MEXICO CITY – Mexico is protesting what it says is a whopper of an insult.

An advertisement for Burger King’s Texican Whopper burger that has run in Europe shows a small wrestler dressed in a cape resembling a Mexican flag. The wrestler teams up with a lanky American cowboy almost twice his height to illustrate the cross-border blend of flavors.

“The taste of Texas with a little spicy Mexican,” a narrator’s voice says.

The taller cowboy boosts the wrestler up to reach high shelves and helps clean tall windows, while the Mexican helps the cowboy open a jar.

Mexico’s ambassador to Spain said Monday he has written a letter to Burger King’s offices in that nation objecting to the ad and asking that it be removed. Jorge Zermeno told Radio Formula that the ads “improperly use the stereotyped image of a Mexican.”

Press officials at Burger King Corp. offices in Miami, Florida, and Madrid, Spain, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Burger King is known for its signature Whopper hamburger.

One of the things that most angered Mexican officials was a print edition of the ad showing the wrestler wearing what appear to be a Mexican flag as a cloak.

“We have to tell these people that in Mexico we have a great deal of respect for our flag,” Zermeno said.

Mexico has very strict rules about using the flag. In 2008, the government fined a foreign-owned publishing house, Random House Mondadori SA, for showing disrespect to the country’s flag in a video posted online.

The video showed a literature fan wearing a Mexican flag like a cape as he barges into a book signing and rips a piece of cloth from the coat of Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho.

It is not the first time that fast-food outlets have offended Mexican sensibilities.

Mexicans and other Hispanics in the United States objected to a Taco Bell ad from the 1990s that featured a pint-sized talking Chihuahua that spoke with a Mexican accent.

———

See for yourself

Watch the Burger King video

A nationwide pistachio recall has prompted a bill by Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois to require more-stringent testing of food.

What Jack-in-the-Box did for the safety of hamburgers could soon be done by peanuts and pistachios for the safety of most other foods.

A deadly E. coli outbreak traced to Jack-in-the-Box burgers in 1993 prompted the Clinton administration to slap unprecedented sanitation controls on the meat industry.

For the first time, meatpackers were required to develop systems to prevent their products from getting contaminated with harmful pathogens.

Those requirements still don’t apply to the 80 percent of the food supply regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (the Agriculture Department regulates meat only).

That seems increasingly likely to change this year in the wake of a series of nationwide food recalls, the latest examples involving peanut butter and pistachios. Support is building in Congress for shifting FDA’s priority from merely containing outbreaks to preventing them from happening in the first place.

“It is the first time you’ve had this consensus to make this really broad change,” said Michael Taylor, who implemented the increased regulation of the meat industry while with the USDA.

Taylor, now a professor of health policy at George Washington University, sees support building for an FDA overhaul proposed by assistant Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois.

Durbin’s legislation would for the first time force processors regulated by the FDA to write and follow hazard-control plans like to those now required of meatpackers.

The bill also would require the FDA to inspect plants more frequently – high-risk facilities would have to be checked at least once a year – and allow the agency to look at company records. Imported foods would have to meet U.S. safety standards for the first time.

Consumer activists and key industry groups back Durbin’s bill. They include the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which represents companies such as ConAgra, Kraft and Pepsico; and the Food Marketing Institute, which represents retail chains Wal-Mart, Hy-Vee and others.

“It is absolutely critical that manufacturers take a preventative approach by identifying and evaluating potential hazards, and by building food safety into the manufacturing process from the very beginning,” the food makers said in a letter endorsing Durbin’s bill.

The legislation also has the support of several Republicans, including the senior GOP member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.

The Senate could turn to the bill yet this spring, once President Obama’s pick to run the FDA, Margaret Hamburg, is confirmed.

But Durbin’s legislation would leave a key question unanswered: How would the FDA pay for that increased level of inspection and other regulation? Other FDA-overhaul proposals would impose user fees on the food industry.

Durbin’s bill would nearly double the FDA’s food-safety staff from the current 2,800 to 5,000 by 2014, but the proposal leaves it up to congressional appropriators to find the extra money. (The FDA’s staff includes 1,900 inspectors and other field workers, compared with 8,000 at USDA.)

Although the food industry has generally resisted user fees, the grocery manufacturers haven’t closed the door.

GMA spokesman Scott Oppenshaw said in a statement that his group “would support user fees that help to improve food safety while also providing our industry with some benefit(s), and we are currently working with Congress to come up with the appropriate funding mechanisms.”

Durbin’s bill also would do nothing to consolidate the government’s fractured food-safety system – 15 different agencies are involved in regulating foods. A rival bill introduced in the House by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., wouldn’t provide that consolidation, either. But it would move FDA’s food-safety functions to a new Food Safety Administration.

Without that move, food safety will remain less of a priority for the FDA than are drugs and medical devices, said Carol Tucker Forman of Consumer Federation of America. Still, she called Durbin’s legislation a “strong bill.”

Philip Brasher is a reporter for The Des Moines (Iowa) Register. E-mail: pbrasher@dmreg.com

DENVER – One Colorado woman’s love for tofu has been judged X-rated by state officials.

