Yearly Archives: 2015

4 of the most commonly recalled foods (and how to buy them safely)

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We talked to former professor of food safety, Douglas Powell, about the safest ways to eat the things we love.

Baked Goods

doug.coach.happy.feb.15The Concern: While it’s been more than 10 years since the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act went into effect, unlabeled allergens—most often peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, dairy, fish, shellfish and eggs—are still the number one cause of recalls for FDA-regulated foods. And they often crop up unannounced in bakery products. 



Small Thing to Keep in Mind: If you have an allergy, check the label each time you buy a product, because manufacturers sometimes change recipes and a trigger food may have been added. Here’s a helpful list of unexpected words to watch out for, broken down by the type of diet you’re following.

Cantaloupe

The Concern: These orange-fleshed melons are different from honeydew and watermelon, since their “netted” exterior is more porous, so contaminants from soil, water, animals (and their manure) can get trapped in the rind. Plus, unlike other fruits, they’re not acidic, so pathogens can grow more easily once you cut the melon open. 



Small Thing to Keep in Mind: As many of us already do, avoid buying cantaloupes that look bruised; and, if you purchase precut cantaloupe, make sure it’s refrigerated or on ice. Finally, don’t let the sliced fruit sit out at room temperature for more than two hours.

Chicken

The Concern: This popular meat (we buy about 86 pounds per capita annually) is one of the most common causes of foodborne illness. 



Small Thing to Keep in Mind: A good recommendation is to buy chicken last when you’re grocery shopping, since keeping it cold can prevent bacteria overgrowth. Also, be sure to defrost frozen chicken safely and cook it to 165 degrees (use a meat thermometer).

Sprouts

The Concern: Alfalfa, clover, radish and mung bean sprouts, which add crunch to salads and sandwiches, score well nutritionally. But in recent years, there have been at least 30 food-related illness outbreaks linked to raw and lightly cooked sprouts. 



Small Thing to Keep in Mind: If you enjoy sprouts in salads, buy only ones with fresh, clean, white stems and roots that have been kept properly refrigerated. Dr. Powell says the safest way to prepare sprouts is to cook them thoroughly before eating (so, stir-fries and pad Thai are fine).

The foodborne illness parade

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I have a few signature dishes that I cook regularly: corn/basil salad, beef bourguignon, butternut squash soup and steak salad. They are in a weekly rotation. People (Dani) tells me that the meals are good.

But I wouldn’t sell them.

Cooking for my family and cooking for the public, and selling it are two totally different things.IMG_4513.JPG

Most regulatory bodies in North America treat them differently (stuff for sale is regulated and food that’s prepared and eaten at home isn’t) except, in Surrey, British Columbia (that’s in Canada), according to The Leader.

In Surrey, food that’s made in homes, and sold by homeowners along a parade route, as long as it’s sold on the homeowners property, goes is exempt from food safety regs.

What?

If you plan to make food for the Vaisakhi parade this year, you better get cooking early.

Private citizens and businesses wishing to serve home-made food to the public on commercial roadways along the parade route are required to fill out a temporary food premises permit application.

Erin Labbé, a spokeswoman for Fraser Health, said officials will be following the health authority’s enforcement protocols for the April 18 event.

“Sometimes at festivals, depending on the types of foods served and the duration of the event, enforcement can lead to immediate closures, based on risk,” Labbé said.

However, the food safety regulations don’t apply to people serving home-cooked meals on their own property along the parade route. This means if people are standing on their own front lawns erving their meals they are not at risk of being shut down.

Jersey restaurants’ 4-strike rule: Hamilton considers stiff fines, closure for failed health inspections

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In an attempt to make sure restaurant workers are washing their hands and keeping the kitchen clean, Hamilton officials are preparing to bring the hammer down on restaurant owners who frequently violate health codes.

jon.stewart.handwashing.2002The township council on Tuesday is scheduled to introduce an ordinance that would stiffen penalties for restaurants with a history of failing health inspections, imposing fines as much as three times the current amount and imposing mandatory closures.

Under the current model, restaurants that receive a “conditionally satisfactory” rating, which denotes health issues that need to be addressed, are charged a $250 reinspection fee after each of their second, third and fourth consecutive violations.

After four consecutive violations, the restaurant is shut down until the violations are resolved. Kenji Fusion and China Grill were both shut down for brief periods earlier this year after failing three consecutive inspections.

Township health officer Jeff Plunkett said that some businesses do not take the $250 fee seriously: One owner simply tried to hand a health inspector $250 in cash from his wallet.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that people just pay it,” Plunkett said in February.

