Dead mice found at Peanut Butter Plant

Dead mice found at Peanut Butter Plant

news.yahoo.com

Dead mice and rodent droppings were found throughout a Texas plant run by a company whose peanut products caused one of the biggest food recalls in U.S. history, food inspectors reported on Tuesday.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Just more proof how lopsided our society is...We'd rather focus on protests about Global Warming (something that is purely speculation) or "The Octomom" rather than worrying about our food supply which is tainted...

Really makes you wonder how much food has been passed
through the years with all these outside sources tainting them.

Next time you have a peanut butter sandwich...tell them to hold the rat droppings.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm sure we've all eaten our fair share of rodent droppings through the years. Some of our bodies have probably even become immune to it. This is nothing compared to what some restaurants do to your feed if you dare to send it back and insult the "chef".

Well maybe this has to do with the economic scam?
They had to lay off workers?And they are understaffed to check for these things?
Because how long has it been making peanut butter, and there has been no salmonella?
I guess they should consider laying off the hygiene staff last?

reply to post by SphinxMontreal


Agreed...but something prepared by a chef and something produced in a factory have different standards...

When you open up a product, your assuming its safe to eat because its being mass produced. If the process is tainted, then its being mass produced contaminated. You take a risk eating out and you know it. You assume the packaged food you eat is good as long as its within date range.


I don't remember hearing about people getting salmonella from denny's grand slam or moon over my hammy.

Most food processing places actually have a set percentage of allowable foreign matter to pass inspection.

Which is a bit disturbing really, since foreign matter pretty much means anything but the product being made.

On a similar note, milk used for flavoured/coloured drinks contains a higher percentage of foreign matter (usually blood) than plain milk, obviously the colour and flavour can mask the nasties better.

Then there is wine, the amount of birds, frogs, spiders, bugs and crap that goes into wine would shock you.

This would mainly occur on large vineyards where they use machinery to pick the grapes, whatever is on the vine as it gets picked goes in the wine


Oh and don't get me started on marinated foods from the butchers.....

I have a hard time eating peanut butter because of a mental picture I cant get out of my head when it comes to peanut butter. The wife bought a mega huge jar of peanut butter from Costco. Looked like the round container that a large pkg. of Oat meal comes in. I heard screaming coming from the kitchen one day, and ran in to see what was going on. The wife pointed to the peanut butter on the bottom shelf and I saw the plastic lid had been chewed through. Inside were 6 baby mice swimming in runny peanut butter. Man, the wife and kids just about blew my eardrums out! The container was too tall, and the peanut butter was like quicksand and they couldn't get out.

Now that's what I call a hell of a mouse trap!

But, that image is etched in my head about mice and peanut butter.

reply to post by Chadwickus


I can agree with you there...but the fact of the matter is- its rat droppings on top of roaches and who knows what else...

I'm assuming most companies aren't allowing that small percentage to be rat droppings and roaches...if it is- i'm going to start cooking from scratch.

I'm sure everyone has eaten something they were unaware of...thats a probability but they knew about the condition of the plant and kept shipping.

It boils down to money over the people. Greed will always win.

I'm a farmer, and I can tell you right now,anytime you have peanuts or grains, you will have rats. It would be normal to have dead rats in a factory because they put out rat poison to kill them. I have been in peanut factories and they are clean. You would have the rats mostly in the storage areas, but eventually they would make it to the main factory. It is a constant battle to kill them.

When I dig or pick my peanuts, I see rats everywhere. Snakes too. Rats love peanuts and snakes love rats. One time when I dug a small field, I saw three snakes go over my digger. I was careful when I had to get off the tractor.

Holy crap! I thought I was eating peanut butter with chocolate bits!

Inspectors and inspections or let industry regulate itself...let's see....ok, I want more inspectors and inspections.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by desert]

Peanut butter is a major staple in my diet, I wish I had never come in this thread

But rodents are everywhere. I work in a hospital and we have had to have mouse traps from time to time.

