Bagged, precut onions linked to salmonella outbreak that has sickened 73 people in 22 states
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.