Phyllis Entis is the author of TAINTED. From Farm Gate to Dinner Plate, Fifty Years of Food Safety Failures and of the Damien Dickens Mysteries series, which includes The Green Pearl Caper, The White Russian Caper, The Chocolate Labradoodle Caper, The Gold Dragon Caper and The Blue Moon Caper. Her current works-in-progress include a sixth installment in the Damien Dickens series and a book about pet food safety.
Phyllis is a free-lance writer and retired food safety microbiologist with degrees from McGill University (BSc) and the University of Toronto (MSc). She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada with her husband and their Australian Cobberdog, Shalom.
When she’s not writing, Phyllis usually can be found walking around the neighbourhood, browsing in the local library, or enjoying her garden.
To communicate directly with Phyllis, send an email to phyllisentis@eFoodAlert.com and she’ll get right back to you.
To learn about her other writing projects, please visit Gone Writing.
eFoodAlert 
Hi Phyllis,
The newsletter is now arriving with the Subject as WordPress. It has been since the recent changes in appearance to the newsletter. FYI.
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Hi Phyllis,
Fantastic information…thank you!
I see that you feed your dog a home made diet, and I’m just wondering if you follow a particular book, or get recipies from your vet, or do you make them up yourself?
,,,only if you have time to answer, of course…
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Hi Marguerite. I evolved Shalom’s diet in consultation with her breeder and her veterinarian, and followed my instincts and her stomach to its current form. I have the diet summarized in a pdf file, which I would be happy to share with you. If you would like, please email me at phyllisentis(at)gmail(dot)com.
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I found out about the Kirkland dog food recall today. The Vet has been trying to figure out what was wrong with my Jack Russel since October. I first purchased Kirkland about 7 months ago. It was fine at first then in September she got sick. After I found out today I took her back to the Vet with a sample and it tested positive for Salmonella. She is staying over night to be hydrated and given antibiotics. I feel awful. I was looking “healthy” dog food and what I found was several sites that had Kirkland in the top 5 of healthy dog foods to feed your pets and all I ended up doing was making her sick. I live in California, which is not one of the recall states. from what I have seen today, over and over are 100’s of people with sick or dead animals in California. I can’t believe Kirkland has not been recalled here.
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I am so glad that you thought to have your Vet test for Salmonella and that she is on the mend. Do you still have the package of food? If so, can you share the lot number/date code/production code information?
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Unfortunately I do not have the bag. I always empty the bag into large trash cans with locking lids and throw the bag away due to this area having ant issues.
I will find a way in the future to keep all empty bags of food. I will be returning the remaining food to Costco. They continue to tell each person the same story, “your the first person to bring the food back due to Salmonella” (in California)yet, there are many people who have stated they have been to Costco to return the food and ask that they remove it from their shelves. It would seem to me that this many months after the recall and in a state they haven’t recalled the food, that the issue is much larger than they want to admit.
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I would also encourage you to have your vet report the details to FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine. There is a page on their website where vets can report “adverse events” or illnesses. It would be especially helpful if you can provide FDA with as many details as possible on the product: brand, variety, exactly where and when purchased, lot code information. Even if you don’t have the production code, Costco might be able to retrieve that from their record of your purchase. Please take action. You might save other people and dogs from suffering the same experience you have just gone through.
Phyllis
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Absolutely! I gave the website to my Vet and I will report as well. Costco does keep a record of purchases, I am hoping that their system will contain code information. It breaks my heart to think of these poor dogs going through this. It was a rough night without mine at home.
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Good! Please keep me posted. You can email me directly, if you wish, at phyllis@efoodalert.net
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Good! Please keep me posted. You can email me directly, if you wish, at phyllis@efoodalert.net
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I just found out about the dog food recall (foods from Diamond Company). I’ve been feeding my golden retriever “Taste of the Wild” dry food which is manufactured by that company. The retailer we use is not carrying that brand anymore because of the recalls. What do you feed your beautiful dog.
Thanks in advance
Connie
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We feed our Quintzy a Canadian brand named Orijen. It is grain-free and is available in the USA, Canada and in many countries around the world.
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Phyllis:Are you still feeding this product? Any other recommendations?
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Hi Carol,
Unfortunately, we lost Quintzy to cancer in December 2015. Our new 4-legged family member is fed a home-prepared diet.
As far as I know, Orijen is still a quality product. I am aware that they opened a US-based manufacturing plant within the past year. I cannot tell you where they are sourcing their ingredients for the US plant.
By the way, one benefit of switching away from a kibble diet to a home-prepared diet is that our new pup’s teeth are pristine. She is 16 months old and not a trace of tartar build-up. She gets a mixture of raw and cooked foods, including a raw beef back-rib bone to chew.
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Are the pills on recall,such as Excedrin,Bufferins,no-doz and gas-ex coming back on the market by mid-year or sooner?
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Phyllis:
I follow your twitter postings and visit your blog posts to supplement the food safety information I receive from the other blogs we both seem to follow. One of the problems that innovators in the food safety arena have is that anything new or different becomes a target. Take the case of BPI’s use of ammonia as a processing aid for pathogen elimination in our beef production. To combat negative mis-information or sensationalized accounts (ala Jamie Oliver), we have deleoped some youtube videos to start getting out our message. We would be very interested in getting your feedback on these videos. Follow the links below:
Regards, Rich Jochum
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Hi Phyllis! IMPORTANT!
I need your assistance! On Aug 25th,2011 my 20 yr old daughter Jordan ate cantaloupe in an Oklahoma restaurant. On the 28th I took her to our local emergency room for treatment after she had spent the past few days vomiting and having diarrhea. She was treated for pain and nausea & sent home with an rx for 2 antibiotics and phenrgan for nausea. She continued to have even more severe symptoms & was unable to take the oral meds prescribed. On 10/2/11 she was taken by ambulance to the same local hospital where she has been admitted. In November of 2011 she had her gall bladder removed and has been sensitive to certains foods so the doctors felt that she may have been problems dur to that. She had a cat scan on the 28th that was negative. Today she had an endoscopy which shows that she has a bacterioa of unknown origin! I informed the hospital when she was in the ERthat she had eaten cantaloupe in Oklahoma and I was concerned that she might have Listeria. Do you know what locations in Ok that the contaminated cantaloupes were found? I’m so grateful for the information that you provide and am one of your loyal email subscribers.
Thank you so much!
Angela
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Ernie! Glad to hear from you. One of the nice things about blogging is that pleasant voices from the past keep popping up.
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Phyllis,
If I had a magic wand, I would take both of us back to the days when you were demonstrating ISO-GRID, and I was managing Sci-Tek Labs for Sara Lee in Northbrook, IL. We were both much younger back then, and had to tolerate the tales of Dr. Rafael Pedraja. Glad to see that you are well, and as beautiful as ever.
Avoice from the past
Ernie McCullough
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