A charity can't sell a pie? Ban jostles Pa. Legislature

[gardenswithkids]

Apparently under current law in Pennsylvania, churches and charities can be cited by Dept of Agriculture inspectors for bake sales. State lawmakers consider changing that ridiculous law after a bake sale at St. Cecelia’s Catholic church.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/regional/s_625879.html

*Lawmakers introduced bills in the House and Senate recently that would prevent Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture inspectors from citing churches and other community groups for serving food that was prepared in home kitchens, a practice against the law in Pennsylvania. *
“If church members can’t prepare a home-cooked meal or dessert and take it to the church for fellow members or the local community to enjoy, what’s next?” said Sen. Elder Vogel Jr. …

An Agriculture Department inspector fired the first salvo in the baked goods battle during Lent after spotting home-baked pies in St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Rochester. The church was told it’s against the law to sell pies, cookies and cakes baked at home.
*“It kind of hits you in the face that government oversteps its bounds sometimes,” said the Rev. Michael Greb, pastor at St. Cecilia. “No one wants to be rebellious to the law, but the law is absurd.” *
*State inspectors aren’t out to target bake sales, Chirdon said. *
“We have more important things to do,” he said. Normally the department looks the other way on bake sales, but when they’re held in conjunction with a large dinner – like the Lenten fish fry at St. Cecilia – they sometimes come to the attention of the inspectors. …As word of the pie bust at St. Cecilia spread, a Pittsburgh nun who has used bake sales to raise money “from Connecticut to Harlem to Ohio” said she was prepared to show inspectors what they could do with the rule book if they show up at her church. …

 

[Fitz]

As a classroom teacher I was faced with something similar many years ago. We were not allowed to accept home backed goods for the kids to pass out on their birthdays. It had to be wrapped and store bought- for safety purposes. Some schools ignored the directive, but we did not since I worked with special needs (sometimes highly allergic kids). In a way it makes sense. If you bought something at a bake sale, it could contain anything! I know it is sad, but it is the reality of the life we are living now.

 

[happymommy]

It’s going to be a problem for more than just bake sales! Our church has a soup supper twice a year. People make the soup at home and bring it in. We had almost 50 different types of soups in the fall and made $1,400!! Now, if we want to continue, we will have to make all of the soup at the church. That’s not possible! I don’t know what is going to come of our supper. It’s really too bad!

 

[Joannm]

We have the “pie nuns” coming in a few weeks. They make the best pies and brownies and they make a TON of money for their community. A law like this will put the poor nuns out of business and prevent us from getting some really TASTY pies.

 

[Godfollower]

Here’s an article on why health inspectors like to have the ability to inspect church dinners: people die from salmonella poisoning even if the food came from a church.

foodsafety.k-state.edu/en/article-details.php?a=2&c=7&sc=44&id=881

I would support exempting churches if they accepted some sort of training requirements about food handling, or certification requirements governing the person in charge of the event.

 

[RobbyS]

Here’s an article on why health inspectors like to have the ability to inspect church dinners: people die from salmonella poisoning even if the food came from a church.

foodsafety.k-state.edu/en/article-details.php?a=2&c=7&sc=44&id=881

I would support exempting churches if they accepted some sort of training requirements about food handling, or certification requirements governing the person in charge of the event.

Then there is the simple fact that agencies just like to have their finger in every pie!

 

[JimG]

Illegal bake sales? Prohibited homemade pies? Contraband cookies?

How did this nation survive before the FDA?

Oh my–I bought some homemade cinnamon rolls from a little girl in the back of the church just last week! Better see the doctor.

 

[gam197]

I went to a lot of pot luck suppers when my children were in public school and I tried not to even think of this. The food was good and the company was nice.

 

[peregrinus_WA]

The way things are going, soon you will not be allowed to cook your own meals. You will have to go to state approved/owned facilities to eat. Oh, by the way, you will have to go use state approved/owned transportation to get there and where state approved/owned clothes.

Welcome to Socialism(Communism).

 

[tm30]

Ironically, the gov’t won’t stop you from bringing in a box of Twinkees that won’t decompose for three hundred years, but they’re afraid Grandma’s cookies made from scratch will send you to the grave?

