Almost time for St. Norbert Farmers’ Market!

Time’s been getting away from me here (I’ve been having some job-related drama), but I wanted to point out that the St. Norbert Farmers’ Market opens this Saturday! It will run from 8am-3pm, rain or shine. (Starting in July, it will also be open Wednesday afternoons from 1pm-7pm.)

I also wanted to point out that the market’s website, which had been an unnavigable mess in past years, has been completely redesigned – and it looks great! Be sure to check out the harvest schedule, which lists which fruits and veggies are available in different months, and the revamped list of vendors at the market.

Opening day festivities start at 10am this Saturday, but some of the best deals (and best strawberries!) are best grabbed right when the market opens. See you there!

Restaurant inspection reports in Winnipeg in need of an overhaul

Ok, so, on Saturday, a couple found – yeah, it’s gross, just go read the article if you want. Basically, a previously living mammal was found in a woman’s stir fry from the St. Vital food court.

Now, Winnipeg has this great resource called the Diner’s Digest. It lists all of the closures and convictions of Winnipeg restaurants in the past 12 months… But it doesn’t yet show the closure of The Sizzling Wok on Saturday due to the – um, “incident.”

Now, first of all, the Diner’s Digest looks like it’s only updated a few times a month. So if your favourite eatery got a conviction a few weeks ago, you wouldn’t find out about it until a month or so after the fact. The lag time between closure or conviction and when it appears in the Digest is a worry to me. Transparency in government is great, but only when it appears in time for you to act on the relevant information.

But I’d also like to see the city of Winnipeg move to a more public and visible way for restaurants to show how well they’ve fared in their inspections. Many jurisdictions are starting to move to a grading system for restaurants, and they are required to post their rating at the door or counter. Parts of the UK has moved to a five-star rating system with their Scores on the Doors program, and Northampton has reported a rise in the number of restaurants receiving five-star ratings. The Toronto area has moved to a green/yellow/red card rating system, much like the Los Angeles County A, B or C ratings.

So, rather than waiting a few weeks to post how a restaurant did in their last inspection online, why can’t the inspector just hand the owner or manager a card to hang in their window? Restaurants with great ratings can play it up, customers get instant information on how well a restaurant is doing in their health inspections, and City Hall can make some noise about how they’re making more information available faster to the citizens of Winnipeg.

Or… you know, they could keep their Diner’s Digest a bit more up to date. I’ll take either one at this point.

*Edit: It is now June 3, 2009. The Diner’s Digest has STILL not been updated with the closure of Sizzling Wok. It’s been almost a month now.

If people are supposed to trust the information that the government gives them, the information needs to be kept up to date.

Reality check: Swine flu

I have heard this about a hundred times today, so I figured I’d climb on my (very short) soapbox for a moment to speak my peace.

There has been a lot of news recently about the swine flu outbreak over the past few days. I will agree that there is a cause for concern, but I hope people use this opportunity to be cautious, not for panic.

Flu is transmitted from person to person by flu viruses. While it’s possible to get the virus when someone coughs or sneezes near you, the most common form of transmission is by touching something with the virus on it, and then touching your face or mouth. Thus, it’s important to wash your hands frequently, especially when out in public.

What is driving me absolutely bonkers is the people who think that you can get “swine flu” from eating pork.

You can’t. You cannot get swine flu from a pork chop, bacon, ham, ribs, or any other pork product. From the CDC website FAQ about swine flu:

Can people catch swine flu from eating pork?
No. Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. You can not get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork and pork products is safe. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160°F kills the swine flu virus as it does other bacteria and viruses.

The CBC has a great article explaining the difference between swine flu and avian flu, how virus mutations happen, and how humans can get infected with swine flu.

Anyway, that’s it. I just wanted to provide an antidote to all the people running around tossing out their BLT sandwiches, and to give a little perspective on the situation.

Pistachio recall hits Winnipeg

There were some new recalls today of nut products tied to the pistachio recall in the US. Two of the recalls affected products sold here in Winnipeg.

