Following this great news, Nestle USA spokeswoman Laurie MacDonald said they’re going to recontinue making our favorite snacks at the plant. They’ve purchased and are going to thoroughly test new lots of ingredients. In terms of when they’ll be back in the freezer aisle, though, that won’t happen for some time unfortunately. But when it does happen, there will be a new label that will indicate freshness and a new batch.

Well, that sucks. As my favorite pre-made dough, it’s really disappointing to hear that I won’t see it on the shelves for “quite some time.” Will I have to resort to Pillsbury?!?! Obviously this is going to mean a huge sales decline for Nestle, not only because of the bad press but because of how long it is going to take them to be able to sell cookie dough again. Big sad face I wonder if the new packaging will put a spike in their sales… or if it’ll bust a Tropicana orange juice repackaging nightmare.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/10/toll.house.dough.e.coli/

• The FDA will help the food industry establish better tracing systems to track the origins of a bacterial outbreak.
• A new network will be established to help the many agencies that regulate food safety to communicate better.
• Egg and poultry producers will have to follow new standards designed to reduce salmonella contamination.
• The FDA and the Agriculture Department also will create new positions to better oversee food safety.

Overall this should (keyword: should) lead to fewer food-related sicknesses and deaths. I might want to see some incentive for manufacturers to keep their facilities clean as well; their goal right now is to make money, and they will probably take shortcuts necessary for a shorter lead time and for a lower cost which is most likely 90% of the blame for food contamination.

What does this mean for the cookie industry? Well, people will still eat cookie dough raw. And it’ll be too expensive to pasteurize all the eggs that goes into the dough. So Nestle and Nabisco and Pillsbury will all have stricter regulations on what they can put on the shelves and if something DOES get overlooked, they hopefully will be able to find the source of the outbreak faster and stop it faster. I’m not really sure if it will affect those in small bakeries or restaurants, but hopefully by the time the dough or the ingredients to make the dough are safe.

All I want is to be able to eat cookies safely. Is that too much to ask for!?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090707/ap_on_he_me/us_food_safety

The reason I bring this up is not to mark another anniversary of 9/11, not because I actually think that food terrorism really is the cause of this week’s E. coli cookie dough outbreak, but I wonder if it would have made any difference in our government’s ability to figure out there was an outbreak, to figure out the cause, and to stop it before it sickened so many.

He’s bringing up this issue to bring to the attention the lack of protection our government provides us when it comes to foodborne illnesses (something he believes can easily and very readily happen today):

The [Centers for Disease Control & Prevention] publicly admits that it manages to count and track only one of every forty foodborne illness victims, and that its inspectors miss key evidence as outbreaks begin.

I honestly think (and hope) that it was a carelessly looked over mistake. I’m not really sure who’s got it out there for adolescent girls (the majority of the raw cookie dough eaters out there) but the issue here is how much regulation there is when it comes to providing us with safe cookies and cookie dough. Granted, we’re not supposed to be eating raw cookie dough, but this is E. Coli which isn’t supposed to be found in raw cookie dough (salmonella, I can understand, due to the eggs. but E. Coli?) Even the NY Times has gotten in on this:

Coming after problems with tainted tomatoes, peanuts and pistachios, this is another warning about the weakness of the nation’s food safety system and why Congress needs to fix it. The House Energy and Commerce Committee recently approved an excellent bill that would strengthen the Food and Drug Administration’s powers. The full House and the Senate — with White House support — need to move this package forward.

Food contamination has been happening way too often recently. Tomatoes, peanut butter paste, now cookie dough? We need to have the ability to trust our current system and be able to eat what’s provided to us on the shelves. I’ve kind of lost faith in our governmental system to do anything right around all of their inefficiencies and sheer number of things they have to take care of. I can only hope that this influx of tainted foods will open food companies’ eyes to the dangers of lacking clean and well-maintained facilities. If anything [putting my business / marketing / corporate hat on], it looks really bad on the brand. So if it’s one thing to care about, and if it’s not my health, the brands should be worrying about themselves, their brand value, their market share, their customers, their pages on Facebook and their followers on Twitter. With the internet, information is largely free-flowing and companies in every industry have to be much more careful and aware of what they are doing.

