Celebrity chefs....yes I know, again! and I'm off topic!

I am a little perturbed with Chef Richard Corrigan's obsession with "shit" (how he described Irish chicken on Pat Kenny's RTE radio show) and "arses" (Sunday Independant)....I hope he washes his hands!!!

Why is it that celebrity chefs often disagree with the Irish Food Safety Authority or public health experts? Recently Darina Allen dramatically and without basis declared that GM food was "the single most important food and health threat in our lifetime" (Irish Examiner, March 11th).......this coming from someone whose portrait bearing ice cream has 16 grams of fat per two scoops, three times more fat than HB vanilla (according to the VHI website). Seemingly the fact cardiovascular disease causes 42% of all deaths in Ireland and GM foods have never caused one worldwide doesn't factor for Darina. Yes i'm repeating myself but hey, its so absurd its worth saying again!

Also the selective nature of these chefs' food concerns and whims are baffling. A quick look at the menu at Richard Corrigan's fancy Soho restaurant shows foie gras is offered which is fattened duck liver derived from cruelly force feeding ducks by inserting long mechanical tubes into their stomachs. This practice is banned in Ireland, the UK, Denmark, etc and the product itself is now banned in Israel and will be banned in California from 2012.

In addition, TV chefs in a 2004 study published in Food Safety Trends were seen to be hazardous to your health. Researchers spotted 916 food-handling problems during the 60 hours of TV programming reviewed. Chefs on the popular television cooking programs made food safety errors 13 times more often than they handled food correctly. The most frequent errors included poor hand washing; contamination between raw and ready-to-eat food; failure to wash fresh fruits and vegetables; and inadequate washing of cooking utensils and cutting boards. This is important because from a food poisoning and public health perspective one of the riskiest critical points in the food chain is now the consumers’ kitchen. (one reference of many)

Personally I'll stick to the expert advice of the Dr.John O'Brien from the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and enjoy my reasonably priced safe chicken. Taking food safety advice from these non food safety expert celebrity chefs is like taking tax advice from those who do the art on your Euro tenner.