Gordon Smith is a disgrace and should be forced to sit down and eat his own food/shit until he has an epiphany and attitude adjustment.

Evening, Doc;

Banqueting America.

A feast for the soul.

Vote for Jeff Merkley
http://www.jeffmerkley.com/
Thanks, Kirk!

Evening Doc!

Man that is disgusting!

The Political Class needs to be dished up some delicious consequence.

And what could we offer them as dessert?

Something ‘just’, perhaps?

I can see the new ads now:
“Merde–It’s What’s for Dinner!”

Or “Soylent Green is Shit!”

Smith’s Frozen Effluent: it’s sludge, eat a mint.

Have these “people” no shame? I find such things beyond the pale.

I think of how many times, I told my kids to quit complaining, and eat your vegetables!!!!

socialist Gordon Smith wants to spread the smellth.

dugg it, doc

Thank you Kirk, we’ve all ready had deaths from the use of sludge on crops in my county (Berks, PA)

I realize that Millaukee for years made a mint off Milorganite, taking advantqage of the waste leftover from the production of beer. But we have to be careful and diligent when using sewage byproducts in agriculture.

So has anyone proven that they got sick from these foods?

Smith Enterprises just landed a govt. contract to supply a new version of that old Army culinary standard, sh*t-on-a-shingle. Little do they know…

ooooo, a “Soylent Green” fan. There’s space on the bench over here.

That’s really supporting the troops. We need a whole new gov’t top to bottom. Can contracts like that be broken by the prez or the congress?

Gordon Smith is the best advertisement for organic foods, fresh or frozen, going.

I don’t understand how a party of race baiters, weapons dealers, slum lords, johns, pedophiles, strip miners and food poisoners (to name just a view vocations of current rethug members of congress) stays In business, much less in power. I really don’t

It does boggle the sane mind.

umm, I made that up.

I see a lot of links to inputs, but no links to outcomes. Has anyone gotten sick eating these foods?

Takes a seat on the Soylent Green bench.
(I am NOT seeing the movie!)

Here is a link

Could you please use the s/ tag for people like me? :)

Thank God I feed my family fresh veggies.

Hi folks!

Here’s more on sewage sludge’s lethal effect (upon cows):

It was a farm idea with a big payoff and supposedly no downside: ridding lakes and rivers of raw sewage and industrial pollution by converting it all into a free, nutrient-rich fertilizer. Then last week, a federal judge ordered the Agriculture Department to compensate a farmer whose land was poisoned by sludge from the waste treatment plant here. His cows had died by the hundreds.

The Associated Press also has learned that some of the same contaminants showed up in milk that regulators allowed a neighboring dairy farmer to market, even after some officials said they were warned about it.

In one case, according to test results provided to the AP, the level of thallium — an element once used as rat poison — found in the milk was 120 times the concentration allowed in drinking water by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The contaminated milk and the recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Anthony Alaimo raise new doubts about a 30-year government policy that encourages farmers to spread millions of tons of sewage sludge over thousands of acres each year as an alternative to commercial fertilizers.

The program is still in effect.

Alaimo ordered the government to compensate dairy farmer Andy McElmurray because 1,730 acres he wanted to plant in corn and cotton to feed his herd was poisoned. The sludge contained levels of arsenic, toxic heavy metals and PCBs two to 2,500 times federal health standards.

/s on a stick.

707 !

A better link

Because the republican media doesn’t report it. The republics are stoopid.

Thanks for the link. I scanned the list but didn’t see anything regarding Smith Frozen Food. Did I miss it?

sorry ’bout that. snark’s my default mode. it would be more practical if I used a /nr tag for “no, really!”

yes. Daniel

Searched that for Smith Frozen Foods and didn’t come up with any hits.

Didn’t find anything about Smith Frozen Foods in that link.

I don’t shit in my garden.

I don’t get sick.

Sorry eCahn, it was the best I could do on the fly. I took your question to mean “have their been deaths/illnesses caused by E. Coli” and googled from there.

LOL And I’ll bet the neighbors are pleased. “g”

no special info on smith – but here’s my nonmedical opinion on the issue. most e. coli is not a health hazard, but the problem is that if the manufacturing process is unable to protect against e. coli in the food then sooner or later it does not seem unlikely that a pathogenic strain (for example e. coli o157:h7) will be present. and to make matters worse, because there is an incubation period on the order of days, unless there is a large outbreak the source is unlikely to be identified.

so, i conclude – eating food contaminated with e. coli is not a good idea and the manufacturing process must be designed to control for that.

my 2 cents.

