by Kevin Coupe
We got a vivid illustration yesterday about how important food safety education is, in a story that also reminded New York Mets fans, who tend to be depressives, of how early the baseball season can end.
Brandon Nimmo, an outfielder for the Mets, is at spring training in Florida, and his family is back home. Nimmo decided to make himself a chicken breast dinner, and Yahoo Finance writes that “he was so proud of his skills in the kitchen that he took a photo of his meal and sent it to his wife.”
All good … until about 1 a.m., when he started to vomit. And vomit. And vomit some more. He missed an entire day of spring training, and lost “about four pounds off his 6'3" frame as a result.”
Nimmo told reporters that it was “chicken and sweet potato with a garlic herb thing over the top, and I cooked it in olive oil with aluminum foil, 400 degrees at 20 minutes … apparently that wasn’t good enough.”
Apparently not.
Nimmo joked that he might have to buy a meat thermometer. He could also, as the story points out, just cut open the chicken breast before eating it.
The first Eye-Opening lesson may be that retailers have to do a better job of providing food safety information to consumers. Nimmo seems to be cheerfully (now) accepting responsibility for undercooking the chicken, but a lot of shoppers will blame the store, even if that is unfair. You can’t compensate for every person who is ignorant about basic food safety procedures, but this story illustrates that some smart labeling in the right place might be able to make a difference.
The second lesson - and the one that fellow Mets fan Michael Sansolo and I took for this incident, is that it always is something. We’re only surprised that Nimmo didn’t have the whole team for dinner that night, and poisoned everybody.
Because that’s how things work for our New York Mets.
We got a vivid illustration yesterday about how important food safety education is, in a story that also reminded New York Mets fans, who tend to be depressives, of how early the baseball season can end.
Brandon Nimmo, an outfielder for the Mets, is at spring training in Florida, and his family is back home. Nimmo decided to make himself a chicken breast dinner, and Yahoo Finance writes that “he was so proud of his skills in the kitchen that he took a photo of his meal and sent it to his wife.”
All good … until about 1 a.m., when he started to vomit. And vomit. And vomit some more. He missed an entire day of spring training, and lost “about four pounds off his 6'3" frame as a result.”
Nimmo told reporters that it was “chicken and sweet potato with a garlic herb thing over the top, and I cooked it in olive oil with aluminum foil, 400 degrees at 20 minutes … apparently that wasn’t good enough.”
Apparently not.
Nimmo joked that he might have to buy a meat thermometer. He could also, as the story points out, just cut open the chicken breast before eating it.
The first Eye-Opening lesson may be that retailers have to do a better job of providing food safety information to consumers. Nimmo seems to be cheerfully (now) accepting responsibility for undercooking the chicken, but a lot of shoppers will blame the store, even if that is unfair. You can’t compensate for every person who is ignorant about basic food safety procedures, but this story illustrates that some smart labeling in the right place might be able to make a difference.
The second lesson - and the one that fellow Mets fan Michael Sansolo and I took for this incident, is that it always is something. We’re only surprised that Nimmo didn’t have the whole team for dinner that night, and poisoned everybody.
Because that’s how things work for our New York Mets.
- KC's View:
