03/vegetable-protein-culprit-of-the-moment/37215/

HVP is a flavor enhancer used in a wide variety of processed food products, including everyday convenience items such as soups, sauces, chilis, hot dogs, gravies, potato chips, dips, and salad dressings, including some labeled as "organic." Some "ready-to-eat" tofu dinners have been implicated even though HVP is primarily designed for chicken, beef, and pork applications. HVP is often blended with other spices to make seasonings and is often identified simply as "natural smoke flavor" that is used in, or on, prepared foods. Some HVP products are described by their manufacturers as "trans-fat free" and "non-GMO."

In other words, HVP could be in almost any food (or as the food manufacturing industry would say, "food product") that comes pre-prepared.

Fundamentally, HVP is part of food manufacturers' arsenal to increase shelf life. The term "flavor enhancer" is itself interesting. Government agencies and prepared food manufacturers use the term as if we should all be comfortable with it. As if, somehow, it's just another "natural" ingredient like mustard and pepper, the world's most popular spices. I find that assumption to be curious.

Unfortunately, HVP from one U.S.-based manufacturer may have been contaminated with a strain of Salmonella in the production process. And now it's in hundreds of foods—700 are affected by the recall at the time of this writing. If my in-box is any indication, this one is going to result in lots of products being taken off shelves.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (quoting Wikipedia on its site; yes, really), HVP is "produced by boiling cereals or legumes, such as soy, corn, or wheat, in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide." Acid breaks down (hydrolyzes) the protein in the cereals or grains into their component amino acids, one of which contains glutamic acid. If the glutamic acid in a food binds to a free source of sodium in that food, it can form monosodium glutamate (MSG). The FDA doesn't require labeling the product as containing MSG. (Labeling is only required if MSG is added directly.)

Many consumers could feel safe because they reject packages that contain MSG, and many Chinese restaurant menus explicitly say "No MSG." But this only scratches the surface. Not only do packages rarely list hydrolyzed vegetable protein among their ingredients, but a lot of HVP has been sold through the supply chain to other companies who have the right to identify "natural flavors" as an ingredient. This is allowable because HVP is derived from plants.

In most cases, you wouldn't even know you're eating the stuff.

[Zoeisright]

20. I know. That's what makes me so mad.

These disgusting companies hide this crap. Then they wonder why we don't trust them.

[KoKo]

7. Kick!

[Kali]

8. center aisle "food" products

over-processed crap that has to have more chemicals added back because they have no flavor left of their own.

It's not the salmonella for me, its the whole sick way of feeding people processed garbage.:puke:

[XemaSab]

12. I think Pollan's advice is right on target:

Shop around the edges of the store, and stay out of the middle. :o

[Supersedeas]

18. food products makes it clear to me

[lanlady]

11. It found its way into my bouillon mix & made me sick

Unawares, I bought bouillon mix at my local Wegman's in Virginia this weekend and used a tiny bit in a recipe. Yesterday and today, I've had odd stomach cramps and other signs of trouble, but didn't connect it to anything in particular. This afternoon, Wegman's called to inform me that a product I recently purchased--Herbox Instant Bouillon and Seasoning--was on the recall list for salmonella.

Thankfully I had used only a small amount of the stuff, but back it goes to Wegmans.

[Robbien]

13. Wonder how often Salmonella induced Stomach cramps and diarrhea go undiagnosed

and people just pass it off as normal every day tummy trouble.

These recall notices almost always say no one has been harmed nor have any deaths occurred. But tummy upsets sure do seem to be on the rise.

[Demeter]

14. You Can't Pass Off Salmonella, Robbien

It's two weeks of vomiting and diarrhea all the time, followed by several more weeks of only when you eat...

Norwalk, rotavirus, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, viral hepatitis and other virals are not as severe. Norwalk is implicated in 90% of stomach flu...

It's the bacterial ones you gotta watch out for: botulism, Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, and Escherichia coli (E. coli). That's where the death tolls rise.

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/diarrhea/

[Robbien]

15. So even if just a tiny amount was injested

it would develop into full blown salmonella poisoning? As in this case where DUer lanlady used just a small sprinkling in her family's dinner?

Interesting.

[Demeter]

17. I made scrambled eggs

for my daughter and me. The contamination was probably on the shell when I cracked open the eggs.

[Critters2]

16. This happens with hepatitis A, too.

I gave blood several years ago, and was later called by the blood bank and told my blood tested positive for hep A. I was sure this couldn't be right, so called my doc and got a blood test. Sure enough! I had had hep A some time in the past. I was shocked, but my doc said I probably just thought of it as a stomach flu or minor digestive problem at the time. That's how it appears. The most common source is restaurant employees who don't wash their hands or use good sanitary practices in their kitchens, according to my doc. She says it affects way more people than are aware of it.

[sakabatou]

19. Not Pringles!

I love Pringles!

:cry:

[Sultana]

24. Hehehe but

:hug: