3763 Chobani

Thursday, September 5, 2013

"If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war."

--senior Pentagon official on reasons why United States military censored footage

showing Iraqi soldiers sliced in two by U.S. helicopter fire.--

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 Back in early August of 2011, I posted about finding mold in containers of Chobani yogurt, and how some were swelling and fermenting.  I got a comment on one of those posts from a Chobani rep offering an explanation ("no control after it leaves our facilities") and offering me coupons for more of the stuff.  A quick internet search back then showed that the problem wasn't confined to that batch, or that store, or that truck - it was pretty common, and all over. 

My take is that I've never seen mold or smelled and tasted alcohol in any other plain yogurt - and I often don't refrigerate my yogurt.  Properly made and handled, it doesn't need it.  That's why it has been popular in hot countries for thousands of years.

(Note - technically, yogurt is the result of a fermenting process, but the agent is a bacteria, and the process is slowed when the yogurt is chilled, or stops when the bacteria has eaten all the sugar in the milk - sort of like bread yeast works.  There shouldn't be any mold, and there shouldn't be any alcohol produced.)

Well, Chobani is in the news now.  The stuff is still (or again?) sprouting mold and producing gasses and alcohol.  Chobani has been pulling containers off store shelves.  They haven't issued an official recall, haven notified the public, haven't notified the FDA, they're just contacting stores and asking them to pull it.  Not all of it, just a certain batch.

They say it's a "mold common in dairy facilities" and not dangerous.

I call BS.  If it's so common, how come I've never seen or heard of the problem with any other yogurt?  Never had a Dannon or store-brand container swell or grow mold even when taken on weekend and longer trips with no refrigeration?  Yogurt isn't supposed to have mold in it!

They've known they've had a problem for at least two years. 

"A mold common in dairy facilities" doesn't worry me as much as what its presence might indicate about their facility and process.

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In other news, my back is out.  I've felt it coming on for the past two weeks, and now I'm wearing the brace and hobbling around with a walking stick, bent over like a crone.  I can't accomplish anything.
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3762 Chicken Farmers

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; 

if you really make them think, they'll hate you."

--Don Marquis--

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Am I the only person who thinks it's hypocritical that folks get all huffy when someone uses "retarded" to mean stupid, but no one blinks twice at the same use of the word "dumb"?

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This is cool:  a series of concrete arrows ten miles apart crossing the continent from New York to San Fransisco!   They were used to guide mail planes across the country in the days before guidance systems.  If I were younger and had an ATV, or a horse, and liked to camp out, I'd want to follow this trail before it completely disappears.  It's more interesting to me and less depressing than the fabled route 66.

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When I was very small we lived a few places in the south, like Fort Bragg, and Biloxi.  One time when I was maybe five years old, there was a holiday parade, and mixed in with the thrilling bands and floats there was a bunch of boring people in ghost costumes.  For some reason my mother got all tense and upset and muttered that they shouldn't be allowed.  I agreed, because they were boring, but so were the boys with the shoulder bands covered with badges, and the women in aprons, so I asked why they were worse and shouldn't be allowed.

Mom said they were the coo clucks clan, that they were fowl people, they kill people they don't like, and I should stay away from them.

I was shocked that chicken farmers would kill you. Why were they different from cow farmers and corn farmers?

For several years after I felt very brave eating chicken, because what if the farmer didn't like me and the chicken was poisoned?  To this day, 60+ years later, when anyone mentions the KKK, my first thought is of pigeons and chickens.
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