Kelly Coffman-Lee wanted to tell the world about her fondness for bean curd by picking certain letters for her SUV’s license plate.

Her suggestion for the plate: “ILVTOFU.”

But the Division of Motor Vehicles blocked her plan because they thought the combination of letters could be interpreted as profane.

Says Department of Revenue spokesman Mark Couch: “We don’t allow ‘FU’ because some people could read that as street language for sex.”

Officials meet periodically to ensure state plates stay free of letters that abbreviate gang slang, drug terms or obscene phrases.

The 38-year-old Coffman-Lee says tofu is a staple of her family’s diet because they are vegan and that the DMV misinterpreted her message.

First lady Michelle Obama and Assistant White House chef Sam Kass (left) hand out shovels as they take part in the groundbreaking of the White House Kitchen Garden on the South Lawn of the White House.

Buying locally grown food is in. Just ask the new occupants of the White House and the Agriculture Department’s executive suite.

The first lady has put in a garden on the White House lawn. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack installed one in front of the USDA’s headquarters.

For aficionados of the local food movement, this is a dream come true. They’ve been concerned that the existing food system, which relies on transporting food across continents, and in many cases, across oceans, can be bad for the environment.

But is it really? Even supporters say now that the distance food travels from farm to plate doesn’t measure all the energy that goes into producing, moving and preparing the food.

“Relocalizing the food supply, shrinking the distance that food travels, isn’t in and of itself going to achieve these goals of sustainability that we’re after,” said James McWilliams, an agriculture historian at Texas State University.

He pointed to studies such as one done in Europe that found that fuel consumption for catching cod could be reduced significantly by switching to nets that produced less drag on the boats. It’s also more efficient in some cases to eat imported meat from grass-fed livestock than domestic grain-based products.

Does it make sense, McWilliams said, for water-short cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas to import water to create their own food?

Economists at Iowa State University helped popularize the concept of “food miles” as a way of measuring the inefficiency of a lot of the produce and meat now found in supermarkets – be it lettuce from California, strawberries from Mexico or grapes from Chile.

McWilliams said it makes more sense to measure the full energy cost of a food product, rather than the shipping distance, much the way that economists now analyze the “life cycle” cost of biofuels.

Others have raised additional concerns about the local-food movement.

Artisan cheese makers in Italy stay in business in part by shipping their products to the United States.

Farmers in poor nations such as Burkina Faso in West Africa often benefit from selling food overseas, said Susanne Friedberg, a Dartmouth College professor and author of a recent history of the perishable produce industry. For them, globalization is a good thing.

Some researchers have looked at various diets and the types of land and amount of land required to produce the food. The resulting measurements are called “food print.”

Researchers at Cornell University found that a diet with a small amount of meat was actually more efficient than a vegetarian diet because livestock could use lower-quality land.

Rich Pirog, an economist at Iowa State University who worked on the food-mile measurements, said the concept was never meant to be a “proxy for environmental impact.”

In any case, there’s no question that it’s a new day in Washington for the local food movement.

Vilsack has repeatedly said he wants to help the nation’s smallest farms get bigger by increasing the markets for their fruits, vegetables and other products.

He was speaking last week during an appearance before the House appropriations subcommittee that writes his department’s annual budget.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, pitched the idea of vertical growing systems for cities that are known as “food deserts” because they have few farms nearby. One form of vertical farming is to grow vegetables in stacked pots.

“Many of these food deserts can actually produce their own food, but we need help from the USDA,” she told Vilsack.

Fine, but those cities may want to check their food print first.

Philip Brasher is a reporter for The Des Moines Register. E-mail: pbrasher@dmreg.com

Fight fat with fat? The newest obesity theory suggests we may one day be able to do just that.

Just like good and bad cholesterol, there apparently are good and bad types of body fat. Scientists until recently believed this good fat, which spurs the body to burn calories to generate body heat, played an important role in keeping infants warm but by adulthood was mostly gone or inactive.

Now three studies — from researchers in Boston, Finland and the Netherlands — show that some good fat remains in adults, affecting metabolism and potentially offering a target to help people shed pounds.

Dr. Francesco Celi, an endocrinology and metabolism researcher at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, said the studies show this fat burns large amounts of energy.

“So it could be used as a target” for a pill that would somehow rev up the fat, he said.

Dr. Louis Aronne, former president of the Obesity Society and a weight control expert at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, said the findings are the most conclusive evidence so far of the role of such fat in regulating body temperature and weight.

“I don’t want to use the word ‘exercise-in-a-pill,’ but it’s doing something (that’s) getting rid of calories,” he said, adding that any obesity treatment developed around the fat could be a potential treatment for diabetes as well.

The studies were published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

The good fat is actually brownish, while the more predominant bad fat is white or yellow. Brown fat is stored mostly around the neck and under the collarbone. White fat tends to concentrate around the waistline, where it stores excess energy and releases chemicals that control metabolism and the use of insulin.

