Martha loses her turkey dinner

[David Ross]

So on Saturday I'm watching the weekend derivation of the Today Show and they do a segment about poor little Martha Stewart's wretched illness that was suffered over the Thanksgiving Holiday. They go on to say that Martha was afflicted with an acute case of "salmonella," quoting the lifestyle maven as catching the deadly disease but it was "an undiagnosed" case. They followed with a statement from Martha saying she was the only one who got sick that ate all the same dishes. She attributes her stupor to the ill effects of handling so many raw turkeys on television. Really?

My first thought was that Martha was asking for pity. The way the information was presented was in a sort of "woe is me, I mis-handled a raw turkey, but I'm America's television cooking teacher. Pity me." My next thought was amazement at the statement, "I got salmonella, but a Doctor didn't diagnose it." I was chided by one of my scholarly friends on Facebook for not knowing my food handling curriculum. By the way, I carry my card with pride). He said that it's hard to "diagnose" salmonella. That was the exact point I was trying to get across. If Martha wasn't formally diagnosed with salmonella, she had no way of truthfully being able to state it was from mis-handling a turkey or not chilling the cream for the pumpkin pie. I took it as a dangerous statement that left the Today Show, the viewers and no less the poor turkey producers in a huge state of potential liability.

The on-air personalities went on to talk about food safety during the Holidays, but it felt shallow. Shouldn't Martha have gone over that during the segment? (Which I don't recall she did). It seemed too little too late.

Knowing Martha is so visible in the public conciousness, I thought a more appropriate statement would have been along the lines of "Martha got a potential case of food poisioning over the Holidays and it brings to our attention the serious matter of food handling safety......."

Wretching your Thanksgiving Dinner certainly isn't pleasant, but what do you think of this dust-up? When a food personality gets sick from mis-handling food, how do you think it should be dealt with?

[rotuts]

" it was "an undiagnosed" case "

So this is just PR. etc.

[David Ross]

" it was "an undiagnosed" case "

So this is just PR. etc.

That's what one of my friends said. He added I shouldn't be surprised. Pity and PR. The two P's.

[Lisa Shock]

Just because an illness can be food-borne doesn't necessarily mean that food is the only means of transmission. She could have gotten ill from touching someone who was ill, touching something that an ill person handled, or through third, fourth, fifth-hand, etc. transmission if the other people aren't washing their hands, or sanitizing things properly.

[David Ross]

Just because an illness can be food-borne doesn't necessarily mean that food is the only means of transmission. She could have gotten ill from touching someone who was ill, touching something that an ill person handled, or through third, fourth, fifth-hand, etc. transmission if the other people aren't washing their hands, or sanitizing things properly.

Another good point and another good reason why a visible person like Martha shouldn't have pronounced she had Salmonella and claimed it came from handling so many different turkeys. I think Martha's the turkey on this one.

[gfweb]

Sounds like BS to me. She got sick and it wasn't likely the food.

[maggiethecat]

OTOH.....

[Alex]

OTOH.....

...she wore a yellow glove?