Breaking News: UMass Food Fetish
So if you ever wondered why UMass schedules these goofy waste-of-food Guinness World Record events over the Labor Day weekend, I offer you today's edition of the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Yikes!
While maybe not quite as bad as the "Blarney Blowout" screw up, it's still a sad state of journo affairs when the town of Amherst (Leverett, Pelham, Shutesbury and Hadley) can be essentially unprotected for emergency medical calls because all five ambulances are tied up, mostly with drunk students, and the only thing the newspaper publishes is a public relations puff piece.
But yeah, that fruit salad must have been pretty epic.
27 comments:
Is a heavily intoxicated student not an emergency. I mean they are close to death if they dont get help?
Absolutely.
But it is also preventable, unlike a lot of emergencies AFD responds to.
Was that a "food grade" swimming pool that they mixed the fruit salad inside of? I don't think so -- and that the plastics that swimming pools are made of isn't probably the best thing to have food in contact with.
Fruits is the appropriate term when used in conjunction with the town of Amherst.
And Ed, I have bad news for you. There is no such thing as a plastic that does not leech into your food... PVC pool, food grade plastic or BHA free plastics. Yes even BHA plastics contain and leech estrogenic chemicals into whatever you put into them. I know, you have been snowed by a phoney marketing campaign.
The public has been seriously misinformed and lied to. But fear not as if the plastic doesn't get you the sun-screen, food dyes, anti-perspirants, make-up, detergents, tap water, any oils you use for cooking or oils that are preserved in products, growth hormones in meat and milk, and a slew of other stuff in your home also contain various estrogen mimickers. And yes, even that Yankee Candle you might enjoy burning.
How about giving U-Mass some credit for organizing a fun activity for non-drinkers? There need to be alternatives to getting drunk and making a huge fruit salad to break a world record sure qualifies.
Sarcasm requires its own special font (I'm assuming that was sarcasm).
But you can make a fruity alcoholic drink with the salad. I'm sure some must be going there too. :)
You've got to be kidding. Are you completely without humor? I think it was a great fun activity. Since it doesn't match your negative outlook it was obviously a waste. Others will get what it's about. It brought students some fun in a nondestructive way. Kudos to them for doing it.
So are you one of the kids UMass has hired to offset the negativity of the blogosphere?
Walter, I used to inspect restaurants, and had a very simple question -- was it "approved" or "not"?
I didn't go beyond "did it meet code or not" -- was it a plastic that some recognized entity (e.g. NSF) or governmental entity had approved?
It's like drunk driving -- some folk aren't competent to drive while sober, while I suspect that some folks could do fairly well with a 1.0 BAC -- but we have a standard. So too here.
And swimming pools aren't approved food contact surfaces...
It brought students some fun in a nondestructive way. Kudos to them for doing it.
UMass trusted them with knives?
Why do I think not?
There need to be alternatives to getting drunk and making a huge fruit salad.
Agreed -- although making a huge fruit salad while drunk might be quite interesting.
(Methinks UMass needs to hire student bloggers who understand how a missing comma can change the entire meaning of a sentence....)
What is your problem Ed? You are one off the wall dude.
You are one off the wall dude.
No, more along the lines of disgruntled, with overtones of visceral dislike of a certain purgatorial cesspool mascaraing as an institution of higher education.
If you are going to send me a hanging curve ball that is right over the plate, I'm gonna hit it out of the park. I'd do this even if I didn't despise your employer -- and it wasn't just the missing comma, although that definitely helped.
My employer, Ed? No, UMASS is not my employer. And yes, I know there should have been a comma there. Is that your best defense? You are an embarrassment to your alma mater.
Oh and Ed. If you are going to bust my chops over a missing comma you would do well to check you spelling before hitting send. Mascaraing??????
Hmm, meats in supermarkets are wrapped in PVC. As are other prepackaged products. Guess that swimming pool PVC isn't looking so bad after all. Food inspector or not, NO plastic is safe from leeching of endocrine disruptors, not even "food grade" packaging. NONE!
I'd have rather they created the world's biggest sangria with all that fruit. Kill two birds with one stone!
Walter, you have hurt your professional reputation by posting your looney comments on this very blog. THIS is the best argument I can make for being an anon on this site.
"So are you one of the kids UMass has hired to offset the negativity of the blogosphere?"
No just someone from Amherst (older than you in fact) that sees that there are multiple stories in our community. This was one of the positive ones.
Yeah, okay ... whatever you say. If you can't trust an Anon who can you trust?
Either way, you have a pretty low bar for what constitutes a "positive" story.
(Which I would expect from college aged, PR flack bloggers.)
check you spelling
1: Four syllables versus four letters -- hmmmm...
2: Sentences can not begin with a conjunction.
3: My alma mater is itself an embarrassment, as well as a millstone around my neck.
Larry,
That's completely unfair to UMass. UMass scheduled an excellent back to school event and has every right to publicize it. They don't have a crystal ball as to who will get in trouble during the day of the event. Maybe they shouldn't report on the football team either.
Guess you don't know the facts about plastic. Why not do a search at the science and you'll see all the marketing of BHA and "safe plastics" is actually a myth. No plastic you eat anything off of is safe. PERIOD. Oh and any metal coated in plastic like soda cans and food cans too.
I'll help:
http://science.time.com/2011/03/08/study-even-bpa-free-plastics-leach-endrocrine-disrupting-chemicals/
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/02/134196209/study-most-plastics-leach-hormone-like-chemicals
http://www.livescience.com/5487-murky-truth-leaching-plastic-bottles.html
http://news.discovery.com/human/health/bpa-plastic-food-hormones-chemicals-110715.htm
http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/plastic
So you can be as ignorant as you want about plastics and supposed global warming by humans and blame me for your ignorance. I really could care less. If you can't post your name nothing you say has much weight.
Nothing I say is an excuse for you not to post your name. That's just you being a coward. Classic Amherst to hide behind a fence.
1: Four syllables versus four letters -- hmmmm...
2: Sentences can not begin with a conjunction.
1. Here's a guessing game for you, Ed: What third-grade, four-letter word do you misspell not every once in a while, as a typo, but every single time? Hint: You misspelled it again today.
2. Source, please. (What, you have none? What a surprise!)
Walter, let me get this right. You don't believe humans are responsible for global climate change?
I don't intend to jump through hoops, but it was Professor Winfred Bernhard of the History Department who pointed out to me that I couldn't start sentences with the word "and" and explained why.
It made sense to me. And he was a professor, whom I respected.
And I have no doubt that the Amherst Board of Health (etc) would have a s-fit if any of the bars were to use a Teddy Bear Pool to mix fruit in.
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