All three research groups documented the presence and activity of the brown fat by examining tissue samples from some patients and using high-tech imaging that indicated how much sugar, and therefore calories, the fat burned.

One group from Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School and three hospitals in Boston looked at scans done on nearly 2,000 patients to diagnose various health problems. The other two groups scanned small numbers of patients, first at room temperature and then after a couple hours in mild cold, about 60 degrees.

Here’s what the scientists learned about brown fat:

— Lean people had far more than overweight and obese people, especially among older folks.

— It burns far more calories and generates more body heat when people are in a cooler environment.

— Women were more likely to have it than men, and their deposits were larger and more active.

Finding a successful treatment for obesity would be a Holy Grail for scientists. Most obese and overweight people are unable to shed pounds and keep them off with dieting and exercise.

And despite plenty of effort, pharmaceutical companies have been unable to develop a medicine that helps people safely lose and keep off a significant amount of weight. Any drug that could do that would be a guaranteed blockbuster.

Aronne said the findings likely would renew interest in the area of brown fat among drugmakers; at least one briefly studied a treatment in lab animals several years ago.

So how could researchers use these basic findings about good fat to eventually come up with a weight-loss medication?

One possibility would be a pill to stimulate a specific protein to release more energy from the fat cells in the form of heat rather than storing it for future energy needs, Aronne and Celi said.

Finding a way to increase the amount of brown fat in a person would be another strategy. Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston have been injecting certain genes into mice to try to produce brown fat cells instead of white ones.

Celi said researchers also could try to make a pill that stimulates nerve endings inside brown fat to make it burn more calories.

Or overweight people could simply try turning down the thermostat to see if it makes them burn more energy and lose weight — a strategy that Celi and researchers are testing in a small study that could produce results by the end of the year.

———

On the Web

New England Journal: www.nejm.org

Obesity Society: www.obesity.org

First Lady Michelle Obama sets an eco-example for the nation by breaking ground for an organic herb and vegetable garden on the South Lawn of the White House.

Buying locally grown food is in. Just ask the new occupants of the White House and the Agriculture Department’s executive suite.

The first lady has put in a garden in the White House lawn. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack installed one in front of USDA’s headquarters.

For aficionados of the local food movement, this is a dream come true. They’ve been concerned that the existing food system, which relies on transporting food across continents, and in many cases, across oceans, can be bad for the environment.

But is it really? Even supporters acknowledge now that the distance food travels from farm to plate doesn’t measure all the energy that goes into producing, moving and preparing the food.

“Re-localizing the food supply, shrinking the distance that food travels, isn’t in and of itself going to achieve these goals of sustainability that we’re after,” said James McWilliams, a historian of agriculture at Texas State University.

He points to studies such as one in Europe that found that fuel consumption for catching cod could be reduced significantly by switching to nets that produced less drag on the boats. It’s also more efficient in some cases to eat imported meat from grass-fed livestock than domestic grain-based products.

And does it make sense, McWilliams asks, for water-short cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas to import water to raise their own food?

Economists at Iowa State University helped popularize the concept of “food miles” as a way of measuring the inefficiency of a lot of the produce and meat now in supermarkets – be it lettuce from California, strawberries from Mexico, or grapes from Chile.

McWilliams says it makes more sense to measure the full energy cost of a food product, rather than just the shipping distance, much the way that economists now analyze the “life-cycle” cost of biofuels.

Others have raised additional concerns about the local-food movement.

Artisan cheese makers in Italy stay in business in part by shipping their product to the United States.

Farmers in poor countries such as Burkina Faso in West Africa often benefit from selling their food overseas, says Susanne Friedberg, a Dartmouth College professor and author of a recent history of the perishable produce industry. For them, globalization is a good thing.

Some researchers have looked at various diets and the types and amount of land required to produce the food. The resulting measurements are called a “food print.” Researchers at Cornell University found that a diet with a small amount of meat was actually more efficient than a vegetarian diet because livestock could use lower quality land.

Rich Pirog, an economist at Iowa State who worked on the food-mile measurements, said the concept was never meant to be a “proxy for environmental impact.”

In any case, there’s no question it’s a new day in Washington for the local food movement. Vilsack has repeatedly said he wants to help the nation’s smallest farms get bigger by increasing the market for their fruits, vegetables and other products.

He was preaching to the choir last week before the House appropriations subcommittee that writes his department’s annual budget. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, pitched the idea of vertical growing systems for cities that are known as “food deserts” because they have few farms nearby. One form of vertical farming is to grow vegetables in stacked pots.

“Many of these food deserts can actually produce their own food, but we need help from USDA,” she told Vilsack.

Fine, but those cities may want to check their food print first.

Philip Brasher is a reporter for The Des Moines Register. E-mail: pbrasher@dmreg.com

CINCINNATI – “Bailout” was the magic word as Domino’s had to give away thousands of free pizzas because someone stumbled on an online promotion the company scrapped.

Domino’s Pizza Inc. spokesman Tim McIntyre said Wednesday that the company prepared an Internet coupon for an ad campaign that was considered in December but not approved.

He says someone apparently typed “bailout” into a Domino’s promo code window and found it was good for a free medium pizza.