Logic is so awesome.

Yes, I understand that e coli can cause grave illnesses & even deaths. But that’s not the subject of this post, which is Smith Frozen Foods. That’s what I’m trying to drill down on. I have a vague knowledge that “night soil” is used in many developing countries for fertilizer. Undoubtedly there are unreported, or undiagnosed deaths, in some cases. But I want to know if it depends on how the human waste is handled or whether all human waste is toxic.

I’m guessing there hasn’t yet been any illness traced back to Smith Frozen Foods. If there had, it would be getting more news coverage with Smith being up for reelection.

But do you pee in your pool?

Ain’t it, tho’

; )

I don’t have a pool.

Someone explained to me why e coli might be a problem for hamburger but not for steaks. For the latter, the surfaces that might be contaminated are cooked, even if the interior is rare, and the cooking destroys the e coli on the surface. For hamburger, however, the inside & outside get all smushed up, so if you like it rare, you take a chance of consuming unkilled e coli.

With that small degree of knowledge, why would frozen vegies be dangerous, wrt e coli anyhow. Frozen vegies are typically cooked, inactivating the bacterial. In my casual following of the e coli contamination issue, I remember only cases where the vegies were consumed raw, but I could be mistaken.

When I was 3 years old my mom made be take baths with my older brother. I quickly learned that if I peed in the tub he would run out of the room screaming and I could have the bath all to myself. Good times.

Sign: Don’t pee in our pool. We don’t swim in your toilet.

*g*

what’s Smith polling?

LOLOL!

Brands! Brands! Brands!

How can one avoid these expulsions in our food?

It also depends on how much the water from the wastewater treatment plant was “treated”…in many places now, the water is filtered to a level that is considered “non potable” (non drinkable) but still approved for irrigation. Obviously, EPA standards have changed in the past 30 years, as have water/wastewater treatment processes. I’m not saying ecoli is good for you and I’m not defending the Senator. Just making a technical observation.

(insert nonmedical disclaimers here) hamburger is a really big risk just as you described – and also because for o157:h7 at least (i’ve read a little about this strain – other pathogenic strains may be very different) because cows can carry it wo getting sick (missing receptor for the toxin).

don’t know what the temp requirements are though. will have to look.

In hindsight, it might have had something to do with all the dogs in the neighborhood treating me like a fire hydrant.

But I want to know if it depends on how the human waste is handled or whether all human waste is toxic.

Sewage wastes are inherently toxic because sewers are final common pathways for both human waste and everything we dump down the drain, toilet, or manhole. The sewage wastes sold for fertilizer contain the human wastes and the man-made toxins, hence use of the sewage wastes includes both risks.

WRT to human waste, some pathogenic organisms do survive the processing and end up in the processed sewage sludge sold as “biosolids”.

bingo.

the presence of coliform bacteria (”coliform” as in colon: the coliform bacteria live in our bowels) is used as a proximal indication of how much surface/material “A” has been exposed to fecal material.

wikipedia says 162 °F for cooking hamburger (and that there is now a vaccine for cows). don’t know what that means for cooking vegetables though. will have to stick a meat thermometer into my next batch of soup.

something beyond the issue of preparation is that it’s possible to contaminate hands, utensils, etc before cooking occurs.

Isn’t fertilizer applied relatively early in the growth cycle? Seems like the pathogens wouldn’t survive the root absorption process or live indefinitely in the soil. Granted, working with food and human waste in close proximity is asking for trouble.

Does your doeg baht?

I used to work in a restaurant and we were trained to avoid the risk of cross-contamination. I cringe thinking how many people don’t take proper precautions.

I learned a lifelong lesson in microbiology. We took ground beef and cooked samples through a range of times and temperatures, measuring bacterial levels at each stage. After recording that data, I have always been careful since then to cook foods thoroughly. And today we are facing superbacteria, like e-coli O157:H7. God help us.

more LOL!

Vegies & soups typically exposed to boiling water or steam & thus much above 162.

The decorator I use in the country sliced some raw chicken with a knife subsequently used to slice raw vegies for a salad. He got deathly ill (survived) by eating the salad, but his dog, who got some of the cooked chicken, was just fine.

I’ve been more careful with utensils after hearing that story. But, in general, I’m pretty blase, owing to conviction that my genes are particularly resistent to bacteria. Rarely get sick. Never had Lyme. Son had superbug infection which he fought off with old time antibiotics. (Splinter when he was bartending. By the time the tests came back, he was on his way to recovery on ordinary antibiotics.)

sometimes you be the the windshield, sometimes you be the bug.