 

[Godfollower]

The way things are going, soon you will not be allowed to cook your own meals. You will have to go to state approved/owned facilities to eat. Oh, by the way, you will have to go use state approved/owned transportation to get there and where state approved/owned clothes.

Welcome to Socialism(Communism).

Or maybe, just maybe, they’re trying to prevent this sort of disaster:

In 1997 . . . two elderly people died, more than 100 made a trip to the hospital emergency room, and 700 more reported feeling ill after partaking of an annual church dinner of stuffed ham, turkey and fried oysters at Our Lady of the Wayside Parish in Chaptico, Maryland – a town of only 100 residents.
Volunteers were said to have, “put their heart and soul into the dinner.” But health officials determined this wasn’t the only thing in the dinner. Tests showed that Salmonella in the ham likely caused the illnesses.

The pastor was quoted as saying that they didn’t intend to make any changes in how they handled the dinner the next year. Really?! That’s a whole lot of blinders considering two people died.

In September 2004, near Buffalo, New York, 28 confirmed cases of Salmonella infection were reported to the Erie County Department of Health following an annual community roast-beef dinner. Outbreak investigators found that volunteers were not trained in foodservice and “didn’t quite understand the importance of maintaining a hot or cold temperature.”
Turns out they really did not understand at all.
The beef was roasted on spits and the juices, collecting in a 5-gallon bucket at room temperature over the course of the day, was poured over the surface of ready-to-eat beef sandwiches. Scrumptious. Except that the sandwiches were being drenched with both flavorful juices and Salmonella bacteria that had multiplied throughout the day at room temperature. Interviews with attendees indicated that approximately 1,500 of the 3,000 who attended the event were ill.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Here’s an article on why health inspectors like to have the ability to inspect church dinners: people die from salmonella poisoning even if the food came from a church.

foodsafety.k-state.edu/en/article-details.php?a=2&c=7&sc=44&id=881

I would support exempting churches if they accepted some sort of training requirements about food handling, or certification requirements governing the person in charge of the event.

I recognize the reality of food born illness. With all the focus on eating healthy, many people still fail to understand the very basics of food safety, like avoiding cross-contamination and keeping foods at proper temperature. People could learn such basic food safety in jr. high health classes if schools weren’t busy wasting time teaching kids other things to do with bananas.

I have read stories of food poisoning and death at families’ Thanksgivings too, yet food inspectors shouldn’t enter private homes and stop Thanksgiving from happening. There are some limitations on what our government officials can do. If there is such as thing as “separation of church and state” in America, government food inspectors might consider that they have no governmental authority in church kitchens and at bake sales.

If anyone is concerned about food safety at church pot lucks and fundraisers, avoid creme pies, mayonnaise based salads and learn what other foods grow bacteria quickly if contamination and avoid those foods. Volunteer to help in the kitchen at your parish so you can see what’s going on, and teach other volunteers about proper food handling techniques. While I am all for food safety, we can learn to prepare foods safely without government food inspectors peering over our shoulder.

 

[Revert07]

Yes there can be a problem with home baked goods or home cooked soups, meals, etc. - anything ranging from improper handling techniques that could lead to contamination with salmonella or other dangerous organism to a pet hair or a gnat (yuk) that slip in (oh wait, that happens and is acceptable in commercial or mass produced foods within specified limits) to spoiled food/ingredients and even, sad to say, to deliberately sabotaged items with either known allergens or worse.

What I’m surprised at is that no one has mentioned the great peanut butter debacle of recent times (and now it’s pistachios) not to mention the problems with commercially produced lettuce, strawberries, cantaloupes, hamburgers (remember Jack-in-the-box) and so on. At this point, I’m almost afraid to eat anything without cooking it to death and even then I wonder sometimes.

Commercially or professionally prepared doesn’t really mean its safer - not any more and not for a long time - and don’t even get me started on what they do in restaurants. These events are great fundraisers and most of the people are buying from people they know - again no guarantee. It’s true problems (some very serious and I’m not trying to minimize them at all) may arise. You can always do what we do - when in doubt we buy the item to support the group and then throw it out when we get home. Other times, we’ve had some great cakes and cookies.

