CurdNerds

This post isn't about cheese specifically, but does cover important issues facing the dairy industry. Please forgive a slightly off-topic rant for an increasingly urgent message.

News broke on Sunday that 11 people, the youngest being a one year-old infant, had caught the E. coli bug from eating at Taco Bell restaurants in three different counties in New Jersey. Today, reports are revising that number to as many as 50 cases, spread over three states.

The interesting thing about this outbreak is in the timing of the initial reports, the news stories, and the restaurant closures. Quoting from yesterday's New York Times article:

Some health officials acknowledged that an announcement of the contamination had been delayed in New Jersey for several days, in part over concerns for possible overreaction by the public. Some critics questioned the delay.

Carol Tucker Foreman, head of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, said the delay had obviated a swift inspection of other outlets in the chain, which buys food in bulk. There are 204 Taco Bell restaurants in New York State, and 86 in New Jersey.

“I don’t know why they didn’t make that immediately known, and I don’t know why they didn’t do rush inspections of every other Taco Bell in the area,” Ms. Foreman said. “They purchase huge amounts of everything from a few suppliers. If you’ve got contaminated anything in one of their restaurants, you’ve got it in many. That’s the nature of fast food.”

Compare this reaction, if you will, with the one in September, following a supposed outbreak of E. coli in raw milk from Organic Pastures Dairy in California. An immediate recall was ordered, even though no link between the E. coli infection and the milk had been proven nor had any tests even been run! When the milk finally was tested, no E. coli were found. Where's the immediate recall on Chalupas?

Ultimately, this event brings us back to the fundamental problem of an industrialized food chain: when food sources become so centralized, contamination is so much harder to control. Bacteria from one sick cow, from one dirty farm, can infect tons and tons of food once it is all mixed together in a large processing plant. Furthermore, E. coli itself is a problem of industrialized food. Studies have shown that feeding cows grass for only the last 5 days of their lives dramatically reduces the presence of E. coli in the final product.

How many hours on the toilet, and how many kidney failures will it take until we learn our lesson?

(Props to The Ethicurean for inspiring this story.)