*steps off the soapbox*

What do you think? Do you think food-borne illnesses are on terrorists’ minds? What do you think of how the Center for Disease Control & Prevention tries to prevent and handle situations like these?

The LA Times has this sweet article on tips for making your own homemade ice cream sandwiches. Some takeaways from the article that I thought were useful:

• The article says that the cookies should be less sweet than you would choose on your own because you’re going to be adding a BUNCH of sweet from the ice cream. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a cinnamon sugar ice cream sandwich, but it’s useful to keep in mind.
• Another thing I disagreed with is the point they made about choosing a slightly crunchier cookie to contrast the silkiness of the ice cream. I actually find it easier to eat an ice cream sandwich with a cookie that bends and then breaks rather than breaking. That could be because my teeth are sensitive though, and I want to avoid touching the ice cream with some of my front teeth which I’d have to do if I had two crunchy cookies. Again, preference.
• Cookies that include at least part brown sugar, molasses, honey or maple syrup will add a rich carmelized flavor to the cookies.
• Brown sugar helps to add moisture (and thus chewiness) to the cookie; some brown sugar in a sugar cookie would go great!
• Uniform cookies are a must! The dough should be placed onto the cookie sheets in nicely rolled balls rather than simply dropped.
• Premium (ie more expensive) brands of ice cream are better for making ice cream sandwiches because they tend to freeze more solidly than their private-label counterparts.

for the full story: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-icecreamsandwich1-2009jul01,0,5368389.story

Now if you don’t want to go through the trouble of making sandwiches on your own, you can find the Coolhaus ice cream sandwich truck and buy from them (think: Kogi truck, but ice cream sammiches). They even make disposable wrappers!!

What’s your take? My favorite fresh ice cream sandwich is right here in Westwood at my beloved Diddy Riese… freezered would be Nestle! With the chocolate chips on the outside What are your faves? You got any tips for me?

The press release states:

SOLON, Ohio, June 29, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Nestle USA’s Baking Division was informed today by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that it has found and confirmed evidence of E. coli 0157:H7 in a retained production sample of 16.5 oz. Nestle Toll House refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough bar. The product has a day code of 9041 and a “Best before 10 JUN 2009″ notation.

For the official full-length press release: http://www.verybestbaking.com/products/tollhouse/dough/recall-06292009.pdf

Sources:

• http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/06/30/contaminated-sample-of-nestle-cookie-dough-found/
  (btw I love how the WSJ cites that most of the 69 infected people have been adolescent girls)
• http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/On-your-radar/Contamination/E.coli-contamination-confirmed-in-Nestle-dough

• 300,000 units of prepackaged, refrigerated Toll House brand cookie dough were recalled
• At least 69 people have been sickened
• The span of the sicknesses has reached 29 states
• At least 2 lawsuits were filed against Nestle

Let’s get to the bottom of this. Clean the facility and keep making more (safe) cookie dough!!!

Source: http://www.attorneyatlaw.com/2009/06/nestle-withheld-info-on-cookie-dough-contamination-fda-says/

Straight from the website itself:

“NESTLÉ USA’s Baking Division is initiating a voluntary recall of all NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE refrigerated cookie dough products. NESTLÉ is taking this action out of an abundance of caution, after reports of illness that may be related to the consumption of raw cookie dough. NESTLÉ has been, and will continue to cooperate fully with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control in this investigation. Providing safe, high quality products to our consumers is our number one priority.”

It’s a really big shame, since Nestle’s cookie dough rates #1 on my list for best at-home cookies from premade doughs. We are being urged to not even eat these doughs cooked because the bacteria can travel from the dough to our hands to the countertops, appliances, etc where there still is a danger of consuming them and getting sick. Can’t wait til they’re safe to eat again!!!!!!!!