Word about the code spread quickly Monday night on the Web and 11,000 free pizzas were delivered before it was deactivated Tuesday morning.

Cincinnati-area franchise owner John Glass says his 14 stores gave away more than 600 pies, but that Domino’s promised to reimburse him.

Two New York City fried chicken restaurants in predominantly black neighborhoods are under fire for putting President Barack Obama’s name on their signs.

City Councilman Charles Barron said Friday that he will organize a demonstration next week outside Obama Fried Chicken in his Brooklyn district. Organizers said they also may target Obama Fried Chicken & Pizza in Harlem.

“People from the community were calling me and saying they were outraged by this racist connection to Barack Obama and fried chicken,” Barron said. “If you think that free speech gives you the right to insult and degrade us and stereotype us, then you’ve got a battle on your hands.”

At Obama Fried Chicken & Pizza in Harlem on Friday, the “O” and the “A” had been filled in so that the awning sign read “Bam” instead of the president’s name.

The person working the counter said the owner was not available and would not say when the sign had been changed. Employees, however, still were answering the phone by saying “Obama’s.”

At Obama Fried Chicken in Brooklyn, the person who answered the phone said the owner could not be reached.

Kevin McCall, a community activist who has been working with Barron to organize the protest, said he had spoken with the owner of Obama Fried Chicken, which was Royal Fried Chicken until recently.

McCall said the owner promised the sign would change on Sunday. If it doesn’t, McCall and Barron say they will rally on Monday.

The White House did not comment directly on the issue of racial overtones in the New York restaurant names, but spokesman Ben LaBolt said the administration disapproves of using “the president’s name and likeness for commercial purposes.”

The restaurant controversy is not the first dispute about the first black president’s name being linked to a chicken product.

A German food maker was criticized recently for naming a line of frozen fried chicken snacks “Obama Fingers.” The product was available only in Germany and was pulled after the company said it became aware of the racial connotation.

Also, Germany’s N24 television broadcaster reported this week that one Baden-Baden bakery was celebrating the U.S. president’s arrival there with a dark-chocolate “Obama cake.” The cake was decorated with miniature NATO flags.

Obama traveled to the German spa town Friday with his wife, Michelle, where he met German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of the NATO summit.

TERRA BELLA, Calif. – A nationwide recall of 2 million pounds of pistachios in the wake of a salmonella scare has increased calls for more stringent food testing laws.

The contamination was only detected because of voluntary testing by a manufacturer for Kraft Foods Inc. almost two weeks ago. Private auditors hired by Kraft later found problems they think caused the contamination at a supplier’s processing facility in central California.

If Kraft had not chosen to prioritize testing, 2 million pounds of pistachios that touched off government warnings and a scare this week probably would still be on the market. Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor state laws require food manufacturers to test the safety of their products.

“We’re relying on companies to find the contaminated foods on their own, and since there’s no national standards for this, some companies don’t bother to test at all,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., a critic of the nation’s food safety system. “What if these nuts had been distributed by a company that doesn’t test? We wouldn’t have found out until people got sick.”

DeGette and numerous other lawmakers want the FDA to monitor testing in all segments of the processed food industry, and for companies to be required to release test results.

Federal health officials warned people this week to avoid eating all pistachios and products containing them while they determine which products may be tainted. The nuts Kraft manufacturer Georgia Nut Co. tested on March 20 came from Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., the second-largest pistachio processor in the nation.

Inspection reports obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday show the California plant had two minor violations when inspectors visited last year, none serious enough to cause a health risk. But the company’s sister plant in New York failed a surprise inspection last month after state authorities found cockroaches and rodent droppings. A spokesman for both companies said the Terra Bella plant supplies pistachios to the facility in Commack, N.Y., but he declined to comment further.

The investigation of contaminated pistachios contrasts sharply with that in the salmonella outbreak that began late last year involving peanuts, the subject of a criminal investigation and thousands of recalls.

The problem was not traced to peanuts until hundreds of people around the country got sick. The company involved, Peanut Corp. of America, is under criminal investigation for allegedly shipping products it knew to be tainted. The company’s owner has refused to answer questions from lawmakers, citing constitutional protections against self-incrimination.

Private industry reported the pistachio problem immediately, rather than waiting for public health officials to intervene. And as of Wednesday, authorities had not confirmed any illnesses.

“You can call it a fluke, you can call it good luck, or you can call it good judgment on the part of Kraft,” said Dr. David Acheson, FDA’s assistant commissioner for food safety. “They’re not required to tell us. They did and we’re moving on it.”

Acheson said the FDA does not mandate testing so companies are free to decide whether to take that step before distributing food products to stores.

Officials with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, an industry group that represents major food manufacturers, say Kraft has one of the most aggressive food safety systems in the business.

But they say getting the government to require testing of all foods is not the answer, since different foods are at risk of becoming contaminated at very different steps in the manufacturing process.

“You don’t want to do testing just for the sake of doing testing,” said the association’s chief science officer, Robert Brackett. “That tends to be this one-size-fits all situation where it may work really well for some products and not for others. What we really focus on is for companies to build the safety into their programs in the first place.”

