The question, Are Frozen Foods Safe, is one I really never even considered asking. It always seemed like one of the few things you sort of knew was safe. It might not be particularly good for you and it might be something you purchased back when Journey was playing stadiums, but safe? Yeah.
Well, maybe not. Did you know that when it comes to many frozen foods, the burden of determining whether it’s really safe to eat is ultimately on you? It is. And that’s not just me talking. That comes right from the mega-companies who manufactured the stuff in your freezer. They use so many suppliers and so many ingredients and there are so many variables, the mainstream players often can’t keep up with tracking it all (or at least they’re unwilling to do so).
Threatened with a federal shutdown, the pie maker, ConAgra Foods, began spot-checking the vegetables for pathogens, but could not find the culprit. It also tried cooking the vegetables at high temperatures, a strategy the industry calls a “kill step,” to wipe out any lingering microbes. But the vegetables turned to mush in the process.
So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The “food safety” instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”
So you have to “kill” your frozen food before eating it. If it ain’t dead after a couple decades in the back of your freezer, you might want to think about snacking on something else…
