Government Food Contamination Standards

 

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                      Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501

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                                    PO BOX 1031

                                Mesquite, TX 75150

                                 October 17, 1990

                          listed on KeelyNet as FOOD1.ZIP

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                      Government Food Contamination Standards

       Robert Choate, a  government  nutrition consultant, once stated that

       there was more protein in the INSECTS  in some breakfast cereal than

       in the cereals themselves.

       Current regulations include :

          As many as 10% of the beans in a sample of coffe  can be infested

          or damaged by insects.

          250 Milliliters  (about  a  cup)  of  orange  juice is allowed to

          contain ten fruit fly eggs, but only two maggots.

          Apple butter can have 5 insects  per  100 grams (about 25 in a 16

          ounce jar),  but little insects like mites, aphids,  thrips,  and

          scale insects don't count toward that limit.  The cleanest apples

          are sold whole, and the wormy ones are made into apple butter.

          Wheat can  average "9 milligrams of rodent excreta pellets and/or

          pellet fragments per kilogram.

          Peanut butter can have 50 insect fragments per 100 grams (as many

          as 620 in the 40 ounce jar of Skippy's Super Chunk) or one rodent

          hair per 100 grams.

          Curry powder can contain 100 insect fragments per 25 grams.  Most

          spices are rife with insects before  they  reach  the market; the

          FDA acknowledges there isn't much that American  spice  importers

          can do  about  the matter.  (But "no live insects are permitted,"

          an American Spice Trade Association spokesman insisted.)

          100 grams of tomato juice can  contain  two  DROSOPHILA  maggots,

          five eggs and one maggot, or ten eggs and no maggot.

          Frozen Brussels  sprouts  can have 40 aphids or  thrips  per  100

          grams, that amounts to about 200 vermin in a 1 pound package.

       "Foreign matter" as  applied  to  food contaminants can also include

       metal shavings or  lubricants  from   the   canning   or  processing

       equipment.

       Sufficient quantities of metal have been found in foods to create an

       industry for metal detectors expressly designed for  food production

       lines.

       Lead shot is  often  found  in raisins as a result of hunters firing

       into game hiding in the vineyards.