It would probably be best that the government begins by cracking down on the so-called safe commercial food supply first.

 

[Godfollower]

I recognize the reality of food born illness. With all the focus on eating healthy, many people still fail to understand the very basics of food safety, like avoiding cross-contamination and keeping foods at proper temperature. People could learn such basic food safety in jr. high health classes if schools weren’t busy wasting time teaching kids other things to do with bananas.

I have read stories of food poisoning and death at families’ Thanksgivings too, yet food inspectors shouldn’t enter private homes and stop Thanksgiving from happening. There are some limitations on what our government officials can do. If there is such as thing as “separation of church and state” in America, government food inspectors might consider that they have no governmental authority in church kitchens and at bake sales.

If anyone is concerned about food safety at church pot lucks and fundraisers, avoid creme pies, mayonnaise based salads and learn what other foods grow bacteria quickly if contamination and avoid those foods. Volunteer to help in the kitchen at your parish so you can see what’s going on, and teach other volunteers about proper food handling techniques. While I am all for food safety, we can learn to prepare foods safely without government food inspectors peering over our shoulder.

The government doesn’t enter private homes to check on Thanksgiving dinners because you’re only hurting yourself if you screw up the cooking; it isn’t like they could go around and stick a meat thermometer in every Turkey. But the cases I cited above involved hundreds of people getting sick – seriously, 100 people showing up in an emergency room is a logistical disaster – which taxes government resources to the limit. And, unlike when a family screws up cooking its own turkey, this involves hundreds of innocent bystanders getting sick.

And separation of church and state doesn’t mean the government has no authority to regulate food sales at churches. That has never been the case. If the government issues health regulations governing the sale or distribution of large quantities of food, and applies those regulations to restaurants, county fairs, charitable organizations such as Kiwanis and schools, and so on, then it’s improper to say “okay, the religious folk get an exemption.” There’s a reason you see those “Exit” signs at every exit in the sanctuary and can’t turn them off, even for religious ceremonies: health regulations that apply to everyone also apply to churches.

As a practical matter, it could easily be argued that the health inspectors should check churches more stringently than restaurants: restaurants all have certified food preparers on staff, and they at least know about the precautions they’re supposed to take. Churches, on the other hand, have volunteers who probably don’t cook for more than a dozen or two people at a time on anything like a regular basis, so they’re much more likely to forget about things like how long the meat has been out, how much time the mayonnaise has been sitting on the picnic table, etc.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Yes there can be a problem with home baked goods or home cooked soups, meals, etc. - anything ranging from improper handling techniques that could lead to contamination with salmonella or other dangerous organism to a pet hair or a gnat (yuk) that slip in (oh wait, that happens and is acceptable in commercial or mass produced foods within specified limits) to spoiled food/ingredients and even, sad to say, to deliberately sabotaged items with either known allergens or worse.

What I’m surprised at is that no one has mentioned the great peanut butter debacle of recent times (and now it’s pistachios) not to mention the problems with commercially produced lettuce, strawberries, cantaloupes, hamburgers (remember Jack-in-the-box) and so on. At this point, I’m almost afraid to eat anything without cooking it to death and even then I wonder sometimes.

Commercially or professionally prepared doesn’t really mean its safer - not any more and not for a long time - and don’t even get me started on what they do in restaurants. These events are great fundraisers and most of the people are buying from people they know - again no guarantee. It’s true problems (some very serious and I’m not trying to minimize them at all) may arise. You can always do what we do - when in doubt we buy the item to support the group and then throw it out when we get home. Other times, we’ve had some great cakes and cookies.

It would probably be best that the government begins by cracking down on the so-called safe commercial food supply first.

The recent food safety issues from commercial factories and in spinach, etc. you mentioned also occured to me when I read this story.

We don’t eat often–with a large family it gets expensive. When we do eat out, it’s often a church function. I do give thought about what’s happened to the food back in the kitchens. I worked in food service, including supervising. Just because food service workers were trained doesn’t mean they always do what they were trained to do. I’ve also seen some rather frightening food inspectors’ reports of restaurants the inspectors left open to the public. As I reflect on some of what I’ve seen in the past, I probably trust my fellow parishioners more than I trust the average restaurant and food service worker.