From bird flu to bacteria! An ice cream recall and an avian flu outbreak are sparking concerns about food safety in this country today.
Bird Flu in Iowa
One farm in Iowa is “destroying” 5.3 million egg laying hens after an outbreak of the avian flu, the largest one so far this year. According to the Des Moines Register Iowa is the largest egg producing state in the country with about 50 million egg laying birds. It estimates that one in every five eggs consumed in the U.S. comes from Iowa.
Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App
While this case was specific to eggs, bird flu is a concern for the chickens we eat too. Could the bird flu in end up impacting food prices beyond eggs? Maybe, says Kathy Boyle, CEO of Chapin Hill Advisors. “What happens is the price [was] already up 11% for chickens last year... so this will continue to drive the price up combined with the potential for the commodity prices going up.”
While officials are euthanizing the birds in Iowa as a precaution, it is important to note that no human infection has been reported in the United States.
Ice cream recalled
Over at Blue Bell, the company is recalling all of its ice cream after some half gallons of the company's chocolate chip cookie dough tested positive for the deadly listeria bacteria. So far, three people have died and at least five others have gotten ill - potentially from Blue Bell ice cream, frozen yogurt or sherbet.
“We live in a global economy,” Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task notes. “Diseases are coming in from all over the world and we live in an industrialized food economy and so you get something in one plant and all of a sudden it’s in 20 plus states as what happened with Blue Bell ice cream... we shouldn’t be scaring people but it is a reminder that we take a lot of this stuff for granted.”
According to the CDC, Listeria sickens 1,600 Americans every year and, based on 2012 figures, carries a mortality rate of about 13%.
More from Yahoo Finance
Despite MS blowout; small banks may outperform
Facebook, McDonald's and Google ready reports, China developer defaultsGoogle's 'mobilegeddon': Who does it benefit?
