Whistleblower tells all on Kellogg B&R Unsanitary Food Service to Troops

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.northcoastjournal.com/010804/cover0108.html

ON JULY 17, 2003, HEATHER YARBROUGH flew to Kuwait to start a new job: monitoring the quality and safety of food served to soldiers on U.S. military bases in Iraq. Her employer was the Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) Government Services division of Halliburton, the Texas-based oil company formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney that has contracts with the U.S. government to support military personnel in the field and to help with Iraq reconstruction.

<snip>

Yarbrough never dreamed she'd be fired a month later for what in her view was simply an effort to implement the Army's own safety and sanitation standards. Nor did she imagine that she'd be telling congressional staffers about potentially dangerous food being served to U.S. soldiers by ESS Support Services, a food-service subcontractor to Halliburton.

<snip>

But the next evening, when Yarbrough started her first 12-hour overnight shift, she was shocked at conditions in the kitchen. Freezers and refrigerators weren't working. Food was spoiling. The kitchen workers were exhausted, and some of them weren't following basic sanitation practices. "It became apparent to me that much of the food served at the banquet the night before was ... possibly dangerous," she wrote.

At 2 a.m. Yarbrough saw a lone kitchen worker spreading mayonnaise onto several thousand slices of bread for the next day's sandwiches. He was halfway through the job, and the mayonnaise had sat in open bowls for hours.

[Cocoa]

1. they should steer clear of mayonnaise entirely

esp. in such a hot climate.

That expert consulting is no charge to KBR, I'm just doing my patriotic duty.

[LosinIt]

3. Mayonnaise gets a bad rap, it really is too acidic to go bad easily

It gets its bad rep from being used in salads, like macaroni and potato, where the vegetables are handled, cut on a filthy cutting board,etc. and then served without being cooked again. There is enough vinegar in mayo too make it too acidic for most bacteria to grow in. I knew that microbiology class would come in handy.

[Cocoa]

5. thanks for the info

I guess I was smearing mayonnaise. :-)

[burrowowl]

9. Right on

only real mayo made with fresh eggs goes bad in heat. Not the commercial stuff that has so much chem preservatives and junk that in an Ann Landers column someone said that that didn't refrigerate open jars and it keep for months, may not taste as good but ...
However, it is a scandal that our troops are being poorly feed with shit stuff.

[creativelcro]

11. if mayo has real eggs in it it can spoil easily

[Columbia]

7. It's actually

pretty cold over there right now. It'll start warming up around March and April.

[necso]

2. No surprise here.

War profiteering in America is an old (and despicable) tradition. In these days when the media is a lapdog and corporations are in control, we should expect the very worst of profiteering, most of which we will never hear anything about.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Privatize it

I wonder how many troops have been evaced due to this... and no we are not saving money doing this... at all, but KBR are making a killing, no pun intended

[necso]

8. Rumor has it.

Many of the evacuations are due to preventable conditions like bad food, bad or not enough water, poor housing and sanitation, and lack of basic medical/personal care items, directly traceable to private contractors. Mail delivery supposedly has also suffered and contractor incompetence may be behind this (the following) government policy:

"Please do not flood the military mail system with letters, cards, and gifts. Due to security concerns and transportation constraints, the Department cannot accept items to be mailed to < Any Servicemember .> Some people have tried to avoid this prohibition by sending large numbers of packages to an individual servicemember's address, which however well intentioned, clogs the mail and causes unneccessary delays."

Don't let this stop you, http://www.booksforsoldiers.com.

And you are right about privatization, it COSTS money, decreases combat effectiveness, causes additional casualties and is bad for morale. But it is a way of hiding the true size of the military, of seeming (only) to decrease the tail/tooth ratio and of rewarding defense contractors who yield immense power.

[Karenina]

10. Welcome to DU, Nesco!

:thumbsup:

[kskiska]

6. I remember reading an article around Thanksgiving

how the food served in the enlisted men's mess was so good that officers often dined there. What a hoot!

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Kick

This article should get more attention on Du.