The specific recalls are as follows:

• Red pistachios sold at the Frontier Fruit & Nut kiosks at Polo Park and Kildonan Shopping Centre. They were sold in assorted sizes, some with no brand name. These nuts were sold between November 11, 2008 and December 30, 2008. (I believe this was the gift nut and snack stalls set up in the mall during Christmas.)
• Red pistachios sold in 150g packages at The Almond Tree in the Forks Market. These were sold between November 12, 2008 and April 15, 2009.

These products may be contaminated with salmonella, which is never any fun to get, so please don’t eat them if you happen to have any in your possession. Either contact the store or dispose of the nuts.

CFIA doesn’t know how many inspectors it has!

This just blows my mind.

You’ve probably already read the articles on the reports issued this week on the listeriosis outbreak last summer as a result of tainted Maple Leaf meats. These reports, compiled by Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, shows that there was a breakdown in communication between the involved organizations.

This isn’t terribly new news. The confusion surrounding the whole issue last summer made it apparent that no one knew what was going on. It wasn’t until Maple Leaf stepped up and said that they were at fault, they were fixing it, and everything else that they needed to say to repair their public relations, that the public finally understood what was going on. Where was Health Canada? Where was the Public Health Agency? What are we paying these people for?

Anyway, that’s old news. What floored me this morning was the revelation that the CFIA can’t say for sure how many meat inspectors it has.

The CFIA cited a supporting chart showing the number of inspectors now tops 3,000, up from about 1,900 a decade ago. But this includes employees who don’t do meat inspections.

If they have a chart, they must have numbers with which they made the chart, no? Otherwise they’re just making shit up.

The CFIA also blames their data capture for not being able to say for sure how many meat inspectors it has, since some inspectors serve multi-purpose roles. This confuses me. I’ve worked on data capture. Unless their system is completely borked it should be a simple process to pull out how many inspectors filed inspection reports at meat plants.

Wait, it gets better.

Bob Kingston represents CFIA inspectors as the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada’s agriculture union. He said there are only about 200 “multi-purpose inspectors,” and each one submits monthly expense claims coded to show the amount of time they devote to each commodity program. He suggested the CFIA is “trying to hide” the real number by hiding behind this excuse [regarding data capture].

Kingston estimates that the total number of food inspectors is less than 1,200, excluding trainees and supervisors. Of these, he said about 200 are processed meat inspectors.

Only 200 meat inspectors! Awesome!

So the CFIA went on to clarify their statement because some senators apparently got upset when they said they didn’t know how many inspectors the agency has. (Wonder why?)

The CFIA also clarified that its 3,030 inspectors includes those working in all areas of inspection under the CFIA’s mandate. The number of inspectors working in federally registered meat facilities is approximately 1,400, the agency said. And between March 2006 and March 2008, overall CFIA staff has increased by 13.7 per cent.

Now they have a number? Why didn’t they have it before? And why don’t I trust it?

Ok, that’s the cynic in me. And yes, this article is from March 25. But here’s something else to chew on.

In one of my classes, we were assigned to look for a statement from a spokesperson, and we would be analyzing the statements in class. I decided to look for a statement from a CFIA spokesperson, so I started searching the CBC News site. Here’s what I found:

March 30: “No one from the CFIA was available for an interview.”
March 25: “…CFIA refused to make a spokesperson available to discuss its recall policy.”
March 25: But according to an internal memo obtained by the CBC and Toronto Star…

…etcetera. Pretty much every single “statement” made to the CBC by the CFIA was either in a news release, an emailed statement sent after the reporter called, or in a document obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. Then there’s this:

Canada’s food watchdog is withholding files documenting its handling of the recent nationwide listeria outbreak, citing the high volume of freedom-of-information requests and limited staff resources.

As part of a joint investigation, the CBC and Toronto Star first made requests for the files in August. The files detail meetings between the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, meat processor Maple Leaf Foods Inc. and public health officials. None of the files has been released and the CFIA is seeking extensions that could hold back the release of records for more than a year. Standard extensions typically range from one to two months.

