Part of the premise in the movie, Wedding Crashers, besides the potential for a partner, was the great food. How much could Vince Vaughan eat? Did anyone want to find out? Then, the Owen Wilson character hits bottom and starts crashing funerals to hit on women in emotional distress, or something like that.

Now news from Wellington, New Zealand, where a man dubbed the ‘grim eater’ has been banned from funerals after attending up to four ceremonies a week and even taking home leftovers in a doggy bag.

Danny Langstraat, a director of Harbour City Funeral Home in Wellington, said,

"He was showing up to funeral after funeral and, without a doubt, he didn't know the deceased. We saw him three or four times a week. Certainly, he had a backpack with some Tupperware containers so, when people weren't looking, he was stocking up.”
 



“I found a maggot in my cheeseburger.”

So says Robert Comitz who was eating at the McDonald’s on Route 113 near Route 309 in Hilltown, Pennsylvania.

“There was nothing in that kitchen that would make us suspicious of anything.”

So says Dr. David Damsker, the health department’s director, following an inspection of the fast-food joint.

“We’re not sayin nothin.”

That’s what the McDonald’s franchise owner meant by saying nothing when called by reporters.

Comitz said he kept the maggot and is considering filing a lawsuit.

 One of the reasons is because of the response from the restaurant, he said.

 “They think it’s nothing, like you made the story up or something.”
 

I get called regularly by some journalist wanting to stick it to the man – to show the shoddy side of the food business. And what better place than some local café.

I advise caution and getting the story right – journalistic basics which have substantially declined over the past 20 years, especially at the local level.

On June 16, 2009, New Zealand’s TV3 consumer affairs program, Target, showed an undercover camera segment looking at the hygiene standards of several Auckland cafes.

The New Zealand Herald explains food was bought from the cafes and then samples sent for laboratory testing, one of which came back with a high reading of fecal coliform. The show attributed that sample to Ponsonby-based Cafe Cezanne.

Target wrote to Cafe Cezanne's owners telling them a chicken sandwich from their cafe had tested positive for faecal coliforms. However, the letter contained incorrect information about the date of purchase.

The owners questioned whether the sample was from their cafe but Target went ahead with the broadcast.

The program was forced to apologize the following week after it found a mistake had been made in labeling the samples, and the show broadcast a statement saying: "Due to a human error by a former Target staff member coding the results, we cannot confirm which cafe produced this high fecal coliform count".

Cafe Cezanne complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) that the original item and the apology were inaccurate and unfair. They said the apology had not stated that the sample had been wrongly attributed to Cafe Cezanne.

In a decision released today, the BSA said it had found Target was in possession of two documents, which unequivocally exonerated the cafe, before the apology.
The documents showed the contaminated sample was collected and delivered to the laboratory on a different day from the sample from Cafe Cezanne, and it was therefore clear the contaminated sample definitely did not come from Cafe Cezanne.

That, uh, oversight resulted in almost $40,000 in fines.

TV3 broadcaster TVWorks was fined $5000 for the incorrect allegation and another $5000 for the apology, which it said did not unequivocally clear the cafe.
It was also ordered to pay the cafe owners' full legal costs of $28,068.75, and to broadcast an apology and summary of the BSA's decision on Target.

As well, it must publicize the decision on radio stations and in a newspaper advertisement.

PerezHilton.com reports that John Mayer's team has announced the singer wouldn't be finishing his European tour as he fell victim to diarrhea.

Sources are reporting that John allegedly fled from his tour due to a case of food poisoning. Supposedly, John spent the night on the john after he ate something nasty at the catering table in Copenhagen. This "intestinal illness" was allegedly painful enough for John to request to return home.

Do they not have Pepto-Bismol in Denmark? If we were his tour promoters, we'd be pissed at his shiz! That's a lot of a money lost over the squirts.

Erin Stadler was at her baby shower in North Carolina in 1997 when she at a piece of brie cheese that was contaminated with listeria. The disease made Stadler and her unborn child deathly ill.

"You don't think about eating one piece of cheese and almost dying. That's basically, what happened for both of us," said Stadler.

When Stadler went to the hospital, doctors immediately delivered baby Allison. She was premature at 33 weeks. Allison was in the hospital for two more weeks for additional tests when doctors realized how ill both Erin and Allison were.

Two pregnant women on Virgin Blue Australian flights last year gave birth prematurely after being served listeria-laden chicken wraps.

