Bugs, mold and mildew found in Boar's Head plant linked to deadly listeria outbreak - eviltoast

The article states that these horrendous, disgusting infractions of health regulations have been documented out for at least the previous year, but given their severity, I’d imagine it’s always been this way at Boar’s Head production facilities.

I’m going to cook my deli meats from now on, no matter where they come from.

  • girlfreddy@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    It’s unclear whether Boar’s Head will face any penalties by the USDA for the repeat issues.

    We’ll waffle on penalties for Boar’s Head but immediately shut down a kid selling homemade ice cream.

    What a fucked up world we live in.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      To be fair, that kid was trying to raise money for a good cause and we don’t want anything good to happen ever. /s

      • lanolinoil@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Well good things can happen but which one of my friends are you going to make rich for that privilege?

    • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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      2 months ago

      You know, the longer we live, the more people realize that in a CAPITAL based society, the people with the CAPITAL make the rules. And if they decided “no, we DON’T have to pay the fines that poors have to” then… That’s basically become all that happens.

      “hey you did an illegal and/or a fine-able offence(the fines for which were determined at a time that doesn’t reflect modern profits for companies) but since we are being told you’re have lots of money, go ahead and keep doing it but pinky promise you’ll change eventually”

      Just enough of a protest to make the unimportant people think you’ve done something, but not enough to do anything of substance.

      And I honestly wonder just how long it will be before “the poors” and “the unimportant people” will have enough and decide to punish companies and their leaders themselves.

      • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Unfortunately, with corporate consolidation, punishing those companies often means losing access to an important product because there’s not enough competition to fill the void that their retaliatory withholding would create.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      When corpotations are allowed to buy out politicians, this is the end result. Corporations have no responsibility, they know they will not be held accountable.

    • BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      At a relative level at least… They might still be…

      You don’t want to tour nearly any company making food of any kind at a factory level. Things that make us sick really like food.

    • GooberEar@lemmy.wtf
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      2 months ago

      If by quality deli meat you mean “Small flying gnat like insect meat” then I’m really sorry for your town.

  • Kintarian@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Why is the US food industry trying to kill it’s customers? … Oh, wait…(Checks notes) They always were.

  • Blackout@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    “Premium” meats. People always forget about the quotes. Well here’s a news flash. If you like your meat processed and sliced for sandwiches you are already eating garbage meat. Don’t be surprised of a little rat feces or bugs.

    • haulyard@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      A new thing we’re trying is buying the whole turkey breast and slicing it ourselves. In my area Costco sells a well sized piece. I slice up a bit in container for immediate use and take the remaining slices and vacuum seal them. Has worked well so far. I’m sure there is still some risk here with contamination but seems less?

      • comador @lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Farmers trick: Brush it with olive oil.

        You’ll notice many packaged rumps and rounds come with a small bit of oil on them. This is done to starve oxygen from getting on it and slowing down bacteria.

        If you cut a chunk off, use a basting brush with some olive oil to cover the surface. it’ll last longer. Sprinkling salt also helps, but that alters the taste.

      • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Just started using a ‘sous-vide’ machine to cook frozen, boneless chicken breasts, then slice them. Going to try it with that turkey as well. The machine has no bells and whistles (no app or anything) and was $80 on Amazon.

        The chicken comes out really moist. You can throw dry-rub in the ziploc bag to add flavors. Had tried different cooking methods but the result this way has been the best.

        Price comes to a fraction of store-cooked or deli meat. Helps the budget if you have a teenager doing school sports.

        • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          God I wish I had the kitchen space for one! Been begging the wife to let me get a smoker. Being able to smoke a ham or turkey breast and then turn it into cold cuts would be awesome.

          • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            We may be talking about different things. The sous-vide thing is like a slightly larger immersion hand-mixer. Doesn’t take much space. It comes with a clip so it hangs off the side of a large kitchen pot full of water and plugs into power. There are fancier models that come with their own big plastic tubs and apps. But the basic one works on any container (besides, I just saw one of the popular brands looking to charge a subscription fee for using their app. Screw that!)

            The temperature stays fairly tepid and constant since the device has its own heating element and a little internal propeller to move the water around. The food goes into freezer ziploc bags with the air squeezed out. Afterward, you can sear it in a pan or broiler but if slicing, there’s no need.

            Now that you mention smoking, I’m wondering what it’ll be like to add a few drops of liquid smoke…

            • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              My bad, I was under the impression that you had gotten a slicer and were sous videing and slicing the meat with a deli slicer! I thought you meant the slicer was $80.

              • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                I remember seeing a while back a small, collapsible meat slicer that folds into a box shape. Just googled it. Made by SuperHandy, but no longer for sale on Amazon. May be available elsewhere. One place had it listed for 75 british pounds (around $100). FWIW, saw a used one on EBay for $65.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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            2 months ago

            If you do get one, stay away from Traeger. They were sold to some Chinese company years ago and are extremely overpriced garbage now.

      • arglebargle@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Costco meats always seem like the worst. I like costco, but I would never buy meat from them.

        I only am throwing in my 2 cents because of the subject. They have had far too many recalls for my liking.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    2 months ago

    You can cook everything you eat if you want, and it’d probably reduce the number of microbes you get exposed to.

    However, you’re going to be foregoing stuff like fresh vegetables. Those are a factor via which disease can and has traveled. But it’s something that I don’t particularly want to give up.

    Raw milk is a listeria vector, and some cheeses made from it – especially those imported from Europe – make use of raw milk. That’s probably avoidable.

    • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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      2 months ago

      French people would rather die than give up on raw milk cheese, such death would probably be celebrated.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        2 months ago

        Yeah. Hmm.

        Well, you can’t heat treat it without making it not raw, but I guess it might be possible to kill listeria via irradiation, the way meats can be treated.

        I don’t know if there are any restrictions on how large a cheese can be before that’s impractical. Probably costs more than pasteurization.

        kagis

        Sounds like it does work on listeria.

        https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15726975/

        Ionizing radiation can be effective in controlling the growth of food spoilage and foodborne pathogenic bacteria. This study reports on an investigation of the effectiveness of irradiation treatment to eliminate Listeria monocytogenes on laboratory-inoculated broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, and mung bean sprouts. Irradiation of broccoli and mung bean sprouts at 1.0 kGy resulted in reductions of approximately 4.88 and 4.57 log CFU/g, respectively, of a five-strain cocktail of L. monocytogenes. Reductions of approximately 5.25 and 4.14 log CFU/g were found with cabbage and tomato, respectively, at a similar dose. The appearance, color, texture, taste, and overall acceptability did not undergo significant changes after 7 days of postirradiation storage at 4 degrees C, in comparison with control samples. Therefore, low-dose ionizing radiation treatment could be an effective method for eliminating L. monocytogenes on fresh and fresh-cut produce.