If I lived in London I'd be buying milk from Selfridges.

If I lived in London I'd be buying milk from Selfridges. - That's because, as the Guardian reports here, they are selling raw milk, i.e. milk that has not been pasteurised. Unfortunately, the Food Standards Agency is trying to put a stop to this, because of supposed risks of poor hygiene and microbial contamination. In actual fact, this raw milk is much more hygienically produced than is pasteurised milk, and the taste and nutritional content is far superior to the degraded pasteurised product. I've written more fully on the subject of raw milk before. There is an English dairy farm which produces and sells Raw Milk: Hook & Son.

I watched Fish Unwrapped tonight on Channel 4 Dispatches

I watched Fish Unwrapped on Channel 4's Dispatches tonight, excellently presented by Alex Thomson. The lax hygiene standards, poor adherence to regulations, and inadequate inspection that obtain in some of the fishing areas from where the UK sources its fish led me to conclude that consumers here cannot trust the safety of much of the fish on sale in supermarkets. If you and your family ever eat fish fingers I suggest you watch this programme using the link I have given. I think you may well decide not to eat them any more. And I suspect there will be fewer takers for prawns after watching the programme: the thought of eating prawns injected with dirty liquid to bulk them up in order to sell the dirty liquid at the same price as the prawns... - Yuk! - Dunno quite what to recommend except that getting out of the EU would be a start, since the EU favours big business and the food industry over mere consumers/taxpayers.

Some Tesco stores not hygienic enough

The Telegraph reports that many supermarket stores are not reaching a high enough standard of hygiene, and that Tesco has been found to be the least hygienic of the big four supermarkets. Of all the supermarkets, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer were the most hygienic.

Health Protection Agency and LACORS report poor egg handling practices in UK restaurants and takeaways

WorldPoultrynet article on poor hygiene in UK restaurants and takeaways when handling eggmixes, as revealed in new report from the Health Protection Agency and LACORS (Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services).

A supplier of premium seafood has been ordered to destroy 200 tons of "revolting" fish after inspectors found it was seven years out of date.

Top seafood supplier must destroy 200 tons of fish
Report in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Trading standards investigators found scallops, tiger prawns and exotic parrot fish crawling with maggots and partly eaten by rats at Allan Rich Seafoods' depot in Lincoln.

The company supplies products to some of London's top restaurants.

The food destruction order granted at Lincoln Magistrates' Court is biggest of its kind ever imposed in England.

Now a major search has been launched by trading standards officials to track down and recall all remaining products supplied by the company."

"The products, branded as premium seafood, were bound for top restaurants and fish shops."

Poor hygiene in a lot of popular food outlets

Exposed: the hygiene scandal on the high street
article in the Independent

Extract:

"Restaurants run by some of Britain's largest food chains are failing to meet basic legal hygiene standards, an investigation by The Independent has found.

A third of Yo! Sushi restaurants surveyed did not meet all the legal standards required of them, according to food safety ratings given by local councils. Twenty per cent of Pizza Hut outlets had similar problems while 18 of Pizza Express's 132 surveyed restaurants did not meet the standards.

Britain's foremost food expert, Professor Hugh Pennington, said the findings were disturbing.

Under the law, all restaurants are inspected every two years by environmental health officers and most hand out star ratings of between five and zero. Restaurants with no stars are "very poor" with a general failure to comply with legal requirements. One-star establishments have poor compliance while those with two stars need to make more effort to hit all the legal requirements – designed to stop the spread of bacteria that can cause gastro-intestinal diseases.

The Independent analysed the star rating of 1,270 outlets run by 10 of Britain's best-known restaurant chains. They include the likes of McDonald's, Burger King and KFC as well as more upmarket chains such as Pizza Express, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Wagamama. Separately we used the Freedom of Information act to obtain reports on the most unhygienic restaurants. All of the companies had at least one branch, and in some cases dozens, failing fully to comply with food safety legislation.

Yo! Sushi, the Japanese seafood chain, was the worst performer of the 10 chains, with eight of its 23 restaurants in our sample (two thirds of its 37 outlets) receiving two stars or less.

Almost one in five Pizza Hut outlets failed to score three stars, deemed as meeting all legal requirements. For Pizza Express, one in eight was found to have unsatisfactory problems.

Among the individual reports, an inspector who called at Yo! Sushi in Soho, central London, in October 2006 found dirty staff changing areas, failures in defrosting and cooking, dirty floors, mice droppings on a food shelf, slime on cutting boards and no records of staff training. "Staff understood the basics but were not attending to cleanliness," reported Westminster Council's inspector. The restaurant in Rupert Street was subsequently closed.

