If it's made in China, is it safe?

I have started shopping for new cookware and hope to replace all my non-stick pots and pans with good, old-fashioned metal, prompted by reports that some plastic coatings may break down under high heat and contaminate food.

I long ago stopped re-heating food in plastic containers for the same reason. But a dinnerware set I bought in 2007 left a really bad taste in my mouth, raising the suspicion that a lot of products made in China may not be safe. And so much of the cookware I have looked at is made in China.

In 2007, I bought the elaborately painted Villa della Luna pattern from Pfaltzgraff, enough plates, bowls and cups for 12. When I re-heated leftovers -- and we cook at home five days a week and eat a lot of leftovers -- I would plate the food before putting it in the microwave. After about a year, I started to notice that the paint on the dinner plates I used to reheat food was fading in the dishwasher.

I called Pfaltzgraff, only to be told that the dinner plates and other items in my set had been recalled, because tests revealed high levels of lead and cadmium. I had never received a notice of the recall, but, luckily, I still had the original boxes, now filled with my old dinnerware. I packed up the new pattern and returned it, then had to fight with Pfaltzgraff to get a refund.

I used the old plates until I finally found dinnerware that wasn't made in China -- porcelain in a simple white-on-white pattern made in Germany by Rosenthal. I feel much safer re-heating food in the microwave. And I'm searching for pots and pans made anywhere but in China.

Costco Wholesale is slowly coming around

The food court at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

I shop for food weekly at Costco. I love the quality of most items and the low prices, but when I want drug-free chicken, preservative-free cold cuts or grass-fed beef, I have to go elsewhere.

Costco has slowly-- too slowly, in my opinion -- added organic food and antibiotic-free poultry and meat, but most of the food it sells is grown or raised conventionally.

Today, I bought wild coho salmon fillet from Alaska, Hans' drug- and preservative-free chicken meatballs and sausage, organic salad mix, herbicide-free tomatoes and frozen organic mixed vegetables. 

But there was a deli full of preserved cold cuts and a barnyard full of Perdue and other brands of chicken raised on antibiotics (only the Coleman boneless-and-skinless thighs are organic.)

The Costco rotisserie chicken is dreadful -- a conventional chicken with many added flavors. And except for the drug-free Australian lamb and organic ground beef, the vast expanse of beef and pork should be ignored.

Now, The Costco Connection magazine for October 2009 is heralding the addition of a few more naturally raised or organic meat, poultry and pork items, in stores and at Costco.com, the mail-order arm.

From mid-November, stores will offer an antibiotic-free, vegetarian-fed Kirkland smoked, bone-in ham.  

By mail order, you will be able to buy organic rib roasts and frozen turkeys, and they'll be glatt kosher no less.

Is your sushi fresh or frozen?

Bluefin-tuna sushi, front, and cooked eel at Hiura in Fort Lee (2013).

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor


You might be surprised to learn the pristine slice of fish that melts in your mouth at a good sushi parlor had been frozen, along with all the other raw fish you eat.

Consumer Reports On Health urges sushi- and shashimi-lovers to "make sure that the fish was frozen before serving, because that kills the parasites sometimes found in fish. (The Food and Drug Administration requires restaurants to take that step, though enforcement can be lax.)"

It says you should prepare sushi at home only using frozen fish.

In other words, it is illegal for a U.S. restaurant to serve fish raw unless it has been frozen first. The publication echoed an article about sushi I read in 2004 in The New York Times' Dining In/Dining Out section, "Sushi Fresh from the Deep ... the Deep Freeze."

The June 2009 Consumer Reports newsletter also says consumers "should choose pieces made with low-mercury fish, such as salmon or shrimp," though doesn't mention that the vast majority of salmon served as sushi is artificially colored farmed fish. 

Tuna and mercury

Tuna, also a popular fish for sushi, has a high mercury content.

I try to limit my raw tuna consumption to the once-a-year carving of giant (frozen) bluefin tunas at Mitsuwa Marketplace, the Japanese supermarket in Edgewater. 

Last year, I purchased a quarter of a pound of the best belly meat ($60 a pound) and enjoyed seven slices of meltingly beautiful, marbled fish at home.

I like raw fluke and other "white" fish as sushi and sashimi. 

Hiura Restaurant

My favorite Japanese restaurant for sushi is Hiura in Fort Lee, a small, family run BYO. Though expensive, the sushi, sashimi, sea urchin, fish eggs and cooked dishes have never disappointed.

If you are going to buy sushi at the supermarket, H Marts in Englewood, Little Ferry and Ridgefield have their own sushi sections and a fourth market from the Korean chain is slated to take over the space once occupied by Kings in Fort Lee. 

Avoid the stuff sold in ShopRite. The sushi at the new Whole Foods Market in Paramus is excellent, but prices are high, compared with H Mart.

Pork has less fat than chicken breast?