TERRA BELLA, Calif. – It could take weeks before health officials know exactly which pistachio products may be tainted with salmonella, but they’ve already issued a sweeping warning to avoid eating the nuts or foods containing them.

The move appears to indicate a shift in how the government handles food safety issues — from waiting until contaminated foods surface one-by-one and risking that more people fall ill to jumping on the problem right away, even if the message is vague.

Officials wouldn’t say if the approach was in response to any perceived mishandling of the massive peanut recall that started last year, only that they’re trying to keep people from getting sick as new details surface about the California plant at the center of the pistachio scare.

“What’s different here is that we are being very proactive and are putting out a broad message with the goal of trying to minimize the likelihood of consumer exposure,” said Dr. David Acheson, FDA’s assistant commissioner for food safety. “The only logical advice to consumers is to say ‘OK consumers, put pistachios on hold while we work this out. We don’t want you exposed, we don’t want you getting salmonella.”‘

Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, the president’s new acting commissioner who started Monday, made it clear staff needed to move quickly, Acheson said.

The agency announced Monday that Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., the second-largest pistachio processor in the nation, recalled more than 2 million pounds of its roasted pistachios.

Suspect nuts were shipped as far away as Norway and Mexico, Acheson said Tuesday. One week after authorities first learned of the problem, they still had little idea what products were at risk, he said.

As federal health inspectors take swabs inside the plant to try to identify a salmonella source, a whole range of products from nut bars to ice cream and cake mixes remain in limbo on grocery shelves.

Company officials said Tuesday they suspected their roasted pistachios may have been contaminated by salmonella-tainted raw nuts they were processed with at the hulking facility.

Roasting is supposed to kill the bacteria in nuts. But problems can occur if the roasting is not done correctly or if roasted nuts are re-exposed to bacteria.

The firm sells its California-grown pistachios to giants of the food industry such as Kraft Foods Inc., as well as 36 wholesalers across the country.

“We care about our business and our customers greatly,” said Lee Cohen, the production manager for Setton International Foods Inc., a sister company to Setton Pistachios. “We’ve never had an illness complaint before but obviously this affects the whole industry. It’s not good.”

California supplies 99.99 percent of the U.S. pistachio market, according to the California Pistachio Board.

“What’s scary is that it’s after the nuts have been processed that this stuff is getting into it, so it really makes you wonder,” said Marcia Rowland, an avid pistachio eater in Apopka, Fla.

The FDA learned about the problem March 24, when Kraft notified the agency that routine product testing had detected salmonella in roasted pistachios. Kraft and the Georgia Nut Co. recalled their Back to Nature Nantucket Blend trail mix the next day and expanded the recall to include any Planters and Back to Nature products that contain pistachios Tuesday.

Kraft spokeswoman Laurie Guzzinati said her company’s auditors visited the plant early last week, and “observed employee practices where raw and roasted nuts were not adequately segregated and that could explain the sporadic contamination.”

She said she didn’t know specifically what they saw.

Federal inspectors last visited the plant in 2003, and the California Department of Public Health was there last year, Acheson said. Federal officials made note of several problems — an open door into one of the nut rooms, and an employee wearing street clothes that weren’t adequately covered — but nothing that posed a food safety threat, he said.

Acheson said management corrected the problems that day, and said he did not have access to California inspectors’ records.

Cohen said the plant had never had an illness complaint, followed industry health guidelines and had its huge metal silos and warehouse inspected regularly, but refused to provide additional details or records. Several plaques on the firm’s office walls showed the firm won industry awards for food safety excellence.

No illness have been tied to contaminated pistachios. Two people called the FDA complaining of gastrointestinal illness that could be associated with the nuts, but the link hasn’t been confirmed, Acheson said.

While consumer advocates praised the government’s swift action, they said the pistachio recall illustrated that more oversight was needed.

“It is encouraging that this response was so quick, but we need to move to a system that focuses on prevention through the entire food production process,” said Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health.

Two California legislators introduced a bill Tuesday that would require periodic testing of food at food processing facilities and mandate processors to report to state authorities within 24 hours any positive test result for a dangerous contaminant.

“We shouldn’t be reacting to the next crisis, we should be preventing the next crisis,” said Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles.

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ON THE WEB

www.settonfarms.com

www.fda.gov

CINCINNATI – The Kroger supermarket chain says it’s recalling some store brand mayonnaise sold in three states because it may be contaminated with salmonella.

Cincinnati-based Kroger Co. says the recall involves 32-ounce plastic jars of Kroger Lite Mayo sold in Kroger stores in southwest Ohio, northern Kentucky and southeast Indiana. The suspect jars have a “Sell by” date of “SEP-25-09.”

Kroger says no illnesses have been reported.

A company spokeswoman Denise said Wednesday that Kroger was informed by an outside supplier of possible salmonella contamination in an egg product used to make the mayo. She did not have the name of the supplier.

Customers who bought the mayonnaise are being told not to consume it but to return it to the store.