In the fall of 2008, along with the Maple Leaf listeria-in-deli-meat mess, an outbreak of listeria in cheese in Quebec led to 38 hospitalizations, of which 13 were pregnant and gave birth prematurely. Two adults died and there were 13 perinatal deaths.

A Sept. 2008 report showed that of the 78 residents of the Canadian province of British Columbia who contracted listeriosis in the past six years, 10 per cent were pregnant women whose infections put them at high risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.

The majority -- nearly 60 per cent -- of pregnant women diagnosed with listeriosis either miscarry or have stillbirths.

The authors wrote,

"Health care providers [want] better information for themselves and resources they could share with pregnant women. … The information provided to pregnant women by health care providers needs to be targeted and clear," and that as a result of the spring survey, BCCDC will start a project to better inform health care providers and their patients about food safety risks during pregnancy.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated approximately 2,500 cases of liisteriosis occur annually in the United States, with about 500 cases resulting in death. In 2000, listeria exposure resulted in a higher rate of hospitalization than any other foodborne pathogen and more than one-third of reported deaths from food pathogens.

CDC has a list of foods to avoid while pregnant: deli meats or cold-cuts top the list. Health Canada has similar advice.

Which makes a report in the April 2010 edition of the journal, Canadian Family Physician, absolutely baffling.

Worse, the report was authored by the Motherisk team at the previously reputable Toronto Hospital for Sick Children.

The authors state, correctly, that the incidence of listeria “among pregnant women remains about 20 times higher compared with the general population,” but go on to state, without any references, that “pregnant women need not avoid soft-ripened cheeses or deli meats, so long as they are consumed in moderation and obtained from reputable stores.”

Here is the actual Q&A as printed in the article:

QUESTION After hearing about outbreaks of illness resulting from Listeria and Salmonella, many of my patients are wondering about the risks of food-borne illnesses during pregnancy and what they can do to reduce their chances of contracting them.

ANSWER Although heating or cooking food is the best way to inactivate food-borne pathogens, improved standards and surveillance have reduced the prevalence of contaminated foods at grocery stores. Therefore, it is no longer necessary for pregnant women to avoid foods like deli meats and soft cheeses (associated with Listeria); soft-cooked eggs (associated with Salmonella); or sushi and sashimi. Regardless of whether seafood is raw or cooked, pregnant women should choose low mercury seafood (eg, salmon and shrimp) over higher mercury varieties (eg, fresh tuna). Pregnant women should ensure that their food is obtained from reputable establishments; stored, handled, and cooked properly; and consumed within a couple of days of purchasing.

I have no idea what the authors mean by a reputable source. I have no idea how this advice got approved and published. How is it that the authors, Carolyn Tam, a graduate student in clinical pharmacology at the University of Toronto, Aida Erebara MD, and Adrienne Einarson RN, assistant director of the Motherisk Program could come up with such terrible food safety advice from the 25-year-old Motherisk program which is designed “to ensure the well-being of mothers and babies, worldwide.”

And they want donations.

Someone has already sent the editor a letter of protest.

Thanks to the barfblog.com reader who sent me the link.

“Chip, I’m going to come at you like a spider monkey. … I’m all jacked up on Mountain Dew.”

If your family dinner conversation is similar to that between 10-year-old Texas Ranger, son of Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights , and grandpa Chip, the problem may be excessive caffeine.

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) is confirming its advice to parents and caregivers that energy drinks and energy shots containing caffeine are not for children and young teenagers, following completion of a risk profile on caffeine.

Public health principal advisor Donald Campbell said,

“The report has not found anything we didn’t already know: children and teenagers get caffeine from tea, kola drinks and coffee, and if they consume too much they could have effects like dizziness, rapid heartbeat, irritability, anxiety, tremors and insomnia. These products are labelled with their caffeine content, and just as you wouldn’t hand a child a double long black, you shouldn’t give them energy shots.

A single shot espresso coffee has around 80 mg of caffeine and a cafe latte 99 mg. Energy shots can have twice this level or more. A cup of tea has about 55 mg. A 50g milk chocolate bar has about 10mg.

NZFSA’s risk profile indicates that the temporary adverse effects can occur in some people when they consume about 3 mg of caffeine per kilogramme of body weight a day, which most adults would exceed if they had two single shot lattes or four cups of tea. There is no evidence of long-term harm in the general healthy adult population from caffeine consumption up to 400 mg per day.