In reviewing old issues of Consumer Reports On Health, I came across an item suggesting that pork has less fat than an equivalent amount of skinless chicken breast.

"Evidence suggests pork is 16 percent leaner and has 27 percent less saturated fat than it did 15 years ago," the September 2006 newsletter said.

"A U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis (funded in part by the National Pork Board) found that a 3-ounce serving of pork tenderloin contains 2.98 grams of fat, compared with 3.03 grams in a 3-ounce serving of skinless chicken breast."

There's no mention of how most pork is raised with antibiotics and growth hormones and fed who knows what. In fact, I've read that pork receives more antibiotics than any other animal raised for human consumption. So if you love pork, be sure to buy the drug- and hormone-free variety sold at Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Market and some supermarkets.

Trader Joe's has St. Louis-style ribs from the Niman Ranch and at least two brands of drug- and preservative-free bacon. Whole Foods has the biggest selection of naturally raised pork, beef, lamb and poultry of any market in North Jersey. Super Stop & Shop carries Nature's Promise, a line of organic and naturally raised food, including drug- and hormone-free pork chops. See previous post, "Kudos for Stop & Shop." (This post was revised.)

A sale on chicken I won't be shopping

A package of Readington Farms chicken thighs (July 2012).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Saturday afternoon, I stopped at the ShopRite in Rochelle Park to take a closer look at the Perdue chicken being sold for 50% off today through Oct. 3. 

What I saw convinced me that this is among the worst chicken you can buy.

For example, a Perdue pre-seasoned roaster is "enhanced" with up to 17% seasoned chicken broth. That means you are paying 17% of the price for broth, not poultry. 

This 6-pound bird is going for a mere $4.99, but it likely was raised on antibiotics and there's nothing on the label about a vegetarian diet. So it might have eaten feed with bits of dead chicken.

Yet the label has the meaningless phrase "All natural," and notes the chicken contains no hormones or steroids, which are barred by federal rules anyway, so why is it on the label if not to deceive the consumer?

The unseasoned Perdue roaster was selling for less than half the price of the Readington Farms roaster ($1.89 a pound), which is fed a vegetarian diet and raised without antibiotics. 

ShopRite rarely puts Readington Farms poultry on sale. A Coleman organic roaster was selling for $2.99 a pound on Saturday with a $2 off coupon attached.

Update

In 2014, Consumer Reports magazine investigated antibiotics and arsenic in food.

Here are links to this blog's discussion of the articles:

Snowy Atlantic cod, arsenic in food and more

Consumer Reports: Buy only antibiotic-free chicken

Bountiful meal recalls my roots

When we walked into Aleppo Restaurant in Paterson just past noon today, a long table had been set with the classic Syrian meal of small plates called maza -- 11 appetizers, bread and pickles that would have made a great meal in themselves.

Me and my wife, Marjorie, were joined by seven others: Jason Perlow; his wife, Rachel; and readers of this blog and Jason's Off The Broiler ode to great restaurant food.

The restaurant first opened on the other side of Main Street -- in the Middle Eastern bazaar known as South Paterson -- and now occupies the clean, simply decorated rooms of a failed Turkish restaurant, Kafe Teria. It's named after the city in northern Syria where my Jewish parents were born and my grandfather was a pastry maker.

The food we ate was beautifully seasoned with cumin, allspice, tamarind, mint, lemon and Aleppo pepper. We had hummus, muhammara, labaneh, meat arayes, raw kibbe, sambusak with meat or cheese, fried kibbe, tabbouleh, a soupy dish of fava beans and another of yogurt with diced cucumbers. Wonderful.

But there was more: entrees of eggplant and squash stuffed with meat and rice; an extraordinary kabob and bread soaked with cherry sauce; small dumplings packed with meat in a yogurt sauce; and a mixed grill with shish kebab, kufta kebab and chicken, with hot peppers, tomato and onion.

We walked off the meal by visiting Fattal's and Nouri's, the rival Syrian bakeries and markets. Then we returned to the restaurant for dessert, a honey-soaked cake with walnuts and strong Arabic coffee.

The only sour note were the no-shows, four or five people who failed to keep their word that they would attend. Of course, that meant we took home containers of leftovers, enough food for at least a couple of delicious meals.

On Sunday morning, the fava beans and the dips, with the addition of a couple of ounces of smoked wild salmon (Costco) and olives and warmed pita (Fattal's), made a great breakfast. For dinner, I'll polish off the fried kibbe, kufta kabob and stuffed squash with more pita and a salad.

For vivid pictures of our lunch, please click on the following link to Jason's blog:

http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/otb-economic-stimulus-dinner-ii-no-mezze-left-behind/#more-2971

Here's a link with more information about Aleppo, Syria, which I visited in the late 1970s.

http://www.atlastours.net/syria/aleppo.html

(This post was revised on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009.)