Chicago airport food FAIL – and what’s safe to eat

by Annie Scott on

If you or your loved ones are traveling for the holidays and those travels take you through either of Chicago’s airports, you need to read this.

If you thought airport food was gross before, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. At Midway airport in Chicago, an investigator recently found toxic black mold in the ice being served, and there was rat hair in a sandwich at O’Hare.

The big offenders:
Lalo’s – repeatedly stores their meat at unsafe temperatures, and the drinking water may be tainted.
Luigi Stefani’s – where they found the black mold, as well as unsafe sandwiches. Luigi Stefani’s failed health inspections in 2005 and 2006.
Reggio’s Pizza Express – failed three inspections since 2007 for various violations including the coolers not working.
The Doghouse – meat and cheese at unsafe temperatures.
Chili’s – failed four inspections in the last three years and is suspected of giving multiple travelers E. coli.
Manchu Wok – two failures since 2006.
Wolfgang Puck – two cooks with open sores on their hands.

Even Gate Gourmet, who makes the airplane food, has repeatedly failed inspections due to insects, rodents, and unsafe temperatures. There’s a lot of hot meat in Chicago.

Basically? If you have to eat something on the plane or at the airport, choose prepackaged items that could not be made toxic by being stored at an unsafe temperature, and stick to bottled water.

Be careful, because getting sick could ruin your trip.

[via cbs2chicago]

Killer Chili

by Scott Carmichael on

The Times has a sad story of a young British man who died in his sleep after eating some Chili sauce as part of a dare.

The 33 year old man had prepared the chili sauce using peppers from a family garden, and challenged his brother to see who could eat the concoction.

Before going to bed, he started to have a bad reaction to the sauce, and by morning, he was dead. Toxicology reports are being conducted to determine the exact cause of death.

The “hotness” level of food is determined by the Scoville scale which measures the amount of dilution required until the heat can no longer be detected. At 1,040,000, the Bhut Jolokia Chili is the hottest thing you can find in nature (up to 400 times hotter than your average Jalapeño pepper). When it comes to bottled products, “The Source” is without a doubt the hottest thing you can find (over 7 million Scoville units). Products like this require you to sign a waiver, and they are only used as an ingredient for large batches of food, not as a sauce for pouring on your steak.