Some form of direct observation is the only way to do meaningful food safety behavior research, and the phrase, consumer food safety education, should be banned.

Or at least try something new – the stuff that is out there just doesn’t work.

That’s what I take from a preliminary summary of research led by Christine Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California, Davis, and Ho Phang, prepared by Meatingplace.

Sure, those are a couple of my primary messages, so it’s easy to agree with someone who agrees with me, but nice to hear it confirmed.

Bruhn and colleagues videotaped 200 volunteers in their homes while they prepared burgers and salad. She observed their methods of defrosting the meat — frozen, preformed burgers — their refrigerators' temperature, whether or not they put themselves at risk for cross-contamination and how they determined whether the meat was done.

Of those in the study:

* Twenty-five percent said they prefer their burgers pink.
* Eighty-three percent said they used visual clues, rather than a meat thermometer, to determine the doneness of their burgers.
* About half owned a meat thermometer, but almost all of those participants said they used it on larger cuts of meat, not burgers.
* Seventy-five percent said they were unlikely to use a meat thermometer on burgers.

Even though participants knew they were being videotaped, many did not follow recommended guidelines when preparing their burgers:

* Although 90 percent of consumers were observed washing their hands prior to food preparation, the average hand-washing time was just seven seconds, and only 31 percent dried their hands with a clean towel (either a paper towel or a cloth towel that had not been used previously).

* Potential cross-contamination — defined by the study as "an event in which pathogens could be transferred from one surface to another as a result of contact with a potential source of contamination" — occurred in 74 percent of the households.

* While a bar graph showing the temperature distribution of the finished burgers demonstrated that many were at or near the recommended 160 degrees F, a few of the burgers' temperatures were recorded to be much lower — as low as 112 degrees F. (Study coordinators observing consumer behavior made sure all burgers were cooked to 160 F before volunteers consumed them.)

Even after the exercise, only 23 percent of participants said they would use a meat thermometer on burgers in the future.

Bruhn said,

"Consumer education is not sufficient. Take the extra step. It protects the public, and it protects you."

Agence France-Presse reports that three sailors have died of food poisoning on an oil tanker traversing the Channel between Britain and Europe, French maritime authorities said Wednesday.

The captain of the Marshall Islands-flagged Arionas reported the deaths overnight, French officials said, adding that the source of the food poisoning was not known.

French officials have sent a helicopter with two gendarmes and a doctor for a preliminary investigation. More gendarmes would be sent later to question the crew.

Every time a company gets caught with their fingers in the food safety cookie jar, they make pledges to improve food safety procedures. What planet were they living on before? Had they never heard of outbreaks involving similar products? Taking preventative actions? Not making their customers barf?

I’ll stop looking at the world through beer goggles.

CTV News reports a small, organic cheese maker on B.C.'s Saltspring Island is continuing production after a big product recall this week, but with stricter safety measures in place.

Three varieties of Camembert manufactured by Moonstruck Organic Cheese were recalled Monday, after the B.C. Centre for Disease Control discovered the listeria bacteria in one wheel of cheese.

Moonstruck cheesemaker Julia Grace told CTV News that the company has vowed to bump up its safety procedures, and all cheese is now being independently tested before sale.

"It's going to be a shake up but it's going to make us a stronger company. Once you've had an experience like this, you tighten up your measures more ferociously just to make sure this never happens again," she said.

I’ve already given Kevin Allen enough attention – the dude who really enjoyed himself too much while bouncing hockey pucks off my head – but he’s polite enough to give credit and he took my risk analysis course back in 1998 when he was a fledgling graduate student.

The course devotes a lot of time to food safety risk communication and Kevin, being a bright guy, thought, CBC is about to call and ask me about Salmonella in hydrolyzed vegetable protein, I’ll check in with Doug for some tips.

Kevin called, I told him to figure out what his couple of key messages were and hammer them home, cause TV and radio are relentless in their quest for simplicity, and the result is in the first couple of minutes in the video available at

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Local_News/BC/ID=1435456122

Not bad, although his second soundbite may have had more Canadian credibility if he said, “as a father of two children and a hockey player (goon)” but who am I to quibble.

Canada, meet your newest food safety spokesthingy, from Belleville, Ontario, now plying at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Kevin Allen (above, right, exactly as shown).
 

Are small farms incompatible with food safety rules?

Deborah Stockton, executive director of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association (NICFA), said today,

"Small farms produce the safest food available, without regulation. … Just like family farms brought us out of the Great Depression, they can bring us out of the food safety problem and this recession, if they are allowed to thrive.”