Rodents entering factories is allot more common than some of you seem to think. It's impossible to keep a factory airtight. Rodents can get in any time they feel like it.

All a factory can do is hire a rodent control company, who will line the entrances and crevices with traps and poison bait.

Even then, there's no guaranteeing the rodents will go straight for the trap.



There simply is no way to guarantee rodents won't wind up inside the facility.
You could go to the most expensive, security and safety obsessed factory on the planet... I guarantee you a rodent has been in there at some point or another.


To those who are appalled by the mere presence of a dead rodent, exactly how do you propose they guarantee rodents don't sneak in?

You can't. Where there's airflow, there's a rodents passage. Where there's a wall made of something other than metal... there's a rodents potential home.


This news article makes rodents sound like they're a thing of the past, and only dirty factories get them... that is QUITE wrong. The cleanest factories on earth still have rodents trying to sneak in.

The only thing you should be concerned about is whether they're trying to kill them once they're in the factory.


I've never seen a food producing factory that wasn't lined with rodent traps.

If you think rodents only infest careless or dirty factories, you've clearly never been in a factory.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by johnsky]

What killed the mice?
did they eat the peanut butter?

I recently heard a radio report about this plant, and that it might take as long as two years to get all the potentially tainted products off supermarket shelves.
TWO YEARS!

reply to post by johnsky

"Effective measures are not being taken to exclude pests from the processing areas and protect against the contamination of food on the premises by pests," the report reads.

Its their job to make sure that their product is safe...Im not saying 100% free of all contamination but c'mon...Theres a difference between having an infestation problem and having an infestation problem and not taking care of it.

This is just a sample of whats been found...

* A dead mouse stuck to a glue trap. "The mouse appeared to have died recently," the report reads.
* "What appeared to be rodent excreta pellets too numerous to count were observed in the cabinet under the sink in the south most kitchen."
* "In the cabinet north of the dishwasher ... I counted approximately 27 rodent excreta pellets."
* "Another dead mouse was found just outside the south most doorway of the kitchen. ... This mouse also appeared to have recently died."
* "What appeared to be a bird's nest was observed in the wall/ceiling metal support beam at southwest corner of the mezzanine area."
* Processing machines had buildup of "gooey" peanut paste.
* Numerous roof leaks.

You're telling me this is acceptable?



[edit on 3/4/2009 by AceOfAces]

It always suprises me how suprised people get over this. Your food is legally allowed to contain a certain amount of everything from cockroach, to mice droppings, to arsenic, to filler. Fact is you can never have completely purity, especially in mass production.

If you ever want to check it out, use a black light on things you purchase from the grocery store (especially non-perishables) and you will notice the peculiar sight rat piss. Isn't a joke, or a conspiracy-- its just a fact of life. Companies have to do their best to protect you, but you are living in 'lala land' if you believe there are no rats in your grocery store or food production plants.

Originally posted by AceOfAces
Its their job to make sure that their product is safe...Im not saying 100% free of all contamination but c'mon...Theres a difference between having an infestation problem and having an infestation problem and not taking care of it.
[edit on 3/4/2009 by AceOfAces]

Yes, a big difference. Inspections are meant to take care of these problems. Not enough inspectors or inspections lead to these conditions continuing. There is a naive assumption that business can regulate itself. Ok, a business that self-regulates is at great risk, knowingly, of causing harm.

At least in China, heads of companies might be in front of a firing squad for causing harm, and in Japan there is still enough shame to make a businessman commit honor suicide over negligence. We don't need to go that far, but, for God's sake, there should be some non-financial punishment for those who willfully cause harm to others in this manner.

I remember years ago a restaurant in town was found to have a kitchen where filth was allowed to pile up, rodents and cockroaches allowed to roam free, and sinks drained into buckets. The owners said that in their country this was acceptable.