———

ON THE WEB

Kroger Co. recall page: www.kroger.com/services/Pages/recall—information.aspx

These shrimp and grits with pepper-smoked jowl bacon prepared by Chris Eley, owner of Goose the Market in Indianapolis. With a growing number of bacon blogs such as <a href="http://IHeartBacon.com">IHeartBacon.com</a> and <a href="http://BaconToday.com">BaconToday.com</a>, fans of the flavorful meat have plenty to talk about.

It inspires big-city chefs, down-home cooks and local food fans alike. It shows up at breakfast, lunch and dinner – even in dessert.

The secret ingredient? Bacon.

“It’s everything you could ask for in a food,” says Christopher Eley, owner of Goose the Market in Indianapolis. “It’s sweet, smoky, salty, rich. It’s so versatile.”

And with a growing number of bacon blogs such as IHeartBacon.com and BaconToday.com, fans of the flavorful meat have plenty to talk about.

A recipe called Bacon Explosion on the Web site BBQAddicts.com, for example, took the Internet by storm.

“It definitely has become more popular,” says Eley. “You can use it in so many ways other than in bacon and eggs. Pork is generally a chef’s favorite because there’s so many things you can do with it.”

While supermarket brands can certainly satisfy, Eley offers a variety of house-made bacon at his meat-focused shop. His signature applewood-smoked bacon has become especially popular.

But what’s so special about the bacon that Eley smokes and cures himself, he says, is that he uses pork from Indiana-raised hogs. His method also makes a difference.

“It’s not so heavily smoked,” says Eley. “It’s balanced between sweetness, saltiness, smokiness and richness.”

What doesn’t go in is important, too, he says. “There’s no water added to it,” Eley says. “We have a six-day drying process. It really helps to concentrate the flavor.”

It’s that rich flavor that makes bacon so popular. A few slices crumbled atop a dish can add a delicious touch. Use the drippings for frying or to add smokiness.

Eley says, “(Bacon) can make a mediocre dish a fantastic dish.”

Pork fat rules

Coconut-bacon bars with poplar-whipped mascarpone

1 pound applewood-smoked bacon, diced in 1/4-inch pieces

2 2/3 cups graham cracker crumbs

5 ounces unsalted butter, melted

1 cup oats

3 ounces dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

13 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2 cups coconut flakes, toasted

1 1/2 cups hazelnuts, toasted and crushed

20 ounces sweetened condensed milk

8 ounces mascarpone cheese

2 ounces Hickoryworks tulip poplar syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a 13-by-18-inch half sheet pan, bake the bacon until crisp.

Remove bacon from pan and drain grease, keeping a thin layer of drippings in the pan. Reserve the remainder for other use.

In a mixing bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, butter, oats, brown sugar, vanilla and salt until mixture hangs together.

Press mixture onto sheet pan. Top with bacon, chocolate, coconut and hazelnuts; drizzle with sweetened condensed milk. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Cool for 20 minutes and cut into bars.

Whip together the mascarpone and poplar syrup. Serve bars warm, garnished with whipped mascarpone and additional chopped hazelnuts. Makes a half sheet pan.

Note: Hickoryworks’ tulip poplar syrup can be ordered from the Indiana-based company at hickoryworks.com. Real maple syrup can be substituted.

Shrimp and grits with pepper-smoked jowl bacon

For the grits:

4 cups whole milk

1 cup stone-ground quick grits

1 teaspoon sea salt

black pepper to taste

For the shrimp:

1 pound whole wild-caught American shrimp, peeled, shells and heads reserved

1 onion, peeled and sliced thin

4 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin

1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped

2 sprigs thyme

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon tomato paste

4 cups water

8 ounces pepper-smoked jowl bacon, cut into 1/4-by-1-inch strips

rendered jowl bacon drippings

1 cup white cheddar cheese

8 Brussels sprouts, blanched in salted water for 5 minutes, quartered

1/2 cup dry sherry

1/4 of a lemon, zested

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon flour

black pepper and sea salt to taste

In a medium saucepan, combine milk and grits. Allow grits to settle and skim off any hulls that rise to the surface. Cook over medium heat 5 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

Lower heat and continue to cook grits until creamy, about 30 minutes. About halfway through, add 1 teaspoon sea salt and the black pepper.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan, combine shrimp peels, heads, onion, garlic, carrot, thyme, bay leaf and tomato paste. Cover with water, heat to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer. Cook for 1 hour.

In a sauté pan, cook bacon with 2 tablespoons water over medium-high heat until water has evaporated and bacon becomes crisp. Remove bacon from pan and cool on paper towel. Pour remaining drippings into grits, leaving a thin layer in the sauté pan. Fold bacon drippings and white cheddar into grits; season, cover and keep warm.

Meanwhile, in the sauté pan with the remaining bacon drippings, quickly sauté shrimp and Brussels sprouts over medium-high heat. Cook until shrimp is firm, pink and tender, about 5 minutes. Remove shrimp and Brussels sprouts and keep warm.