In January last year, Pizza Express in St Martin's Lane, central London, was found to have mice droppings under and behind the pizza oven, a dirty ice machine and dirty chopping boards.

At Pizza Hut in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, last September, dirt and grease were clogged in the broken flooring and the general standard of cleanliness was "poor". The chain was ordered to clean the walls, floors, wheels and under the equipment.

The problems were much less prevalent at chains such as Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Pret A Manger, which had good hygiene at 98 per cent of its shops.

Professor Pennington said: "Any restaurant scoring two stars [more effort required to meet all legal requirements] is unsafe. Lower scores indicate imminent danger. I would expect those with a score of zero to have been closed on the spot.""

British hospitals: filthy, verminous, appallingly unhygienic kitchens.

Scandal of filthy hospital kitchens - Observer

Extract:

"A searing indictment of the cleanliness of hospital kitchens is revealed today in research showing that almost half are plagued by vermin, risk infections by storing food incorrectly or employ staff with poor personal hygiene.

Official inspection reports reveal that breaches of food hygiene laws include infestations of mice and cockroaches, kitchen staff not washing their hands, food being kept at the wrong temperature and remnants of meals becoming stuck in equipment.

Other hazardous incidents included ice cream and prawns being stored together in fridges and freezers, orange juice kept next to chemicals and patients' meal trays being used to transport contaminated material from the wards.

The reality of the conditions in which hospital food is prepared is laid bare in a series of official hygiene examinations carried out by environmental health officers, which have been passed to The Observer.

Of 377 National Health Service and private hospitals surveyed in England, 173 - 46 per cent - were found to have poor cleanliness in their kitchens, or canteens or cafes used by staff, patients and visitors. Nine of the 377 were private hospitals, of which six were found to have at least one area of concern. Eleven of the 173 had experienced a vermin or pest problem, 57 employed catering staff who displayed inadequate personal hygiene and 18 were found to stock out-of-date food. Sixty-eight did not meet the legal minimum standard for food storage and 66 were storing food at the wrong temperature, which can stimulate the growth of bacteria.

'These findings paint a shocking picture of hospital food hygiene,' said the Liberal Democrats' shadow health secretary, Norman Lamb, who used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain from 145 local authorities their most recent food hygiene inspection reports for hospitals they monitor.

'It is simply unacceptable that such terrible practices are taking place in an environment where hygiene and safety should be paramount. Sick people are already vulnerable to infection. They don't need the added risk of food-borne bacteria spread by lax standards.'

He suggested the creation of a new system of clear and accessible ratings for hygiene levels in hospital kitchens, with the worst performers being 'named and shamed' as a way of driving up standards to benefit patients."

I'm well impressed by Norman Lamb's tenacity in getting at the facts in this and other health matters. While bad practice is hidden, it continues and usually worsens. Once light is shed on bad practice, there is much more likelihood that some remedial action will be taken. - 'Naming and shaming', as he suggests, sounds an excellent idea. - 'Naming and sacking' would be even more effective, in my opinion...


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

I was horrified to see on TV the poor hygiene and the falsifying of the dates on out-of-date food in two Tesco and Sainsbury's supermarkets...)o:

I watched the BBC TV whistleblower programme last evening. It was about unhygienic practices in a Tesco supermarket and a Sainsbury's supermarket, and also unhygienic practices at a Ready Meals supplier. The bad practice was observed and recorded by undercover reporters working as supermarket staff.

I already do not buy/eat ready meals (because they are high in salt), but if I did, this programme would have put me off forever, 'cos I'm not keen on catching salmonella...)o: - But also, the 'fresh' meat and 'fresh' fish being sold in these particular supermarkets could clearly not be trusted actually to be fresh, because sell by dates were being falsified...

You can read an account by one of the undercover journalists here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6676345.stm and you can view the programme online from a link on that webpage for a week following programme transmission, which was Tuesday 22nd May.


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Bernard Matthews turkey plant will not be prosecuted about food hygiene failings at the time of bird flu incidence.

Watchdog clears Bernard Matthews plant - Independent

Extract:

"A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report published in February listed a catalogue of failings at the turkey plant.

Inspectors saw gulls feeding on meat scraps left in uncovered waste bins and polythene bags used for meat products left in open bins.

But the Food Standards Agency today said its probe had found "no evidence" that the firm breached animal by-product or food hygiene laws.

The watchdog said in a statement: "We have carefully scrutinised and considered the evidence in this case and concluded there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.

"Accordingly, we have decided not to proceed to a prosecution in this case."

The FSA said its decision followed a thorough examination into possible problems with food waste storage at the Bernard Matthews site.

Defra said the FSA had been investigating Bernard Matthews on its behalf. "


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)