An outbreak of salmonella poisoning linked to bagged, precut onions has sickened at least 73 people in 22 states, including 15 who were hospitalized, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
Gills Onions of Oxnard, California, has recalled packages of diced yellow onions, red onions, onions and celery and a mix of onions, celery and carrots, known as mirepoix. The products recalled had use-by dates in August 2023. They are no longer for sale in stores, but consumers may have them — or foods made with them — in freezers. Consumers should not eat, sell or serve the onions for foods made with them, health officials said.
The diced onion products were sold at food service and other institutions in the U.S. and Canada and at retailers in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Retail sites included Stater Bros., Bashas’ markets and Smart & Final stores in Arizona and California and Smart & Final and Chef’s Store in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.
Save money and health, don’t buy precut.
People with disabilities exist, and these products are extremely helpful to them living independently. Not all home cutting devices are great for all disability types, eg. Slapchops are bad for people with hand arthritis, people with only one operational arm, etc.
This is a really good point that I did not consider. Thank you.
No problem. We all rely on our experiences to form first assumptions/reactions, and it can be very easy to forget the wild and diverse ways our bodies vary!
Anytime I catch myself thinking something is an unnecessary convenience, I ask myself what might make it a necessity for someone. I think it helpfully reframes situations to see the good intentions and effort that went into the solutions.
True; it must be such a small amount of the population though, and how are those people cooking also?
I have what I call my “hand budget.” If I chop all the onions, I won’t be able to brush my teeth tonight. Use pre cut onions and I can maybe slice the tomatoes and still brush my teeth later. I did just invest in a really nice, dishwasher safe food processor (washing dishes takes a lot out of the hand budget).
But it’s not just people who need to save hand effort. It’s also people who need to save time. Trader Joe’s bagged, pre cut veggies are not significantly more expensive than whole vegetables. If it’s the difference between pre cut, homemade and take out, I think it’s worth it.
Yeah I buy them to reduce damage to my standing budget. Fuck standard kitchen and bathroom design for assuming you’ll be standing for everything. I’m lucky I live somewhere where society decided it was good to sit while relieving yourself. I’m still not sure who decided bathing must be done standing or lying down only though.
There are plenty of sitting ways to bathe, very common in Asia. Get a small plastic stool.
small amount of the population though
Oh no, it is a huge amount of people, and rapidly increasing, especially with the amount of wars breaking out, aging populations, etc. There are so many medical conditions that will make otherwise basic tasks unnecessarily hard.
Nearly a quarter of Americans have officially diagnosed arthritis. Obviously not all of those are in the arm, but kitchens also require you to stand. Which is one of the reasons why I buy frozen prechopped vegetables.
But that’s before you get to people who have had strokes, which can frequently cause paralysis, usually on one side of the body - it affects 10-22% of stroke patients and someone has a stroke in the US every 40 seconds.
And those are just 2 issues. Think of how complex your body is, there are so many things that can and will go wrong. If you live in rural USA, 1 in 3 people have a disability.
and how are those people cooking also?
When you are diagnosed with something long-term, you adapt or you get a carer or you die. Adapting is a hard, trial and error, expensive and time-consuming process filled with predators. But you would be surprised with the workarounds people find. I know a guy with no vision who cooks mostly by smell. He understandably hates the new trend of touch interface appliances.
Take any basic item you own, and add the word ‘adaptive’ and you will find products which may or may not help an individual situation at all.
Like this $78 adaptive chopping board. Look at the reviews too, they will tell you a lot about who this has helped and how. This one might be worth the money but there are also shitty bits of plastic sold to disabled people with 1000% mark-up because ‘adaptive’. Like this scumlicker selling a mini folding table for $35
But it is possible for some to adapt their situation. Michael Caines is a chef who won 2 Michelin stars after he lost his arm in a crash. He uses his prosthetic arm to hold food down to chop, but I don’t know how he manages carrying a large full pot or other tasks.
But you find ways. You have to. Chopped frozen veg is one of my many ways I work around some of my difficulties.
Nearly a quarter of Americans have officially diagnosed arthritis
I thought you plucked that number out of your arse… Then I checked.
https://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/data_statistics/arthritis-related-stats.htm
That is batshit insane, I had no idea it was so high.
Thanks for all the details, definitely changed my mind.
Glad to have helped out!
Everyone always assumes it’s an old retired person problem too, but it isn’t, even if being worked to the bone for decades means they’re obviously the biggest group of people with arthritis and other disabilities. We don’t hear about it because people try real hard not to hire people with disabilities, including but not limited to the media.