Some pathogens can persist in the soil on their own or by “drying up” to form cysts or spores to wait for better times. Your point about food and waste is also valid: the transported waste usually forms dusts that blow spores and microbes about.

Best Far Side cartoon ever: bugs in a movie theater, watching a horror movie: windshield. I’ll see if I can find a link.

yep. i try not to think about that at potlucks.

So far, your luck has held.

Far Side site does not seem to have a search function.

By happenstance, for the past several years I’ve personally prepared nearly all the food I eat. As a result, I’ve become mildly paranoid about eating anything else. Fortunately, being a pariah, it doesn’t often pose a problem.

when i make soup i don’t usually use frozen veggies, but i do add greens at the very end and depending on the type sometimes don’t cook more than required to wilt them. don’t think that’s much of an issue except when i make large batches for freezing (i wonder what the temperature gradient is from the bottom of the pot to the surface of the soup – don’t expect it to be much but data is better than guesses *g*).

anyway, i’d rather just keep dangerous stuff out of my house. even started using eggs from a local farm that had never had a salmonella outbreak (and promised to tell customers if they did) so that i could cook with my nephews and not have to worry so much about them eating raw dough, etc.

my favorite FarSide of all time is the pet beetle at the vet.

Vet says time to take it out back and squash it.

Not the same Far Side but a pretty good one.

Huh?

lol. you don’t think that has anything to do with your nickname?

Years ago, I was a tech in a hospital and one Sunday, there were a several people admitted into the med-surg unit, very very sick. They had been to a restaurant with a salad bar and had gotten botulism. I took care of some of them for weeks, on vents. Very scary.

Food contamination does not seem to be a major factor in longevity in U.S. Infant mortality, and lesser medical care for lower income people, as well as their diets, seem more important causes.

teddy upstairs with wellstone

just in case anyone cares, Phillies up 1-0, top of the 2nd

ot – i just finished listening to a talk roubini gave on the 23rd (scroll down). that was depressing as hell.

yo Suz, que paso?

Well, you may have a point about food preparation…

Many folks aren’t aware how common food-borne illness has become in the US:

Incidence (annual) of Food poisoning:

about 76 million cases annually in USA (NIDDK)

Incidence Rate:

approx 1 in 3 or 27.94% or 76 million people in USA [about data]

Incidence extrapolations for USA for Food poisoning:

76,000,000 per year, 6,333,333 per month, 1,461,538 per week, 208,219 per day, 8,675 per hour, 144 per minute, 2 per second.

Incidence of types of Food poisoning:

For details see incidence of types of Food poisoning analysis; summary of available incidence by type data:

but i do add greens at the very end and depending on the type sometimes don’t cook more than required to wilt them.

But even so, a simmer temp is a slow boil, which is a much higher temp than 162.

had to take a friend to the hospital 3 or 4 years ago (he probably had salmonellosis). sicker than hell and in lots of pain – and this in someone in his early 30’s and very, very fit (ran marathons and such).

I’m not overly concerned about dying, just being so sick I’d wish I had.

I’ve struck out searching for the Far Side comic you mentioned. This one isn’t by Larson but (hopefully) might bring a chuckle to a New Yorker.

Actually, my screen name was inspired by the movie Ratatouille, in which rat food was depicted as a GOOD thing. I know it was supposedly a documentary but parts of the movie left me wondering if it was all made up.:)

but in a v big pot it’s not all at simmer temp and there is not much mixing due to turbulence as i tend to go for a thick soup (because i don’t have much freezer space). although water is a good heat conductor and i’d think the temp at the top would be close. just curious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXn2QVipK2o

(((WDD!!)))

OK, now 2-1 Phillies

ROFL.

!!!

(((ELL!)))

That I gotta get better to die feeling. Know it well.

With all due respect, the effects of heavy metals and pesticide residue being lodged in human fatty tissue don’t result in someone “getting sick” in the manner you seem to imply. They just will shorten your life, and the quality of that life, by paving the way to immune system weakness and and, as many are carcinogenic, cancer.

And then there are the mutagenic effects, those that affect unborn children and many other life forms.

Are you concern trolling? I hope not…this is a serious blow to the quality of life of both those of us in Oregon, and those who consume anything processed by Smith Frozen Foods.

I hope Gordon is sent down the road on Nov. 4. He’s had his little day hypocritical in the sun.