Spoiled food recall

Another food recall, although this one is for spoilage:

Kraft Foods voluntarily recalled their Knudsen cottage cheese in seven states, but told consumers not to worry: the affected cheese isn't making people sick, it just doesn't taste right.

The cartons affected include nonfat, low fat and small curd cottage cheese, and low fat cottage cheese with pineapple bearing a "sell-by" date of Aug. 31 or earlier, company spokeswoman Elisabeth Wenner said Thursday.

The cheese, processed at a plant in Tulare, was spoiling before that date. Eating it wouldn't make consumers sick, but it might taste bad, she said. The recall products sold in California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington. (San Francisco Chronicle)

The food is spoiled but won't make you sick. Does this makes sense? Yes, it does. Because "spoilage" is a term used for food that is no longer aesthetically suitable to eat. If the spoilage is caused by or accompanied by pathogens (disease causing organisms) or toxins it could also make you sick. But that food would be called contaminated, not spoiled (or in addition to being spoiled).

Sometimes spoilage is an important warning sign, however. Commercially canned food, where the can is bulging from gas production, is a warning that the contents are not "commericially sterile," i.e., not processed sufficiently that organisms cannot grow in it. In most cases the contents wouldn't kill you, but in some it might because if the gas forming bugs can grow so could botulism organisms, and it doesn't take much botulinum toxin to kill you. A woman who just tasted some peas and discarded the can because of an "off taste" got enough toxin to kill her. Again, it was not the botulinum toxin she tasted but the products of some spoilage organism. If that organism could grow, a botulism spore could also germinate and produce enough toxin to kill her. And it did.

Canned food is somewhat special in this regard because its contents are often airless, and the botulism organism needs an airless environment to germinate and grow. For many other pathogens like salmonella, stophylococcus enterotoxin or E. coli there is no taste or smell to warn you. The food isn't spoiled. It is contaminated with a pathogen. Conversely, most food that is "spoiled" is not a health hazard. The decision as to whether the altered texture or taste is even "spoilage" is frequently a matter of opinion, with some cultures deliberately prizing food that other cultures consider vile and spoiled.

So, yes, another food recall. The food is spoiled. But the claim of the manufacturer that it isn't a health hazard is credible.

Surprise.