Yearly Archives: 2015

How to thaw your meat – Italian style

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Among consumer food handling practices, time-temperature abuse has been reported as one of the most common contributory factors in salmonellosis outbreaks where the evidence is strong.

thawing.meat.italianThe present study performed storage tests of burgers, sausages, and kebabs and investigated (i) the effect of refrigerator temperatures (4°C versus 8 or 12°C, which were the temperatures recorded in 33 and 3%, respectively, of domestic refrigerators in Italy), with or without prior temperature abuse (25°C for 2 h, simulating transport of meats from shop to home), and (ii) the impact of the thawing method (overnight in the refrigerator at 8°C versus on the kitchen countertop at 23°C) on the presence and numbers of Salmonella bacteria.

Storage tests were carried out on naturally or artificially (Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium at ca. 10 CFU/g) contaminated products, while freezing-thawing tests were conducted only on artificially contaminated products (Salmonella Typhimurium at ca. 10, 100, and 1,000 CFU/g).

The results from the artificially contaminated products showed significant (P < 0.05) growth of Salmonella Typhimurium at 12°C (i.e., from ca. 8 most probable number [MPN]/g to . 710 MPN/g) in kebabs after 7 and 10 days but more moderate growth in sausages (i.e., from ca. 14 MPN/g to a maximum of 96 MPN/g after 9 days of storage).

Storage of naturally contaminated burgers or sausages (contamination at or below 1 MPN/g) at 4, 8, or 12°C and a short time of temperature abuse (2 h at 25°C) did not facilitate an increase in the presence and numbers of Salmonella bacteria. Thawing overnight in the refrigerator led to either a moderate reduction or no change of SalmonellaTyphimurium numbers in burgers, sausages, and kebabs.

Overall, this study showed that domestic storage and thawing practices can affect food safety and that time-temperature abuse can cause a substantial increase of Salmonella numbers in some types of poultry-based meat preparations, highlighting that efforts for the dissemination of consumer guidelines on the correct storage and handling of meats need to be continued.

 Effects of domestic storage and thawing practices on Salmonella in poultry-based meat preparations

Journal of Food Protection, Number 12, December 2015

Anna Roccato, Mieke Uyttendaele, Veronica Cibin, Federica Barrucci, Veronica Cappa, Paola Zavagnin, Alessandra Longo, Paolo Catellani, and Andantonia Ricci

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2015/00000078/00000012/art00002

Restaurateur calls NZ council ‘racist and crazy’ after bad inspection

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Mountain Scene reports a war of words has erupted between one of Queenstown’s worst-rated eateries and the local council.

mandarin.1.nzMandarin manager Anna Chan accuses the council of being “racist and crazy” over a recent complaint – and subsequent inspection – against the D-graded, Beach Street restaurant.

But the council bites back, saying food safety is color blind.

Mandarin diners complained of an insect in rice and part of a chicken foot in their honey chicken, according to a council report.

They also raised concerns of smelly seafood rice and dirty fish tanks.

Speaking to Mountain Scene through a translator, manager Anna Chan says she thinks council is “racist and crazy.”

She also reckons the report isn’t accurate.

“We don’t use chicken feet in the restaurant at all so I don’t know where the chicken foot came from.

“We also wash the rice three or four times before we cook it, so I don’t know what kind of insect it was – or where that would come from.”

mandarin.2.nzCouncil regulatory boss Lee Webster isn’t happy with the slur; food safety is color blind as are we, he says.

He stresses all issues relate to food safety and hygiene deficiencies.

Council staffer Rachel Rose’s report shows prepared foods in the chiller with no dates, boxes of squid and beef fillet left to defrost at room temperature, fridge temperatures not monitored for over a week and open bags of ingredients in the dry store.

The report stresses bosses need to take complaints seriously, but notes the premises was generally in a reasonable standard of cleanliness.

Chan disagrees with the overall assessment.

Explaining the lack of labels, she says veg cut in the morning are all used daily. On defrosting meat, it doesn’t exceed time limit guidelines when defrosting at room temperature. As for the lack of fridge temperature records, Chan reckons the council made an error when looking at the clipboard.

Chan firmly believes council doesn’t like them – and that is the reason for a D grade.

Pattie’s foods gets out of the frozen berries business following hep A outbreak

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Here’s a predictable progression: products linked to 34 illnesses, shares tank, can’t sell your berries, get out of the berries biz.