A *year* to get records? Especially at a time when food safety in Canada is under such scrutiny? Unacceptable.

Food inspection and safety in Canada needs a complete overhaul in order to gain back the public’s trust.

Early spring blues: craving asparagus

This is a depressing time of the year for Winnipeg gardeners and foodies, especially ones who do a lot of stuff on the internet… Like me.

The snow has finally melted off my garden, exposing the disaster of shredded leaves and stubble that is left from last fall. (The leaves were put on the garden on purpose, and will be dig into the soil as soon as it can be worked. The stubble is there because – well, hey, I was busy last fall.) The ground is still too damp to do anything, although if I had some raised beds I could be planting the first of my spring lettuce right now. It’ll be a few more weeks before I can start some serious gardening.

Meanwhile, the food blogosphere is starting to revel in the treasures of (a much earlier) spring, especially things like grilled asparagus. It’s at this point I start whimpering, since we won’t be seeing fresh local asparagus for another month or so.

Asparagus *is* one of the things that I would like to grow. My parents have always grown their own asparagus in Ohio, and getting those first spears from the garden was a treat. Of course, by the end of asparagus season you were totally sick of seeing, tasting or smelling asparagus, but that happens with every type of prolific vegetable when you grow your own. (Remember the late summer inundation of zucchini?)

The problem with asparagus is that it’s a perennial, so you have to plan ahead and find someplace where it can live for a long time. This location also has to be in full sun or close to it, which is a problem for us. I love our elm tree, but sometimes the shade it casts causes issues.

Anyway, now I’m waiting for our first influx of fresh spring vegetables, and my favorites: asparagus and the first sugar snap peas. What are you waiting for?

Ground beef recall

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has issued a warning to consumers not to use lean ground beef from certain Safeway stores in NE Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. From the press release:

Lean Ground Beef affected by this alert was sold in packages of approximately 0.450 kg, with the first part of UPC being 201670. Product label bears Canada establishment number 573 and the product was prepared for certain Canada Safeway stores in Northeastern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The affected packages bear a Best Before or a Freeze By date of March 19 and were sold from March 13 to March 19, inclusive and are no longer available for sale. Consumers who may have previously purchased this product and still have it in their freezers, are advised not to consume this product.

The release also said that the company, Vantage Foods in Winnipeg, is voluntarily recalling the meat, but as of 10:30am this morning the company’s website doesn’t mention the recall.

Check your freezers and cook your meat, people!

Wild Rice and Corn Stuffed Peppers

While I was dutifully going through the cupboards looking for things to use up, I came across many bags of wild rice. A few minutes with Google later, and I found this wonderful recipe from Redacted Recipes.

As is usual my first time around with a recipe, I didn’t change very much. I decided to use only green peppers, because I was afraid that the sweetness of a red or yellow pepper would clash a bit with the stuffing. (That seemed to be a good choice.) I also used only wild rice, instead of the wild and brown rice mix that Ann used. Hey, I had all this wild rice to use up! Finally, instead of dried basil I used a cube of frozen basil.

Boy howdy, we’re doing this again. And one of the best parts of the recipe is that it worked out perfectly. I have this problem, you see, whenever I cook something “stuffed.” Stuffed zucchini, stuffed pork chops, stuffed eggplant, stuffed mushrooms… No matter what it is, I always end up with more stuffing than I have volume to stuff.

But this recipe came out exactly even. Just as I was scraping the last little bit of stuffing out of the bowl, the fourth pepper was filled right to the brim. I know that it had as much to do with how big my peppers were as it did with the recipe, but it sure made my day.

This recipe ended up in the “do again!” folder. I’m looking forward to trying this with fresh local peppers from the farmers’ market. Only two months away…

Eating down the fridge – what’s in yours?

Over the past week, I’ve been following Kim O’Donnel’s “Eating Down the Fridge” challenge with interest. We’ve been finding ourselves cutting back on our food budget lately due to tight finances, so it’s been interesting watching people making meals out of the food they already have.

