The FDA classified a recent Whole Foods guacamole recall to its highest risk level due to possible salmonella contamination linked to jalapeños.

WTF are gringos adding to guacamole to make it a biohazard? catgirl-huh

A recall of Whole Foods guacamole has received the Food and Drug Administration’s highest-risk classification due to possible salmonella contamination.

The FDA classified the recall Aug. 20 as Class I, meaning the agency determined there is a reasonable probability that use of the recalled products could cause serious adverse health consequences or death.

The recall, initiated Aug. 7, involves 12,995 units of Whole Foods Mild Guacamole Dip. The products were made with jalapeños that may be contaminated with salmonella, according to the FDA.

The guacamole was sold in Whole Foods stores in 12 states, including Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Wisconsin. The recalled products have best before or by dates ranging from Aug. 7 to Aug. 12.

Why did the FDA upgrade the recall?

The recall is connected to an ongoing multistate salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeños supplied by Coast Citrus Distributors. The FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified a grower in Sinaloa, Mexico, as a potential source of the contaminated peppers.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    1 day ago

    WTF are gringos adding to guacamole to make it a biohazard?

    without looking at this specific outbreak…

    in general, many food processing facilities are set up for multi-product lines. they will run for x hours making salsa, then be reconfigured to wash and bag peppers, then be reconfigured to cut and freeze french fries. sometimes they only run in a certain configuration for a one-off production run of a single product. it’s less common for a production space to be dedicated to a single mix of a single product.

    the point being, from a risk analysis, lots of distinct materials will run through the same physical space to generate many different products. and often, all those distinct raw agricultural materials being processed at different times will be touched by the same equipment.

    every machine and the entire production floor is supposed to be shut down between runs and/or at certain intervals for a deep cleaning. these places have HACCP plans to identify elevated risk (allergens, vectors of physical/biological/chemical contamination, etc) and these site specific plans are inspected/evaluated by regulators and auditors who check that the plans make sense, are being followed at the time, and look at the records (because cleaning/shutdowns/etc are all supposed to be logged on sheets).

    so it’s very much an “honor” system, because sheets can be falsified and inspectors are expensive. generally, the producer pays the per hour rate of the inspector plus travel time from wherever they’re coming from. and we’re talking sometimes multiple hundreds of dollars per hour. additionally, underpaid workers on the line are driven to make the “downtime” as brief as possible, because when the line isn’t running, the machinery isn’t making money.

    as to where the pathogens come from, it’s generally wildlife. a bird can crap on a vegetable in the field. a raccoon can eat some corn and scratch its b-hole on a pristine ear, or just someone didn’t wash their hands after handling some doodoo. the rules are that wildlife disturbed crops shouldn’t be harvested and should be marked off, but it happens. workers can be sick and touch things. a machine chopping something or misting something doesn’t get cleaned fully and spreads the pathogen throughout the line.

    besides capitalism creating perverse incentives, something people in the developed world should really consider is the inherent risk of high volume food processing infrastructure and what value it provides society. personally, i think certain agricultural products make sense to process regionally at high volume, but maybe others could be narrowed to more locally and be communally owned by the people who live and work there. i’m not even opposed to “national” scale products, but right now it’s very ad-hoc with whoever owns whatever assets they’ve cobbled together leasing out their surplus production capacity (because the logic of capital insists these assets run 3 shifts, 7 days a week) and every producer is looking for the opportunity to take their product to the national retail market where it appears on the shelf at Kroger or whatever.

    also, maybe if like we had a 32 hour work week and access to affordable, fresh produce we could make a little more of our own salsas and guac and rely less on processing happening upstream to “save time” so we can get back to working for others. we can’t do this with everything obviously, but it’s worth considering what we could make for ourselves and friends/family with what comes from around us.

  • Big [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    1 day ago

    Salmonella species are intracellular pathogens,[5] of which certain serotypes cause illness such as salmonellosis. Most infections are due to the ingestion of food contaminated by feces.

    Lmao, yankies are literally eating shit

  • Arahnya [fae/faer, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    1 day ago

    Its always the same states too. Its like those states in parricular get the shaft re: food safety. I havent been eating jalapenos out of caution though kitty-cri

    WTF are gringos adding to guacamole to make it a biohazard?

    jalapenos

  • SocialistVibes01@lemmy.mlEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    The fuck? How could they fuck up this badly with avocados and jalapeño?

    Is it time for salted mangos in guacamole then? (Because Americans will American. Someone shows this thing to them and they will EXAGGERATE)