Anecdotally my grandmother had bad arthritis and cooked every day. She had my grandfather do the prep work. It wasn’t that it was impossible for her to do it, she did still prep/chop stuff after my grandfather passed, just that it would start getting unbearably painful after a while. She very often had one us cut up and/or prep stuff for the week when we were over. So buying prechopped stuff would probably be a lifesaver to a little old lady eith arthritis who didn’t get weekly visits from her grandkids.
A lot of disabilities are sort of hidden like that though. Like yes this person could theoretically power through walking through the store, or prepping a meal, but the pain build up and becomes agony after a while.
Sort of an afterthought but I could also see it being very helpful to amputees. I can for sure cook one handed (I’ve one-hand cooked while holding a baby at least a few times in my life), but I’ll be damned if I could chop/prep one handed.
I’d normally agree with you but not practical if you’re adding onions to your hotdog at the baseball game.
Walking around with a bag of onions in case you encounter a wild hot dog? Either way, could always precut it yourself before you go
The article said good service stores so I assume it’s businesses buying these onions, not grocery shoppers.
Fair enough, though I would expect that businesses would prefer a one time purchase of some kind of food processor that will allow them to save money long term by buying whole products.
I can’t imagine the gas station attendant chopping onions for the minimart. You hear horror stories on sites like this from ex fast-food employees. The thing that seems to be particularly dangerous is any dispenser with long tubes, eg ice cream, beer, soda.
You have to pay someone to operate the Robot Coupe, and maintain the space to store it and clean it. Lots of food service situations can make it cheaper to buy prepped veggies.
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No, I tie one to my belt, which is the style now.
Oui.
You’re taking your own onions to a ball game?
I’m starting to think you guys don’t leave the house often.
…the vendor gives you the onions. You think they’re cutting them himself or buying pre-cut?
Don’t do that.
I know I would never. I’ve got better things to do than watch baseball while eating a hot dog.
So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.
So I tied a salmonella-ridden bag of precut onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.
It’s not leaking, it’s crying.
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For people who have full body ability, yes. Those are most people, but very much not all. Automation of basic tasks is helpful, when they’re done with proper safety protocols.
Does this include cleanup time?
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Touché
Depends on the cut.
A coarse chop, sure.
A fine mince? Unless you’ve been working a prep line for a few years, that’s gonna take longer
If you cut it into a bit of tiny happy faces it would take forever.
I wonder how quickly that’d turn in to tiny little crying faces.
Point is, even with decent knife skills, a mince takes me a couple minutes. Still, the fresh cut is better, healthier and safer, so it’s a few minutes well spent. but if I’m mincing a shit load, into the food processor it goes.
You’ll lose your Michelin star(s) that way.
I’ll just tell the food judge it’s a commentary on blue collar labor. (And maybe dump in some spaghettios)
They’ll eat that shit up,
Eating shit is a health code violation.
I hate this trend of putting things that come in their own packaging in plastic. It’s so dumb
I can see a niche use case for pre chopped fresh veggies, my wife’s little brother can’t really handle a knife but he can cook with prepped ingredients, same was true for my grandmother. It’s not a matter of lack of skill in either case, we’re talking about a disability here.
But for the most part I agree, 95% of consumers should be buying the fresh, unpackaged veggies
It’s for high volume restaurants.
John Oliver recently did a story on how the failure of the FDA to do half its name is the reason for a lot of these outbreaks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za45bT41sXg
Great LastWeekTonight episode. Very clearly the F in FDA is silent….
This is actually the first time I’ve heard of pre-cut onions. Lol
I bet you’ve used one of these!
And just like that, I’m ten years old with my hot dog at Costco.
They took these out of my Costco. Along with the brown mustard and combo pizza.
Kinda BS
RIP chocolate almond-covered ice cream bar. You are still missed.
Is that like one of those manual sood processors?
Nah, just a hopper for precut onions and a corkscrew drive you crank to dispense them on your polish sausage.
Post cut onions make me cry
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People with disabilities exist, and these products are extremely helpful to them living independently.
Slapchop and other similar tools can get the job done as well.
There are multiple avenues. Slapchops suck for people with hand arthritis, which is a huge cause of dexterity limitations.
fair enough. deleted.
Thanks for understanding, I appreciate it.
That only reduces the risks, it’s not a guarantee of safety.
