I’m a self-described food safety nerd. I don’t hide from this obsession, I embrace it.  But my fixation on everything food safety has led to much stress lately — for the past 9 months my food safety spidey-sense has been heightened more than normal as Dani and I have been expecting a baby.

And he finally arrived last week.

Our little dude, Jack Neil Chapman, showed up Friday morning at 4:11am (Yes, the Neil part is named after the greatest Canadian singer/songwriter, Neil Young — I’ll fight anyone who disagrees, Ari Gold style, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGVoLsDS3t8&e)

Throughout Dani’s pregnancy I became the food police in our house — no soft cheeses or cold deli meats made it to Dani’s plate, most didn’t even make it in the house. Everything (and I mean everything) has been temped during cooking. I read pretty well every paper I could on listeria, and Doug and I discussed the merits of broad food surveys and listeria growth in blue-veined cheese. It was a bit ridiculous, but I hear that first time parents sometimes can be obsessive.

During the recent Canadian listeria outbreaks I selfishly felt vindicated for keeping the products out of our house — our view was that no matter what type of food safety system food processors had, we weren’t taking the risk. Maple Leaf is a huge company that can afford lots of food safety controls, spoke about their commitment to food safety, and even used the food safety culture term Doug and I are so fond of. But 18 people have so far died from listeria in their products.

When I held Jack for the first time, about 30 seconds after he was born, I first thought "Wow, you’re tiny and light, and you don’t smell as manky as I had thought you would" and soon after I thought about the parents, people just like us, who have been recently affected by listeria.  The victims include at least one miscarriage and  six babies born prematurely in Quebec resulting from the consumption of soft cheeses. A 6-week old Manitoba infant born with a listeria, not linked to either Maple Leaf or Quebec soft cheeses outbreak, also died last week. Those are the ones we know about.

And then I realized that, although I thought I did a great job managing risks in our house, I and the rest of the food safety world have probably failed many out there who haven’t reduced risks.  Not the individuals who made the choice to eat risky foods, but the parents who have never heard about listeria, the ones who ate risky foods without knowing that listeria is 20 times more likely to infect pregnant women or that listeria infections during preganancy are likely to cause miscarriages or stillbirth.   Who knows what effect our risk-reduction practices had on Dani’s pregnancy. Maybe things would have been fine without being so strict, but we weren’t interested in taking the chance.

I’m all about informed decisions around risk. I even think there is a place for raw milk consumption for adults.  But we had the info to make the decisions.  Info that came from a variety of places (for us it was primary resources, outbreak reports and review papers). Other parents rely on food safety professionals, like the health authorities, for info.

Last weekend was all about Jack, and I didn’t get back into reading FSNet until yesterday morning (I’m getting quite good at holding him and reading emails at the same time) and I came across Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones’ advice concerning listeria, including the below:
*Wash your hands. This will help avoid many kinds of infections. Wash your hands in warm soapy water before preparing food, afterwards, and again before eating.
*Read labels and follow cooking and storage instructions for all foods. Make sure to check the “best before” date.
*Freeze or consume leftovers within four days of cooking. Always reheat leftovers until steaming hot before eating.
*Keep refrigerators clean and at a temperature below 4 C, or 40 F. Listeria can grow in the fridge, but the colder it is, the slower it grows. Install a thermometer in your fridge to be sure.
Those tips apply to all of us, all the time, and not just during an outbreak.

There are so many holes in his list of advice, many have nothing to do with listeria, and I don’t think there is evidence that supports many of his statements. Following the list of consumer blames, Butler-Jones did get into listeria with feel-good language: "For seniors, pregnant women, and those with weakened immune systems, or for those serving or caring for anyone in these groups, some extra precautions are very important as [various] foods pose some risk."  He ended his advice with "these steps form a simple approach to food safety."

The most important message missing from his list was: Don’t eat this stuff unless you are cool with the risks.

I sent an email to Doug (the subject line was "what a f*ing joke"), saying where was Dr. Butler-Jones when the outbreak was announced a month ago.  Did it really take a month for his staff to wake up and get some info out there?  A question echoed in the upcoming Canadian Medical Association Journal which says that the Public Health Agency of Canada should be the primary source of information for the public during a crisis and that Canada’s chief public health officer has not been the lead voice to inform the public.

So I guess my preachy message is along the lines of don’t eat poop (especially baby poop, though Jack’s hasn’t started to smell yet).We need to do a better job of creating a dialogue around food safety risks with specific target audiences — especially those at higher risk for foodborne illnesses.  And though the bureaucrats talk a lot, they need to be the real leaders in information — and forget about the fuzzy language that will make the minister happy.  Tell people to stay away from the risky stuff.