The health department.
The middleman telling us what is good and bad to eat. The bureaucratic twin sibling of the food pyramid.
The health department’s role in society is to protect us from all diseases and to keep us healthy. In doing so, they investigate threats to health. More specifically, they find out if any health code violations are committed at restaurants. One in every ten people falls sick from foodborne illness each day. Astounding. The Howard Stern Show staff had that many staff members in his KROQ days, and odds are it was Sal slipping wasabi in the Munchkins. That’s only good if on the show, Sal. We’ve discussed this.
Health department inspectors check once every six months, twice a year, to assure food handling procedures are being followed. These procedures include:
- Appropriate hand-washing materials
- Raw food and ready-to-eat food aren’t contacting each other
- Rodents and pests aren't present
In addition to that, there exists the USDA’s “danger zone chart’ that lists appropriate cooking temperatures for food, maximum temperatures in which cold food can be stored at (40 degrees), and the minimum holding temperature for cooked food (140 degrees). That 100-degree swing is only seen in Michigan for the temperatures in April and September. All in one day.
This industry has the power to shut your restaurant down. Which means the Winter White House, the Mar-a-Lago, needs to get cracking. ASAP. Else, he won’t be able to learn about the rich history of Mexico, which, incidentally, is coming up on Cinco de Mayo. Records from inspections on January 26th showed that burgers and shrimp were stored up to 50 degrees, and a ham at 57 degrees among a bigly amount of violations. Terrifying. I’m a little shocked that we haven't seen a seen a Tweet from realDonaldTrump blasting the overrated health department. It’s the most crooked organization ever. I’ve heard. They deal with the Clinton’s. Sad!
Anyways, in any health department inspection, there will be some relatively low-level violations, like lack of sanitation at a sink. Nobody’s perfect. It’s the big level violations, like what we saw at the Winter White House with fish meant to be served raw not having undergone proper parasite destruction. It had to either be:
- Be cooked
Or...
- Thrown away.
Gotta admit, I’m shocked good food isn’t there in an act of protest.