The new ordinance would impose steps in the reinspection fees: $250 on the second consecutive offense, $500 on the third and and $750 on the fourth. After four consecutive offenses, the township will shut down the restaurant for a minimum of two days — even if the violations are resolved quickly.

“You keep trying to educate the ownership that they have a responsibility to every customer who walks through their door. It cannot be taken lightly.”

Scotch and a smoke with your kid? Raw milk fans cheer state laws

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Bioethicist Arthur Caplan, head of the Division of Medical Ethics, at New York University, tells Today Health, “Adults drive, cliff dive and smoke, but they have to be informed about risks. The ethical considerations become much more difficult when kids are involved.”

colbert.raw.milkThat’s because kids disproportionately get sick from raw milk.

This past week, West Virginia — which, like many states, bans the direct-to-consumer sales of raw milk —joined other states in a growing movement called herd sharing, which allows citizens of the state to sign a contract with a farmer, buy shares of a cow, and then to pay the farmer to care for the animals and milk them. These shareholders then get the milk in all its raw glory.

“A lot of states are looking at raw milk sales in one way or another, including herdshares, which are sometimes called cowshares,” says Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, a group which opposes the ban against interstate sale of raw milk. “But it’s tough trying to get legal or expanded access to (raw) milk for people who want it, and state by state, it can get a little crazy.”

That’s because back in the late 1980s, the Food and Drug Administration prohibited the distribution of raw milk across state lines for direct sale to consumers. But the U.S. can’t halt products being made within a state to be sold inside that state. That’s led to a patchwork of state laws governing the sale of raw milk.

SnakeOilIn California, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, among other states, you can buy raw milk straight from a retail shelf or farmer’s market, according to the advocacy group. But in New York and Massachusetts, for example, you have to go to a licensed farm to buy raw milk. In Illinois and Kansas you can buy from an unlicensed farm, but if you live in Florida, you can’t buy it at all, unless it’s for your pet.

Currently, the FDA, the World Health Organization, American Medical Association, American Veterinary Association, International Association for Food Protection, and the National Environmental Health Association advise against drinking raw milk, as does the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“People want to be more responsible for their sustainable environment and what they are putting into their bodies but they conflate the two issues because natural doesn’t always equal healthy,” says Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatric position statement on raw milk.

The dairy industry worries that illnesses from raw milk sales could damage public confidence in the safety of dairy products.

“I grew up on a dairy farm and anytime you start milking a cow I will tell you they start defecating, and it can get everywhere,” says Dr. Faith Critzer, a food microbiologist with the University of Tennessee and a food safety extension specialist for the state of Tennessee. “There are just too many points of contamination and pasteurization will get rid of contamination. It will save your life.”

“These are educated people and getting some to change their minds about raw milk is difficult,” she says. “But when things go wrong (with raw milk), they can go terribly wrong.”

Everything comes down to poo

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My mom said she got foodborne illness a couple of years ago, and it affected her for over a year.

ben.stool.sample.nov.09She didn’t contact the health unit and didn’t go the hospital, because that’s how we roll.

My mom’s like most people I chat with about poop: it’s sorta embarrassing. It’s nerds like Chapman (his kit, right) that get stool samples and find out they’re part of a state-wide outbreak.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that increased availability and rapid adoption of culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) is moving clinical detection of bacterial enteric infections away from culture-based methods. These new tests do not yield isolates that are currently needed for further tests to distinguish among strains or subtypes of Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli, and other organisms.

Public health surveillance relies on this detailed characterization of isolates to monitor trends and rapidly detect outbreaks; consequently, the increased use of CIDTs makes prevention and control of these infections more difficult (1–3). During 2012–2013, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet*) identified a total of 38,666 culture-confirmed cases and positive CIDT reports of Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, Shiga toxin–producing E. coli, Vibrio, and Yersinia. Among the 5,614 positive CIDT reports, 2,595 (46%) were not confirmed by culture. In addition, a 2014 survey of clinical laboratories serving the FoodNet surveillance area indicated that use of CIDTs by the laboratories varied by pathogen; only CIDT methods were used most often for detection of Campylobacter (10%) and STEC (19%).

Maintaining surveillance of bacterial enteric infections in this period of transition will require enhanced surveillance methods and strategies for obtaining bacterial isolates.

