Food Labels Are Serious Business
Taking the handling instructions on food labels seriously can go a long way toward keeping you and your family healthy. By contrast, ignoring the labels can lead to very serious illnesses. Here are some recent examples.
Unrefrigerated Soup Tied to Botulism Cases
Recently, a consumer in the South bought a plastic container of soup from a salad bar in a supermarket. It was sold cold and clearly labeled:
HEAT & SERVE / KEEP REFRIGERATED
The soup sat unrefrigerated for a day or two before it was heated. The consumer tasted it and threw it out because it was “sour.” Despite having eaten very little of the soup, the consumer ended up in the hospital with botulism.
A similar case occurred in the Midwest last February. The consumer bought soup in a pack of two-plastic containers. It also was sold cold, and the labels also said to keep it refrigerated. One container was consumed immediately, with no ill effects. But, the consumer left the other container unrefrigerated for a week. Again, the consumer heated it, tasted it, and threw it out. And, again, that consumer also was hospitalized with botulism.
Botulism is as serious as food poisoning gets. It can result in respiratory failure and death. Even when patients survive, they may be hospitalized and on a ventilator for months, and they may suffer permanent neurological damage. So when a label says KEEP REFRIGERATED, keep the product refrigerated!
Follow the Label to Defeat Bacteria
While botulism is one of the most menacing foodborne illnesses, others are potentially quite serious as well, and product labels can help you avoid them. For example, if you pick up a package of hamburger in the grocery store, you’ll find a label with “Safe Handling Instructions.” It looks something like this:
“Cook thoroughly” means that you need to cook to a safe minimum cooking temperature – 160 F for hamburger. Don’t trust the color of the meat – use a food thermometer to be sure.
What if you don’t follow the label and the food is undercooked? Then you and your family are at risk of food poisoning from bacteria like E. coli. The worst type of E. coli can lead to kidney failure and even death. Children age four and under are particularly susceptible.
Microwave Labels Protect You, Too
Always read and follow the cooking instructions on frozen microwave dinners to kill any dangerous bacteria that may be in the food.
- Cook it thoroughly: Many companies include cooking times for two wattage levels of microwave ovens. Or, they may explain that the cooking time on the package is for 1100-watt ovens, so you must adjust the time for lower wattage ovens. To be safe, use a food thermometer to check the dinner, especially if your microwave oven is less than 1100 watts.
- Don’t skip the standing time: The label may also recommend letting the food stand for a minute or two after cooking. This “standing time” is important to complete the cooking process throughout the food.
Have Food Allergies? Read the Label
Since 2006, it has been much easier for people allergic to certain foods to avoid packaged products that contain them. This is because a federal law requires that the labels of most packaged foods marketed in the U.S. disclose in simple-to-understand terms when they are made with a major food allergen.
Eight foods, and ingredients containing their proteins, are defined as “major food allergens.” These foods account for 90 percent of all food allergies:
- Milk
- Egg
- Fish, such as bass, flounder, or cod
- Crustacean shellfish, such as crab, lobster, or shrimp
- Tree nuts, such as almonds, pecans, or walnuts
- Wheat
- Peanuts
- Soybeans
The law allows manufacturers a choice in how they identify the specific “food source names,” such as “milk,” “cod,” “shrimp,” or “walnuts,” of the major food allergens on the label. They must be declared in one of the following:
- The ingredient list, such as “casein (milk)” or “nonfat dry milk.”
- A separate “Contains” statement, such as “Contains milk,” placed immediately after or next to the ingredient list.
So first look for the “Contains” statement. If your allergen is listed, put the product back on the shelf. If there is no “Contains” statement, it’s very important to read the entire ingredient list to see if your allergen is present. If you see its name even once, it’s back to the shelf for that food too.
“Contains” and “May Contain” Have Different Meanings
If a “Contains” statement appears on a food label, it must include the food source names of all major food allergens used as ingredients. For example, if “whey,” “egg yolks,” and a “natural flavor” that contained peanut proteins are listed as ingredients, the “Contains” statement must identify the words “milk,” “egg,” and “peanuts.”
Some manufacturers voluntarily include a “may contain” statement on their labels when there is a chance that a food allergen could be present. A manufacturer might use the same equipment to make different products. Even after cleaning this equipment, a small amount of an allergen (such as peanuts) that was used to make one product (such as cookies) may become part of another product (such as crackers). In this case, the cracker label might state “may contain peanuts.”
Be aware that the “may contain” statement is voluntary. You still need to read the ingredient list to see if the product contains your allergen.
When In Doubt, Leave It Out
Manufacturers can change their products’ ingredients at any time, so it’s a good idea to check the ingredient list every time you buy the product—even if you have eaten it before and didn’t have an allergic reaction.
If you’re unsure about whether a food contains any ingredient to which you are sensitive, don’t buy the product, or check with the manufacturer first to ask what it contains. We all want convenience, but it’s not worth playing Russian roulette with your life or that of someone under your care.
For more information, check out Food Allergies: What You Need to Know.
Get Food Safety Answers on Your Smart Phone
Some of the questions we hear most frequently at the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline include “Is food safe if left out overnight?” and “Should I wash chicken before cooking it?” We know people aren’t sitting at a computer when these questions occur, and they often need the answers right away.
Just in time for summer grilling season—one of the busiest times of year for the Hotline—I’m happy to announce that our virtual food safety representative, Ask Karen, is now available in mobile format. That means you can access Karen's extensive knowledge base about safely handling, cooking, and storing food directly from your smart phone, anywhere and anytime your phone can access the Internet.
Mobile Ask Karen has all the same features as Ask Karen on your computer. Only now, she can answer your food safety questions at the grocery store, in your kitchen, or at your barbecue grill. Hopefully, by sending Karen out to picnics, farmers markets, and backyard cookouts via people’s smart phones, she’ll be able to reduce the number of foodborne illnesses that usually increase in the summer months.
Using your iOS (iPhone and iPad) or Android device, you can chat live with a food safety expert on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. EST, and the web-based app provides the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline number (1-888-MPHotline) in case you want to speak to someone directly.
If it’s midnight, however, and you’re not sure if you should snack on the pizza that’s been sitting on your countertop since dinnertime, the Ask Karen database is available 24/7 and has the answers to nearly 1,500 food safety questions. Chances are, someone else has faced a similar dilemma, and a solution can be found by searching for a few keywords.
Just like we try to do with this blog, government food safety agencies are trying to get as much food safety advice to the public as we can. Knowing how much time everyone (we do it too!) spends on their smart phones, it only makes sense that Ask Karen should be available from such a widely used tool.
Take Karen with you! To start using Mobile Ask Karen now, go to m.AskKaren.gov, or scan the QR code into your iOS or Android-powered device: