Food Safety Talk 59: You’re thinking of Goldmember

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Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds. The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University. Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.  They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.Unknown

In Episode 59 Don and Ben start the show talking about producing stuff, productivity, procrastinating and the excitement of being the bottleneck. Don then spoke about his love of treadmill writing using Dragon Dictate software. David Allen’s two-minute rule and Omnifocus (not to be confused with the five-second rule) also made another appearance. Don also hinted that a certain productivity expert may make an appearance at IAFP 2014. This information made Ben get excited and talk really fast.

Ben talked about watching a documentary about The Improv and took away that food safety communicators and some comedians both benefit from studying storytelling. The guys talked about blocking off specific times in the day to practice your craft (whatever it is).

Don and Ben announced that the infamous Andreas would be leaving the show as master show note person. Don and Ben wished Andreas the best, made him a lifetime member of the Food Safety Talk family and expressed their gratitude to him as helping grow the show. He will be missed. Don also talked about Scott Hurd and Wilber Feagan, who both passed away within 24hrs.

In the new segment, Outbreak Flashback, the guys discussed the 2007 Castleberry’s botulism outbreak and it’s impacts. Don stepped through an FDA investigation report that Bill Marler had on his blog and highlighted some of the lessons that can be taken away for microbiologists as well as industry members.

The guys happened to be in Orlando at the same time and didn’t connect with each other in person. Don was speaking at the Florida Association for Food Protection and Ben was visiting with the National Registry of Food Safety Professionals folks about non-traditional food manager training.

Don and Ben then discussed a question about a New Jersey entrepreneur making and selling granola at a Pennsylvania farmers’ market.

At the end of the show Don gave Ben a statistics test on confidence intervals from Andrew Gelmen’s blog. Andrew is also the source of this excellent paper on storytelling.

In after dark the guys talked about green jellybeans, acne and setting up projects with a statistics person in advance.

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About Ben Chapman

Dr. Ben Chapman is a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. As a teenager, a Saturday afternoon viewing of the classic cable movie, Outbreak, sparked his interest in pathogens and public health. With the goal of less foodborne illness, his group designs, implements, and evaluates food safety strategies, messages, and media from farm-to-fork. Through reality-based research, Chapman investigates behaviors and creates interventions aimed at amateur and professional food handlers, managers, and organizational decision-makers; the gate keepers of safe food. Ben co-hosts a biweekly podcast called Food Safety Talk and tries to further engage folks online through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and, maybe not surprisingly, Pinterest. Follow on Twitter @benjaminchapman.