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INSIDE EDITION INVESTIGATION INTO FOOD CART VENDORS

"It doesn't matter what you're eating...If it's a hot dog, if it's a pretzel, if it's contaminated you're going to get sick." - Lisa Berger, Food Safety Expert

Airdate: Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

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New York, NY - September 8, 2008 - A special report by INSIDE EDITION's Investigative unit, airing Tuesday, September 9th, finds unsafe food handling practices by food vendors all over New York City.

INSIDE EDITION found vendors picking their noses, touching their feet, even going to the bathroom without ever washing their hands and then serving customers.  All critical health code violations.

"It doesn't matter what you're eating...If it's a hot dog, if it's a pretzel, if it's contaminated you're going to get sick," says Lisa Berger, Food Safety Expert.

INSIDE EDITION cameras caught one food vendor touching his bare feet with his fingers between his toes before going right back to serving customers.

"That's absolutely disgusting...Every contaminant that would have been on the floor or the sidewalk or the pavement where he was walking ends up getting on the food," Berger tells INSIDE EDITION.

When INSIDE EDITION approached the vendor he insisted he washes his hands and showed he wears gloves, but on the three separate occasions INSIDE EDITION caught him on camera he never once has gloves on.

INSIDE EDITION cameras caught another vendor near Times Square, who while wearing gloves picked his nose, handled money, scratched himself and touched raw chicken right before preparing food and serving customers.

"You need to think of raw chicken as being poisonous and you handle it, remove the gloves, throw them away, wash your hands before you do anything else," Berger says.

When approached by INSIDE EDITION the vendor insisted after putting meat on the grill he changed his gloves, but INSIDE EDITION never observed that.

INSIDE EDITION cameras caught another vendor outside Manhattan's famed Museum of Natural History who licked his gloved hand and counted money.  Then he left his cart to use a bathroom in the museum and returned to serve customers without washing his hands.

When approached by INSIDE EDITION the vendor maintains he washed his hands and presented his food safety certificate.

INSIDE EDITION also tested the temperatures of food from other vendors and found cart after cart was serving food in the "temperature danger zone."

"Food in the danger zone, between 41 and 140, is considered dangerous...Anything in between those two numbers, bacteria will begin to grow," Berger tells INSIDE EDITION.

INSIDE EDITION is produced daily at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City and produced and distributed by CBS Television Distribution, a unit of CBS Corp.  

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