According to Business Insider Australia Patties Foods has sold its frozen berries business to Entyce Food Ingredients for an undisclosed sum.FROZEN BERRIES RECALL

The company says the funds from the sale would generate $1.8 million, a sum which is unlikely to affect its fiscal 2016 results.

Its net profit after tax was down from $16.7 million to just $2.1 million.

At the time of the outbreak, the company’s shares tanked 6.5% to $1.28.

Before the recall, the berries business generated 13% of Patties’ sales.

Checking into your suppliers matters when you sell an uncooked product.

‘When I pay an average of over $10 a meal I expect quality food and not poisonous meals’

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A dining hall at Chapman University (no relation) was closed over the past couple of days after students came down with nausea, vomit and diarrhea. According to The Panther, health authorities believe that the illnesses are linked to a norovirus outbreak.

According to an email sent by Jerry Price, dean of students and vice chancellor for student affairs, the cafeteria will reopen for breakfast on Dec. 7 and throughout the weekend food will be available in the Student Union for students with meal plans.photo

“It doesn’t make me scared necessarily, however it’s a bit concerning since I’m on a 19 meal plan and I get a majority of my meals from the cafeteria,” wrote Michael Anderson, a sophomore television writing and production major. “When I pay an average of over $10 a meal I expect quality food and not poisonous meals.”

Kyler Asato, a freshman creative writing major, had lunch at the cafeteria last Wednesday and then lost his appetite. On Thursday he did not eat until 5:20 p.m. after nearly fainting during his dance class.

Asato said that he ate a sandwich and muffin from the Digital Media Arts Center. He then had a pizza from Doy’s Place which caused him to vomit.

“I went back to my room after around 45 minutes of not being able to move due to lack of energy,” Asato wrote. “Then, I had my friend give me Sprite, and went to sleep around 10. I woke up three times and barfed each time. I also had diarrhea at least four times throughout the day, starting from 11 a.m.”

Sounds nasty.

Brae Surgeoner, Doug and I had a paper published in the September 2009 Journal of Environmental Health about some research we conducted in the Winter of 2006. The study came about because a whole bunch of kids in the University of Guelph’s residence system started puking from an apparent norovirus outbreak. There were lots of handwashing signs up and we wanted to know whether they changed hygiene behavior (especially if kids were using the tools available when entering the cafeteria). Turns out that students weren’t doing as good of a job at hand hygiene as they reported to us.

35 sick with Salmonella from Australian restaurant (psst, check the eggs)

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Fried ice cream sounds gross. So does the lengthy time for an investigation, but that’s probably related to the Australian legal process, which doesn’t really seem to serve consumers.

fried.ice.creamThe Daily Telegraph reports a suspected outbreak of food poisoning at a Chinese restaurant at Wenty Leagues, New South Wales, west of Sydney, is being investigated by the NSW Food Authority.

Up to 35 patrons – including 10 children – were believed to be struck ill after an ­evening out in September at the Jasmine Restaurant.

Three of the guests ended up in hospital, including a seven-year-old girl and four-year-old boy, and an adult who tested positive for Salmonella.

Wenty Leagues chief executive Mark Sheridan said the alleged incident on September 23 was being managed through the proper authorities.

“All inspections have been passed to the satisfaction of council and the food authority and the Jasmine Restaurant continues to trade,” Mr Sheridan said.

A group of 59 friends and family had eaten the banquet dinner on a Tuesday evening in honor of a 60th birthday.

They included mother of three Katrina Santos-Monses, who fell violently ill and two of her children, who were also affected.

“The food seemed nice,” Mrs Santos-Monses said. “But I did later suspect the fried ice-cream as it was melted inside and didn’t look like it normally does.”

The next day Mrs Santos-Monses and her children Cassandra, 7, and Sophie, 4, began suffering diarrhea, abdominal pain and high fever. She missed work and the children missed school and were ill the rest of the week.

A few days later, on the Saturday, during her six-month-old son’s christening ceremony, she collapsed. Both she and Cassandra were taken to Fairfield Hospital.

It was at the christening that guests began to realize more people were affected by the outbreak.

“It was like pieces of the puzzle were put together. There were cousins, uncles, so many people affected,” she said.

Mrs Santos-Monses is concerned at the length of time the investigation has taken.

“I’m mad that nobody has contacted me, to apologize or let me know what’s happened,” she said.

In early Jan. 2015, over 100 diners were sickened with Salmonella from fried ice cream at the at the Chin Chin Chinese restaurant in Brisbane.

