Friday, August 5, 2011

Salmonella-spiked Turkey

(Hello! I'm working on a post to share some vacation pictures with you. Unfortunately, all my pix are enormous -- as in 4320x3240 pixels. Anyone know if it's possible to mass reduce the size of whole folders of photos? 'Cause doing it one pic at a time is going to put me over the edge... In the meantime, here's a random current events entry.)  






In an attempt to re-acclimate myself with the regular grind (as my switch is stubbornly stuck on Vacation Mode), I ventured to the grocery store yesterday for milk.


The drive to the nearest store is literally 3-1/2 minutes from my house, which is why I try not to shop there. At any time in the store's 24-hour day I am sure to bump into at least two neighbors; and during peak hours, I find myself leaning on my cart five to eight times and chatting up an extra hour or so that I hadn't allotted to errand-running. Time management is NOT my friend, to start with. So I often shop in a food store farther from my house.


However, since yesterday was just an excuse to get out of the house, I went to my neighborhood Kroger. At the register, I was surprised when the cashier handed me a receipt for milk that was long enough to categorize a week's worth of groceries. She explained the extra type dealt with the ground turkey recall.


Since I use my Kroger card when I shop in the store, the computer was able to spit out all the dates and UPC codes when I bought now-recalled ground turkey. I learned that since February 20, I bought fourteen packages of potentially tainted turkey. I guess I shop at Kroger more often than I realized.


I searched my freezers but found none of this turkey, which means we ate all of it. That's a lot of bullets to dodge.


But here's the thing I'm most struck by: The recalled turkey came from one processing center. "On August 3, Cargill recalled 36 million pounds of fresh and frozen ground turkey products produced at the company’s Springdale, Ark., facility from Feb. 20, 2011, through Aug. 2, 2011, due to possible contamination with Salmonella Heidelberg." (Source) That same turkey has been sold under the following brands:


Honeysuckle White
Giant Eagle
Aldi’s Fit & Active
Fresh HEB
Riverside
Kroger
Safeway
Shady Brook Farms
Spartan
Natural Lean
Bulk packed ground turkey


So though I've often suspected, I now know for sure that when I pay $1.50-2.50 more per pound for Honeysuckle or Shady Brook Farms turkey, I'm getting the EXACT SAME product as if I spent less money on the store brand.


Friends, I've helped fund those name brand companies' marketing campaigns for the last time. Lesson learned!






Happy Friday!



                                    

15 comments:

Lola Sharp said...

Me, too. I always buy Shady Brook Farms ground turkey to make turkey tacos. Doh.

Glad you had a wonderful trip. I missed you.

Love and hugs,
Lola

Matthew MacNish said...

As long as you cooked it properly, you're fine. And there are several utilities that can resize a folder full of images. Try check at the PC Magazine website. Their stuff is usually free.

Jessica Bell said...

Oh my gosh! Glad you didn't eat any tainted meat! and um ... welcome back!!! :o) Good luck with the photos!

Summer Frey said...

Eek! I usually buy Honeysuckle White, but I'm pretty sure I haven't in months. Evan doesn't "like" ground anything except beef. Pfft. Except when he doesn't know it's not beef...! ;)

Linda G. said...

Wow. That's good to know about the ground turkey. No more name brands for me, either!

Oh, and if you cook it thoroughly, even contaminated turkey won't make you sick. Unless you don't wash your hands after you handle it raw, anyway.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I think we always get the store brand ground turkey. And yeah, ours is all gone as well.

Lenny Lee said...

hi miss nicole! i hope you could get those picture more small cause for sure i could like to see them. im glad you didnt get sick from eating that tainkey. one of my brothers does the food shopping and he does mostly store brands cause he said their just the same only more cheap.
...hugs from lenny

Adriana Noir said...

Oh, Nicki! I've missed you! :D I always knew it was a hoax to get us to shell out more money, too. Erm...well, at least I suspected as much. ;) I'm so glad you and your family never got sick. Someone's watching over you guys!

Manzanita said...

What a great idea to shop far from so home so you don't spend time chatting over a shopping cart. I budget my time and I still don't get around to every thing. I need a time management course. :)
Manzanita@Wannabuyaduck

Liza said...

ugh!!! Ate chilie made from Shadybrook Farms earlier in the week and leftover tonight. It had a long simmer though...and I'm careful to wash my hands...hopefully careful enough.

Danette said...

Well, isn't that interesting. I'll bet the same is true for chicken! No more name brands for me!!! Thanks for the info! Glad to see your back!

julie fedderson said...

I can't wait to show my sister this--she always buys the name brand--"it tastes better." Apparently it will also give you raging diarrhea, at twice the price, lol.

julie fedderson said...

I can't wait to show my sister this--she always buys the name brand--"it tastes better." Apparently it will also give you raging diarrhea, at twice the price, lol.

Susan Kane said...

Good to know my suspicions are correct: food comes from the same source, and no name changes its flavor.

Unknown said...

Fascinating information - the way those firms deal with us!