Bacterial enteric infections detected by culture-independent diagnostic tests — FoodNet, United States, 2012–2014

CDC MMWR March 13, 2015 / 64(09);252-257

Martha Iwamoto, Jennifer Y. Huang,. Cronquist, Carlota Medus, Sharon Hurd, Shelley Zansky, John Dunn, Amy M. Woron, Nadine Oosmanally, Patricia M. Griffin, John Besser, Olga L. Henao

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6409a4.htm?s_cid=mm6409a4_w

Cryptosporidium: 22 years since Milwaukee outbreak killed 69 sickened 400K

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Twenty-two years ago this month, residents of Milwaukee started falling ill with nausea, diarrhea and abdominal cramps. At first, a highly contagious intestinal virus was blamed. But as symptoms struck tens of thousands of people – closing schools and businesses and nearly bringing the city to a standstill – health officials discovered the culprit: a tiny, pink-colored parasite.

crypto cystCryptosporidium, also known as crypto, had made its way through Milwaukee’s water treatment plant and into the city taps. Sickening more than 400,000 people and killing 69, it remains the largest waterborne outbreak in U.S. history. Since then, utilities nationwide have made improvements in water treatment and monitoring.

Public water technology to prevent crypto may have improved, but not the drugs to treat it, said Washington State University researcher Jennifer Zambriski of the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health based in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Once the organism infects the small intestines, its onslaught on the body is just as toxic as it was 22 years ago, she said.

“Crypto is hardy and doesn’t die easily. When someone contracts it, there’s simply no drug to make it go away,” said Zambriski, whose research focuses on finding ways to disrupt the parasite’s pathway through the digestive tract – before it gains a stranglehold on its host.

Which is a big deal, because the parasite still lurks – in ponds, streams, day care centers and swimming pools. In developing countries like Kenya and industrial ones like the United States, it continues to make waves.

Cryptosporidiosis, the disease it causes, is one of the most frequently occurring waterborne diseases among humans in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And in Asia and Africa, the parasite is a leading cause of diarrheal disease and death among infants. (See Lancet study, 2013: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673613608442).

These soft-pink colored pathogenic foes, appearing “almost cute” under a microscope, according to Zambriski, live in the intestines of infected humans and certain animals and are shed in the stool. Once outside the body, a tough outer shell allows them to survive in dirt, water and food for 18 months or longer.

“Bleach, chlorine, freezing backwater streams and water purifying tablets – they can’t kill crypto,” she said.

Whether through contaminated water or an infected person’s unclean hands, the parasites are easily transmitted to humans.

“Ingesting just a small amount can deliver a severe spell of diarrhea to those who are healthy and a grave illness and even death to infants or people with weakened immune systems,” Zambriski said.

Vibrio in Tampa and New Zealand

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The opportunistic pathogen Vibrio vulnificus occurs naturally in estuarine habitats and is readily cultured from water and oysters under warm conditions but infrequently at ambient conditions of <15°C.

SUN0705N-Oyster7The presence of V. vulnificus in other habitats, such as sediments and aquatic vegetation, has been explored much less frequently. This study investigated the ecology of V. vulnificus in water by culture and quantitative PCR (qPCR) and in sediment, oysters, and aquatic vegetation by culture.

V. vulnificus samples were taken from five sites around Tampa Bay, FL. Levels determined by qPCR and culture were significantly correlated (P = 0.0006; r = 0.352); however, V. vulnificus was detected significantly more frequently by qPCR (85% of all samples) compared to culture (43%). Culturable V. vulnificus bacteria were recovered most frequently from oyster samples (70%), followed by vegetation and sediment (∼50%) and water (43%). Water temperature, which ranged from 18.5 to 33.4°C, was positively correlated with V. vulnificus concentrations in all matrices but sediments. Salinity, which ranged from 1 to 35 ppt, was negatively correlated with V. vulnificus levels in water and sediments but not in other matrices. Significant interaction effects between matrix and temperature support the hypothesis that temperature affects V. vulnificus concentrations differently in different matrices and that sediment habitats may serve as seasonal reservoirs for V. vulnificus.

V. vulnificus levels in vegetation have not been previously measured and reveal an additional habitat for this autochthonous estuarine bacterium.

 Sediment and vegetation as reservoirs of Vibrio vulnificus in the Tampa Bay estuary and Gulf of Mexico

Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Eva Chase, Suzanne Young, and Valerie J. Harwood

http://aem.asm.org/content/81/7/2489.abstract?etoc

The foodborne pathogen Vibrio parahaemolyticus has been reported as being present in New Zealand (NZ) seawaters, but there have been no reported outbreaks of foodborne infection from commercially grown NZ seafood. Our study determined the current incidence of V. parahaemolyticus in NZ oysters and Greenshell mussels and the prevalence of V. parahaemolyticus tdh and trh strains.

Pacific (235) and dredge (21) oyster samples and mussel samples (55) were obtained from commercial shellfish-growing areas between December 2009 and June 2012. Total V. parahaemolyticus numbers and the presence of pathogenic genes tdh and trh were determined using the FDA most-probable-number (MPN) method and confirmed using PCR analysis.