A table of raw egg-related outbreaks in Australia is available at:

https://barfblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/raw-egg-related-outbreaks-australia-12-1-15.xlsx

 

What about microbial food safety? Food industry launches phone-based disclosure amid labeling battle

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Phillip Brasher of Agri Pulse reports the food industry is launching a smartphone-based system that companies hope will satisfy consumer demands for information about genetically engineered ingredients, livestock production methods and other product attributes. 

qr.code.rest.inspection.gradeThe SmartLabel system, which also will allow consumers to find the information on the web as through the phone-based QR code on package labels, is designed in part to address demands for labeling of biotech foods.

“We all have a desire to get the information that consumers want to them,” said Pamela Bailey, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association. “We happen to think that electronic disclosure is the very best way to do that.” 

The Hershey Co. will be the first company to adopt the SmartLabel in coming weeks.

Now adapt it for microbial food safety – the things that actually make people sick.

Is that 51 live turtles in your pants or you just happy to see me

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How many turtles could you conceal on your person and still feel comfortable while crossing an international border?

Turtle Harvest MoratoriumFor 27-year-old Kai Xu, the answer was 51.

The Canadian national has pled guilty to attempting to smuggle over 1,000 turtles from southeastern Michigan to either China or Ontario, and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Xu would typically order the turtles online, travel to the U.S. to pick them up, and either return to Canada or ship them to China. Xu “regularly deals in turtle shipments worth $30,000, $80,000 or $125,000,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward said in a court filing, according to the Associated Press. “In China, the turtles he smuggles are worth two to three times the amount he pays here.”

Last August, Xu was stopped with 41 live turtles strapped to his body and a further 10 “hidden between his legs,” according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife. (They did not specify how he accomplished either of those tasks.)

‘Excreman’ the humanized pop character from Hong Kong

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A toilet manufacturer is drawing attention to its products in an unusual way with an outdoor installation featuring cartoon poop characters sitting on commodes.

excremanTOTO Hong Kong is promoting its new “smart toilets” by showing off the multicolored thrones outside the World Trade Center in Hong Kong with statues of a cartoon character named “Excreman” — an anthropomorphic pile of dung bearing a resemblance to a brown snowman– sitting on some of the toilets.

Visitors to the installation are being offered rolls of toilet paper branded with Excreman’s likeness and the words, “Excreman’s [expletive]-y garden — a fecal pleasure hunt and toilet roll.”

Some visitors to the installation objected to the perceived vulgarity, as the Cantonese version of Excreman’s name is roughly equivalent to an English-language profanity oft-used as a euphemism for feces.

The company said Excreman was created 10 years ago by Brian Tse Lap-mun and Alice Mak Ka-bik and stars in a three-part book series about his life in the sewers and his dreams of being fertilizer for plants.

‘Dead man’s tray’ a food safety safegaurd

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Every weekday in an elementary school kitchen in Fargo, a worker fills a plastic tray with the day’s lunch offerings and seals, labels and places it in a freezer – all in the name of food safety.

dead.man's.trayA similar process goes on for every meal at the Cass County Jail and at a facility in Dilworth, Minn., where food for Clay County Jail inmates is prepared. The meals are saved for about a week. When the oldest tray comes out, a new one goes in.

The jails and Fargo Public Schools are among a handful of institutions in the Fargo-Moorhead area that collect a sample tray in the event of a foodborne illness outbreak. If two or more people get sick after eating the same meal, a tray of food can be retrieved and tested for pathogens such as salmonella, norovirus or E. coli.

Deb Laber, director of nutrition services at Fargo schools, said the district began making a “fail safe tray” last year at Bennett Elementary; Fargo North High School was added this year.

Capt. Andrew Frobig, administrator at the Cass County Jail, said it is common, though, in his line of work.

“It’s an industry practice,” Frobig said.

Known in some circles as a sample or dummy tray, this food-safety process is commonly referred to in jails and prisons as a “dead man’s tray.” In fact, one website that sells food service products to corrections facilities advertises a “Dead Man Box,” a large metal box that can store trays with lids.

30 sick with Campy at private school in New Jersey

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The Warren County Health Department has confirmed the presence of several Campylobacter infections at Blair Academy, a private high school in Blairstown, where about 80 per cent of its 460 students board at the school.

blair.academy.njPeter Summers, Warren County health officer, said that “a few” of the tests that were sent out to labs came back positive for campylobacter after approximately 30 people had reported becoming ill since mid-November.

Officials at Blair Academy could not be reached for comment, but Summers said he believed parents of students were notified of the infection within the last week or so.