Attention: airline passengers. Consider bringing your own food to the airport.
Why?
Records for nearly 800 restaurants at ten airports found items such as tuna salad and turkey sandwiches stored at dangerously warm temperatures, says USA TODAY.
The newspaper also found raw meat contaminating ready-to-eat foods, rat droppings and kitchens lacking soap for workers to wash hands.
“Serious violations, which can increase the risk of illness, are common,” says the newspaper.
On the most recent inspections available online, 42 percent of 57 restaurants reviewed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport had at least one "critical" violation. So did 77 percent of 35 restaurants reviewed at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC
Grab-and-go coolers often don’t keep sandwiches and salads cold enough to stop dangerous pathogens, reports show.
"The grab-and-go sandwich problem, it’s a constant battle," said David Jefferson of the Tarrant County, Texas, health department, which inspects Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
There are 76 million cases of food-borne illnesses annually in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. Most aren’t traced to the source and doing so is even harder with airport restaurants because customers scatter, the Food and Drug Administration’s Dean Davidson said.
The National Restaurant Association’s Sue Hensley said the industry "is committed to ensuring all prepared meals are safe."
By David Wilkening