Out of curiosity, I took a quick survey of the nooks and crannies of our own fridge and pantry. We have some ancient pierogies in the freezer (which I keep meaning to cook for lunches one of these days), a few different kinds of frozen veggies, a wealth of pastas, some canned veggies, and a handful of interesting soups. We tend to only buy as much meat and produce as we need for a specific week, so the only fresh veggies that are hanging around are a few potatoes, two onions, some browning lettuce leaves and a lone grapefruit. We did have some leftover bacon, but that’s made its way into the freezer.

I did find some interesting things, though.
* A bag of red lentils. This amuses me. We’ve been eating more beans lately, because they are cheap and nutritious, and I have been making heavy use of red lentils. To think, all this time we had a bag of red lentils hiding in the back of the cupboard!
* A bag of mixed-bean chili mix. This is vintage, to be sure. Dave got this at some point before we were married. Still – it’s just dried beans. The worst that could have happened to it was the spices lost their flavour and I’ll have to supplement.
* A box of Hamburger Helper. I actually found this a week ago when I was moving some boxes around in the pantry. It’s old, but we might as well use it. (Bleah. Those things always seem too salty to me.)
* Tons and tons and tons of wild rice. We have so much wild rice. I think I could feed an army with it. I have no idea where it all came from. Every time I thought I’d found all of the wild rice that could possible be in the cupboard, I found another bag hiding behind the corn starch.
* A soup mix (“just add peanut butter!!”) for some Thai soup. Another mystery mix that I don’t remember buying. I am amused that it calls for just peanut butter on the front of the package, but the first step in the instructions is “Cut up ox-tails.”

I don’t know how much of this we’ll be able to use this week, since I don’t like cooking “unknown” things on weeknights. Time is sometimes an issue in our evening schedules, and I don’t always have the luxury of spending three hours messing around with an unfamiliar recipe. Still, I’d like to at least make a dent in the wild rice. If I don’t show it who’s boss, it might try to take over.

Winnipeg Decides Against Trans Fat Ban

The Winnipeg Free Press is reporting today that the city has decided against a ban on trans fats, saying that this type of action is better suited for the province to handle. It wasn’t the jurisdictional issue that decided it, though… It was because they didn’t have enough warm bodies to enforce the ban.

The article didn’t say who would be responsible for the enforcement, but I think it would probably fall under the purvey of Manitoba health inspectors. (Although, if it was a city-only ban, the city would probably have to front the cash/people to do the trans fat raids.) In 2006, the CBC ran an article about how overworked the health inspectors in the province are. I wasn’t able to find any new numbers, so I don’t know if this has improved or not.

A lot of people don’t understand that trans fats can be “natural.” (This is where people need to realize that “natural” doesn’t always mean “good for you.”) Animal fats contain natural trans fats. The problem is in artificial trans fats: adding hydrogen to unsaturated fats. It was the introduction of artificial trans fats that made them cheaper to use than natural trans fats for frying, and also helped extend the shelf life of some baked goods. After the advent of trans fats, rather than eating a small number of trans fats in beef or butter, people started eating trans fats in all kinds of things.

Anyway, trans fats aren’t good for you, and you should try to avoid them except when eating them in the tiny quantities you get in butter or beef. On the other hand, I’m not sure I want the government to spend money patrolling the restaurants to make sure that they are removing trans fats from their food products. (Almost every ban I’ve seen has specified that the trans fats being banned are the artificial ones. Otherwise, you’d never be able to have butter with your dinner roll at a restaurants!) A lot of restaurants are removing trans fats from their menu on their own, after pressure from consumers. I *do* support asking the larger restaurants to make their nutritional information available to customers, though.

In the end, the city decided to put out a fact sheet instead, explaining how to make healthy eating choices when eating out. That’s a bit of a cop-out in itself (how is a low-income, computer illiterate person supposed to get one of these fact sheets without having to make a special trip downtown to get one?) but at least it’s something. Now, if they could just take a look at the food desert problem…