Strange as it sound, a bit of corporate honesty from the U.S.’s two largest sellers of orange juice has done wonders for some mom and pop–size OJ bottlers in Florida.

Florida Department of Agriculture said Friday that at least five small orange juice bottlers or packers have modified the labels on their bottles so they now boldly proclaim “made only from Florida oranges” or “No Imported Juices.”

Their sales are reportedly soaring.

The instant desirability of domestic orange juice was triggered by a report to the Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 28 by Coca-cola Co, which markets Minute-Maid, Simply Orange and Odwalla brands. The company told the FDA that it had found the fungus-killing chemical carbendazim during routine testing of OJ it had imported from Brazil.

PepsiCo Inc, which has a large chunk of the market with its Tropicana, also found fungicide in its subsequent testing. Both companies insist the levels of the banned substance are “at trace levels” and pose no risk to consumers.

Carbendazim, also called methyl 2-benzimidazoyl carbamate or MBC, is used to prevent black spots in citrus. It is illegal in oranges in the U.S., but is widely used in Brazil which is this country’s largest foreign supplier of OJ.

“Carbendazim in orange juice is unlawful pesticide chemical residue under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act,” the FDA reminded the juice trade association by letter.

The FDA says it has set up an extensive intercept program at ports to “identify, sample and hold” all orange juice coming in from Brazil. The juice will be restricted from distribution unless or until a “clean bill of health” is issued after the testing.

Any imported shipments containing carbendazim at 10 ppb or greater will be refused entry into the U.S. and must be destroyed or returned to the exporter, FDA says.

Although the Brazilian growing season it nearing its end, Florida juice officials say FDA’s testing of the imported juice and juice products may continue for months.

It’s difficult for consumers to know where the juice they’re giving to their kids actually comes from.

If you look at the very fine, sometimes nearly invisible, country-of-origin information on the labels of juice containers you’ll see that all the big brands say the juice within comes from the U.S., Brazil, Mexico or Costa Rica.

Tuesday, FDA said the few tests they have completed found nothing of concern.

Meanwhile, the FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency keep pointing to each other in the debate on which agency is responsible for protecting consumers.

“EPA sets the tolerances (for pesticides) and FDA enforces them. But EPA does the risk assessment and determines the levels that can be present,” says Sebastian Cianci, a policy analyst for FDA’s press officer.

However, his counterpart in EPA says not so.

“EPA does not oversee the importation of food products; that’s FDA.

They seem to be bucking everything to us, yet this is all FDA,” said a senior EPA press officer.

A posting by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went viral last week as people around the globe rushed to get instructions for surviving an attack by the living dead.

“There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency,” claimed the official government tip sheet on surviving disasters.

This weekend, Memorial Day will launch a summer of  cookouts, picnics and barbecues. Today, the USDA issued a baseball score card on how to safely “round-the-bases” so food poisoning and a trip to the emergency room won’t be the end result of your partying.

A tasty and safe picnic

“We want Americans to know that simple food safety steps can make cookouts and picnics worry-free for hosts,” said USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen.

The pathogens that cause food poisoning are lurking at every picnic site and here’s a link to USDA’s detailed suggestions for staying safe. These are the highlights:

First base: Be Clean. First things first—make sure you start with clean surfaces and clean hands.

Second base: Separate. Raw meats and poultry should be prepared separately from vegetables and cooked foods. As you chop meats and veggies, be sure to use separate cutting boards.

Third base: Cook. Never begin grilling without your most important tool—a food thermometer. Color is not a reliable indicator of doneness.

Home Plate: Chill Out: Keeping food at a safe temperature is a must at outdoor picnics and cookouts – keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.

Enjoy.

The federal food-safety cops have finally taken a simple but enormous step that might allow home cooks to put better-tasting meat on the table.

Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, the top doc and undersecretary for food safety at USDA announced today that we can officially stop cooking our meat to death.

“With a single temperature for all whole cuts of meat and uniform three-minute stand time, we believe it will be much easier for consumers to remember and result in safer food preparation,” said Hagen. “Now there will only be three numbers to remember: 145 for whole meats, 160 for ground meats and 165 for all poultry.”

photo © the food watchdog

Let’s talk about these numbers for a minute. An internal temperature of 145-degrees in your steaks, roasts, and chops should give you a medium-rare piece of meat with the ultimate tenderness and flavor.

The idea of cooking chicken to 165-degrees and ground meat – beef, veal, lamb, or pork – to 160-degrees is logical from a food- safety perspective.  Most pathogens on meat are found on the outside, the most easily contaminated surface in the butchering process. When ground and blended it could mix bad bugs like E. coli throughout the meat, and the 160-degrees should kill even the most invest tenacious pathogen.

The practice of letting the meat rest for three-minutes before carving or consuming has always made sense, not so much for safety, but for taste. The “wait time” permits blood and juices to be reabsorbed into the meat.

Let’s talk about pork for a minute, because, if followed, this change could finally end having to eat cardboard-tasting, desert-dry, way-overcooked pork.

Many of us were taught by the cooks in our family that the slightest hint color pink in pork would instantly doom us to a painful death from trichinosis, so we cooked every bit of flavor out of this other white meat.

About ten years ago I went to a gathering of Canadian chefs in Alberta and watched a representative of the Canadian Pork Council almost in tears as he pleaded with the cooks to stop overcooking pork and that 145-degrees was completely safe and much more tasty.

Now that America’s official food-safety monitors have finally blessed the lower cooking temperature, try it. You’ll like it and those you cook for will be amazed at how talented you’ve become.

The Food Watchdog will show great self-control and editorial restraint and not make any of the oh-so-sweet obvious comments on the name of a bakery which is at the center of a voluntary recall announced today by the Food and Drug Administration.

Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. is recalling Entenmann’s brand bagged Pop’Ems donuts and Bimbo brand 8 pack Donitas donuts sold in six state because they may “develop an uncharacteristic smell and become moldy.”

Bimbo says it announced the recall after it received complaints of the unpleasant odor and temporary illness.

The company says the potential for serious health problems is low, but some consumers are sensitive to the uncharacteristic off-smell and should not eat the recalled products because of possible temporary gastro-intestinal distress, including nausea and diarrhea.

Here’s a link to the FDA recall notice which lists the six states at risk and the dates when the questionable donuts were produced.