Ham smoothies are one of several recipes for leftovers that top this month’s edition of the Neews, food safety stories that put the eew in news. Comedian Keith Guerke posed as a chef and hit the Midwest’s morning talk show circuit over the holidays to plug his (fake) book “Leftovers Right: Making a Winner of Last Night’s Dinner.”
Hats off to the morning show reporters who gamely participated in making, admiring and tasting some of Guerke’s creations including a smoothie made from ham, green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy and milk. “Jamba Juice, eat your heart out,” Guerke quipped, as he assembled the concoction.
The smoothie ingredients varied from show to show. One had turkey, gravy, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and milk. In another, Guerke showed the host how to store “six meals worth” of the smoothie concoction by pouring it through a funnel into a gallon-sized milk jug. Because the thick mixture was slow to drain, Guerke held up a finished jug he brought with him. The fat rises to the top so you have to shake it, he tells the host, and shakes it, accidentally splashing the goo onto himself and the set.
Guerke photoshopped his face onto an image to a chef to make a book jacket and typed up a press release. He sent the materials to 10 stations and seven accepted. None of the reporters knew they were being pranked.
A Canadian family says a bag of Doritos they bought came with rodent droppings in it. But makers of Doritos say, did it come that way or get that way after the nag was opened?
According to the mother of the family, she and her son were snacking on Doritos while watching TV in the dark discovered something of a different texture mixed in with the chips. Guessing it was mouse poop, the mother called PepsiCo Foods Canada but wasn’t satisfied with their explanation. So, she contacted Global News, which paid to have the bag of chips tested by a lab at the University of Guelph.
Tests results found rodent poop, rodent hair, bits of paper and burned pieces of product mixed in with the chips, but could not confirm how they got there. The paper purchased two other bags of Doritos from the same store where the item in question was purchased and those tested. Nothing “extra” was found in those bags.
In a statement to Global News, PepsiCo Canada said: “We have reached out to the [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] CFIA and have reviewed our rigorous pest control protocols at the facility and are confident that they were in place and adequate. However, we cannot, nor can any packaged goods company, speak to what may happen to products that leave our facilities and our control. We haven’t received any other complaints of this nature and will continue to work with the customer to resolve the issue.”
Finally, from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’)s March 19 enforcement report is the recall of Morrison’s Brown Gravy Mix. The product, which was shipped to distributors in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, was mislabeled as pancake mix. Sympathies to the poor soul who made that discovery at Sunday brunch.