Deglaze pan with the sherry; reduce until almost evaporated. Strain shrimp stock into the pan, add lemon zest, heat to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Combine butter and flour, then whisk mixture into sauce. Cook for an additional 3 minutes or until sauce has thickened. Return shrimp, Brussels sprouts and bacon to the sauce and re-warm.

Spoon grits into shallow bowls. Evenly distribute shrimp, bacon and Brussels sprouts between the bowls. Serves 4.

Warm spinach salad with lamb bacon vinaigrette

8 ounces lamb bacon, diced

1 shallot, peeled and sliced thin

3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin

2/3 cup black currant vinegar

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 cup olive oil

sea salt to taste

cracked black pepper, to taste

1 pound baby spinach, washed and stemmed

4 ounces gorgonzola cheese

1 hard-boiled egg yolk, chopped

1/2 cup toasted pecans

1/2 cup black currants

In a medium saucepan, heat the lamb bacon and 2 tablespoons water over medium-high heat. Cook until bacon is rendered and becomes crisp.

Remove bacon, leaving the renderings in the pan. Sauté shallot and garlic until tender, then deglaze pan with the vinegar, half at a time. Scrape bottom of the pan with wooden spoon in between each addition. Reduce heat and add honey and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and keep warm. In medium bowl, combine spinach with hot dressing until spinach wilts.

Put on warm salad plates and top with the crisp lamb bacon, gorgonzola, egg yolk, toasted pecans and black currants. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

At Goose the Market in Indianapolis, customers will find a variety of meats. Owner Christopher Eley smokes and cures his own products. Among the products are the market's signature applewood-smoked bacon (clockwise from left), lamb bacon and pepper-smoked jowl bacon.

These coconut-bacon bars are served warm, topped with whipped mascarpone and prepared by Chris Eley, owner of Goose the Market in Indianapolis.

This warm spinach salad with lamb bacon vinegarette was prepared by Chris Eley, owner of Goose the Market in Indianapolis.

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Know your bacon

We have it with our eggs for breakfast; with lettuce and tomato on a sandwich; and in a crust with cream as quiche Lorraine. But just what is bacon? According to James Villas, author of “The Bacon Cookbook” (Wiley, 2007, $35), “the term refers basically to the fatty meat from a pig’s belly, side, back and breast that is cured with salt or other preservatives and/or smoked.”

Villas noted that “one cooked slice of streaky bacon contains between 35 and 40 calories, 100 milligrams of sodium and about 3 grams of fat.” However, he also pointed out that “an average slice has about one-quarter fewer calories than a tablespoon of butter or margarine, roughly half the total fat” and about a third of the cholesterol of butter. A few common varieties he notes:

• Canadian bacon: Oval-shaped cut from pork loin; looks like ham; lean, cured, lightly smoked; called “back bacon” in Canada.

• Country-style bacon: Can refer to any thick-sliced bacon; can also be salty, cured, heavily smoked bacon from the same hogs as country hams.

• Jowl bacon: Typically a Southern variety cut from pork cheek; cured and smoked like regular bacon, but contains more fat.

• Pancetta: Dry-cured pork belly, typically not smoked; often from Italy, but also made in the U.S.; usually rolled and sliced quite thin.

• Streaky bacon: British term for typical American supermarket bacon.

• Salt pork: Mostly fat, with a little lean, from cured pork belly; not smoked; sometimes called “streak o’ lean;” used mostly for flavoring.

FRESNO, Calif. – Federal food officials are warning people not to eat any food containing pistachios because of possible contamination by salmonella, in another food scare sure to rattle consumers already upset by the contamination of peanuts with the same bacteria.

The Food and Drug Administration said central California-based Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., the nation’s second-largest pistachio processor, was voluntarily recalling more than 2 million pounds of its roasted nuts shipped since last fall.

“Our advice to consumers is that they avoid eating pistachio products, and that they hold onto those products,” said Dr. David Acheson, assistant commissioner for food safety. “The number of products that are going to be recalled over the coming days will grow, simply because these pistachio nuts have then been repackaged into consumer-level containers.”

Two people called the FDA complaining of gastrointestinal illness that could be associated with the nuts, but the link hasn’t been confirmed, Acheson said. Still, the plant decided to shut down late last week, officials said.

The recalled nuts are a small fraction of the 55 million pounds of pistachios that the company’s plant processed last year and an even smaller portion of the 278 million pounds produced in the state in the 2008 season, according to the Fresno-based Administrative Committee for Pistachios.

California is the second-largest producer of pistachios in the world.

According to the company’s Web site, Setton Pistachio is in the corporate family of Commack, N.Y.-based Setton International Foods Inc. The company sells nuts, dried fruit, edible seeds, chocolate and yogurt-coated candies.

The FDA learned about the problem last Tuesday, when Kraft Foods Inc. notified the agency that routine product testing had detected salmonella in roasted pistachios. Kraft and the Georgia Nut Co. recalled their Back to Nature Nantucket Blend trail mix the next day.

The FDA contacted Setton Pistachio and California health officials shortly afterward, in what Acheson called a “proactive move.”