Sounds like someone is compensating for inadequacy issues and responding with exaggeration, like a 50-year-old in a Miata rag-top.

The idea that food grown and consumed locally is somehow safer than other food, either because it contacts fewer hands or any outbreaks would be contained, is the product of wishful thinking.


Maybe the majority of foodborne outbreaks come from large farms because the vast majority of food and meals is consumed from food produced on large farms. To accurately compare local and other food, a database would have to somehow be constructed so that a comparison of illnesses on a per capita meal or even ingredient basis could be made.

NICFA is gonna lobby Washington, D.C. types and then hold a local foods feast for Congress tomorrow night. I hope no one gets sick – faith-based food safety is a lousy approach.

There’s a website devoted to all things hamburglery that decided to tackle the question – is it better to only flip a hamburger once or several times on a grill?

Author J. Kenji Lopez-Alt purports to have tested the 1-flip-versus-multiple flip hamburger by preparing a dozen 1/2-pound burgers into equal-sized patties, seasoned them just before cooking with an equal amount of kosher salt and black pepper, then seared them in a steel skillet pre-heated to 450°F (which was temped with an infrared thermometer before adding the patties). The ambient air in the kitchen was at an unbearably hot 76°F. Each patty was cooked to an internal temperature of 125°F, and was then rested for five minutes at room temperature before being autopsied for examination.

The author then applied intact beef roast info to ground hamburger which is wrong and dangerous.

• 125°F (or 51.7°C) is the temperature at which beef is medium rare—that is, hot but still pink, cooked but still moist and able to retain its juices. Any higher than that, and muscle fibers start to rapidly shrink, forcing flavorful juices out of the meat, and into the bottom of the roasting pan.

Make my burgers a thermometer-verified 160F. They’re plenty juicy and won’t make your guest barf.
 

For the past week, people in Kansas have been asking me, did you love the Canadian men’s Olympic hockey victory?

I say, just glad it was a good game, great for hockey.

And then I say, the women’s hockey team really rocked.

Most people look at me and say, women play hockey?

The Canadian women defeated the U.S. for Olympic gold, 2-0, and then showed the men how to party.

I coached girls’ hockey for a number of years while my kids were growing up. To coach little girls playing ice hockey in Canada requires 16 hours of training. To coach kids on a travel team requires an additional 24 hours of training.

It seems reasonable to have some minimal training for those who prepare food for public consumption.

Not so in North Dakota, where the State Health Department says it will not seek charges against a rural Washburn woman for operating an unlicensed catering business linked to sickening 180 people last summer.

Aggie Jennings catered three separate events in June -- two wedding receptions and a family reunion -- that resulted in 76 people seeking medical attention with 10 hospitalized for salmonella Montevideo food poisoning.

A subsequent report found a total of 180 people met the case definition for Salmonella Montevideo.

The Bismark Tribune explains enforcement of regulations governing caterers falls under the jurisdiction of local health units.

Lisa Clute, executive officer for the First District Health Unit, said that board met Feb. 18 and voted not to recommend charges against Jennings, which would be Class B misdemeanors.

The strain of salmonella is one commonly associated with baby chickens, which Jennings raised on her rural residence.

The health department issued an order to Jennings to stop catering June 17, three days prior to the McClusky event, the report said.

The report also found there were four dishes that tested positive for salmonella and all had some type of preparation, storage or handling at Jennings' residence.

It said several people assisting in food preparation at her home may have provided a source of cross contamination.

Clute said the First District Health Unit wants to be consistent in how it deals with such cases and in this instance, she thinks it has.

"We are confident she will never do this again. We stopped it quickly and efficiently and at this point there is no public health threat.”

These people wouldn’t be allowed to sit on the bench and open the door at a little girls’ hockey game. I don’t want them to make food either.

U. S. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped more than 100 pounds of soft Mexican cheese or queso fresco, hidden in false compartments of a vehicle trying to enter the United States across the Bridge of the Americas on Wednesday.

Associated Press notes federal officials permit travelers to import personal quantities of cheese — about 11 pounds per person.

Maybe this was because Chapman and all those food safety types were in town, but four restaurants in Dubai were shut down two weeks ago following tips from customers and employees.

Ahmed AbdulRahman al Ali, the head of the municipality’s food inspection section, said the offenders were also slapped with a fine of more than Dh30,000, adding,



“The restaurants have been shut for a month. After finishing the penalty term, they have to convince us that the food being used is safe. They will also have to sign an agreement to not repeat the offence.”