Raw oystersIn samples from the North Island of NZ, V. parahaemolyticus was detected in 81% of Pacific oysters and 34% of mussel samples, while the numbers of V. parahaemolyticus tdh and trh strains were low, with just 3/215 Pacific oyster samples carrying the tdh gene. V. parahaemolyticus organisms carrying tdh and trh were not detected in South Island samples, and V. parahaemolyticus was detected in just 1/21 dredge oyster and 2/16 mussel samples. Numbers of V. parahaemolyticus organisms increased when seawater temperatures were high, the season when most commercial shellfish-growing areas are not harvested. The numbers of V. parahaemolyticus organisms in samples exceeded 1,000 MPN/g only when the seawater temperatures exceeded 19°C, so this environmental parameter could be used as a trigger warning of potential hazard.

There is some evidence that the total V. parahaemolyticus numbers increased compared with those reported from a previous 1981 to 1984 study, but the analytical methods differed significantly.

 Long-term study of Vibrio parahaemolyticus prevalence and distribution in New Zealand shellfish

Applied and Environmental Microbiology

D. Cruz, D. Hedderley, and G. C. Fletcher

http://aem.asm.org/content/81/7/2320.abstract?etoc

Use a thermometer, not steaming hot: Bad government advice paid by taxpayers in UK and Aus

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The taxpayer funded bullshit is below, even though the US and Canada say, use a damn thermometer, because color is a lousy indicator. The science is clear on this issue.

bites.stick.it.inThe UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) is reminding people to take care when preparing and cooking burgers at home.

Steve Wearne, Director of Food Policy, at the FSA, said: ‘The most important thing to remember is to cook your burgers so they are steaming hot all the way through, that none of it is pink and that any juices run clear.”

And in Australia, Safe Food Queensland endorsed a fact sheet from Queensland Health that stated, “Make sure to cook chicken thoroughly so that there is no pink meat and the juices run clear.”

Fail.

Stick it in and use a tip sensitive digital thermometer.

Salmonella in Trader Joe’s walnuts

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Trader Joe’s Company is recalling Raw Walnuts because these products have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella.

ucm438493The recalled Trader Joe’s Raw Walnuts were distributed to Trader Joe’s stores nationwide.

The products are packaged in clear plastic bags with the UPC Codes printed on the back. For the Raw California Walnut products, the “BEST BY” dates and Lot Numbers can be found printed on the back of the packages. For the Organic Raw Walnut products, the “BEST BY” dates can be found printed on the front of the packages.

The potential for contamination was noted after routine testing by an outside company contracted by the FDA revealed the presence of Salmonella in certain packages of Trader Joe’s Raw Walnuts.

Out of an abundance of caution, Trader Joe’s removed all lots of these products from store shelves and will suspend sale of these products while the FDA and the manufacturers involved continue their investigation into the source of the problem.

To date, Trader Joe’s Company has not received any illness complaints related to these recalled products.

 

Lawsuit filed in norovirus-linked fatality

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Foodborne norovirus is linked to around 5.5 million illnesses a year and costs the U.S. around $3 billion annually. Fortunately most of the cases result in a couple of days of really bad vomiting or diarrhea – but usually not deaths (an estimated 150 annually).

According to Oregon Live, a 2013 norovirus outbreak at Maggie’s Buns may have resulted in a unique and tragic outcome: 43-year-old Kevin Weeks’ died a week after exposure to the pathogen.Screen Shot 2015-03-17 at 12.53.52 PM

The wife of a 43-year-old man who died after allegedly eating food contaminated with the norovirus has filed a $2.9 million lawsuit against a popular Forest Grove restaurant.

Stacey Weeks faults Maggie’s Buns for catering a meal that she believes was tainted with the norovirus. Her husband, Kevin Weeks, was a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry and ate the food at the work event on Friday, March 15, 2013.

Public health investigators said 15 other people fell ill by the following Saturday, but most were feeling better by Monday. Weeks, however, died the following Tuesday — four days after dining at the gathering.

Investigators determined that most of those who were sickened ate watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple or strawberries from a fruit tray. But investigators said in March 2013 that they didn’t know how the virus ended up there.

The virus is spread directly among people through contact or through contaminated food, water or surfaces. It’s highly contagious, but doesn’t usually kill.

Shortly after Weeks died, deputy state medical examiner Dr. Clifford Nelson said Weeks was exposed to the norovirus at the event, but it appeared that Weeks had health problems that caused his death. Nelson said, however, that he was awaiting some test results before he could draw a final conclusion.