By Friday, Cincinnati-based grocery operator Kroger Co. recalled one of its lines of bagged pistachios because of possible salmonella contamination, saying the California plant also supplied its nuts. Those nuts were sold in 31 states.

Fabia D’Arienzo, a spokeswoman for Tulare County-based Setton Pistachio, said the company was only recalling certain bulk roasted in-shell and roasted shelled pistachios that were shipped on or after September 1.

Because Setton Pistachio shipped bags of nuts weighing up to 2,000 pounds to 36 wholesalers across the country, it will take weeks to figure out how many products could be affected, said Jeff Farrar, chief of the Food and Drug Branch of the California Department of Public Health.

“It will be safe to assume based on the volume that this will be an ingredient in a lot of different products, and that may possibly include things like ice cream and cake mixes,” Farrar said. “The firm is already turning around trucks in transit to bring those back to the facility.”

Salmonella, the most common cause of food-borne illness, causes diarrhea, fever and cramping. Most people recover, but the infection can be life-threatening for children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems.

Roasting is supposed to kill the bacteria in nuts. But problems can occur if the roasting is not done correctly or if roasted nuts are re-contaminated. That can happen if mice, rats or birds get into the facility.

The national peanut salmonella outbreak was blamed on a Georgia company under federal investigation for flouting safety procedures and knowingly shipping contaminated peanuts.

That outbreak is still ongoing. More than 690 people in 46 states have gotten sick. Nearly 3,900 products made with peanut ingredients from Peanut Corp. of America have been recalled.

California public health authorities have taken hundreds of samples at Setton’s processing facility, but lab results have not yet determined whether salmonella was found at the plant, Farrar said. The food companies’ own tests of the contaminated products isolated four different types of salmonella, but none were the same strain as the one found in the peanuts, Acheson said.

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ON THE WEB

www.settonfarms.com

www.fda.gov

Cereal numbers game allows you to box out, pour it on the competition

Here’s a bracket you can sink your teeth into. All hail the Overly Sweet 16, a formidable collection of breakfast cereals, one of which has helped pad the coffers of dentists nationwide for more than half a century.

We consulted with three avowed cereal lovers to determine the winners of the 15 different matchups and the eventual champ.

Do your best mind-melding and fill out the bracket below based on which cereal you think got the nod from the judges based on taste, texture and staying power.

The top three grainiacs will win cookbooks from our impressive collection (perfect for gifting and regifting).

The winner will, of course, also receive a box of the cereal crowned the 2009 Overly Sweet National Champion.

Click on the thumbnail photo of the cereal box (the one on the right) for the online version of the bracket.

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THE TOP SEEDS

No. 1 FROSTED FLAKES

Conference: Kellogg’s

Record: 11-1 (each gram of sugar counts as a win; each gram of fiber as a loss)

Notes: Introduced as “Sugar Frosted Flakes” in 1952. A perennial powerhouse, the Flakes ranked No. 4 overall in the A.C. Nielsen’s 2008 listing of the 10 Most Popular Cereal Brands (Cheerios and Special K ranked Nos. 1 and 2, but are far too low in sugar and high in fiber for inclusion in the Overly Sweet 16).

No. 2 HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS

Conference: Post

Record: 6-2

Notes: Introduced in 1989. Though its record is downright wimpy and borderline healthy, Post’s HBOO earned its No. 2 seed on the basis of a surprising No. 3 overall rating on the Nielsen listing (even higher than Frosted Flakes).

No. 3 FROOT LOOPS

Conference: Kellogg’s

Record: 13-1

Notes: Sam Toucan’s electric color scheme, artificial fruit flavors and the resulting technicolor milk the rings produce have been an unorthodox crowd pleaser since Loops hit the market in 1963. Came in at No. 7 on the Nielsen 2008 listing.

No. 4 CINNAMON TOAST CRUNCH

Conference: General Mills

Record: 10 -1

Notes: First produced in 1984 and known as “Curiously Cinnamon” in the U.K., CTC overtook fellow GM conference member Lucky Charms in the 2008 Nielsen ratings, with CTC ranking eighth and Charms ranking ninth.

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HOW TO ENTER

Fill out the bracket and use it as a reference to e-mail the results of each matchup (there are 15 in all) to me at tstauffer@tucsoncitizen.com (tstauffer@tucsoncitizen.com), or call in your results to 573-4620. If you’re feeling lucky about the extended life of the Citizen, you’re more than welcome to snail-mail your bracket to Tom Stauffer, Tucson Citizen, 4850 S. Park Ave., Tucson, AZ 85714. In the event of a tie, winners will be selected based on the order in which entries are received.

Deadline is Friday at noon.

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Santa Cruz River Farmer’s Market has partnered with El Grupo Youth Cycling Club for its “Bike-to-the-Market” from 3 to 6 p.m. March 12

The event will be on the northeast corner of Speedway and Riverview boulevards, between the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind and El Rio Neighborhood Center.

The event is free and open to the public and will include free bike services from 4 to 6 p.m. for customers who bike to the market.

For more information, call Sara Rickard at 622-0525 Ext. 242.