Yearly Archives: 2015

Chicken products recalled due to Staphylococcal enterotoxin contamination

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Murry’s, Inc., a Lebanon, Pa. establishment, is recalling approximately 20,232 pounds of gluten-free breaded chicken nugget product that tested positive for Staphylococcal enterotoxin, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

staph.chicken.jul.15The following product is subject to recall: [View Labels (PDF Only)]

12-oz. boxes of “Bell & Evans Gluten Free Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggets” with a “Best By” date of March 25, 2016.

The product, bearing establishment number “P-516” inside the USDA mark of inspection, was shipped to an establishment for distribution nationwide.

The problem was discovered by the Colorado Department of Agriculture during a routine retail surveillance and sampling program, which is funded by the USDA at a Federal Emergency Response Network lab. After being notified of the positive test result, FSIS conducted traceback activities.

Staphylococcal food poisoning is a gastrointestinal illness. It is caused by eating foods contaminated with toxin-producing Staphylococcus aureus.

Staphylococcus aureus is a common bacterium found on the skin and in the noses of healthy people and animals. Staphylococcus aureus can produce seven different toxins that are frequently responsible for food poisoning.

Staphylococcal enterotoxins are fast acting, sometimes causing illness in as little as 30 minutes. Thoroughly cooking product does not prevent illness, and symptoms usually develop within one to six hours after eating contaminated food. Patients typically experience several of the following: nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, and diarrhea. The illness is usually mild and most patients recover after one to three days.

To prevent Staphylococcal contamination, keep kitchens and food-serving areas clean and sanitized. Keep hot foods hot (over 140 °F) and cold foods cold (40 °F or under). Make sure to wash hands and under fingernails vigorously with soap and water before handling and preparing food. Do not prepare food if you have an open sore or wound on your hands or if you have a nose or eye infection.

Expect a lawsuit? How Kentucky food makers fight listeria

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Adam Burckle, owner and president of Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen, said he isn’t concerned about listeria because the company is regularly audited by health and safety inspectors and performs internal audits of its processes weekly.

listeria.pie.ice.creamThe company also uses pasteurized products, he said. Pasteurization is a sterilization process that kills harmful microorganisms.

“We don’t see it as an industry issue,” he said. “It is just one of those isolated issues.”

He added that Homemade has had an “exceptional record” for more than 30 years.

Roy Koons-McGee, who handles safety and production for The Comfy Cow, did not return multiple calls for comment.

Rudy Green Inc., a Louisville-based dog food manufacturer, uses organic food in its products, said owner Karla Haas.

“We test everything before it goes out for any microbial growth,” she said, adding: “It is something that consumers need to be aware of, especially with raw pet food. It can be really dangerous.”

In nine years, Rudy Green has never had a recall or found listeria in any of tests.

Brian Comstock, co-owner of Bernoulli, said, “What we do is not complex. It’s not brain surgery, but it can kill people.”

Same people who promote piping hot: UK restrictions on raw milk should remain

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The board of the UK Food Standards Authority today agreed that the current restrictions on the sale of raw milk should remain in place, following the conclusion of the FSA’s review of raw drinking milk controls.

Raw-Milk-Card-FrontThe FSA Board met to discuss the findings of the comprehensive review of the regulations that control the sale of unpasteurised, or raw, drinking milk.

The review concluded that:

the risk associated with raw drinking milk consumption, except for vulnerable groups, is acceptable when appropriate hygiene controls are applied

the current restriction on sales of raw milk should remain in place as there is uncertainty that consumer protection can be maintained if the market for raw milk is expanded

risk communication could be improved, particularly for vulnerable groups, and changes to the labelling requirements are proposed to reflect this

The Board accepted the conclusions of the review.  However, they noted concerns that consumers should be more aware of the risks and asked that the FSA be clear in its advice not to drink raw milk.

Top 10 soundbites about Salmonella

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Emily Willingham of Everyday Health writes that at least eight people have fallen ill with salmonella-related food poisoning in an outbreak that has triggered a recall of 1.8 million pounds of raw, stuffed chicken products, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in a July 12 announcement.

chicken.thingies.2The recall originally was announced July 2 but has been expanded to include additional products. The disease cases were identified in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but the recall is nationwide.

The culprit in this case is breaded, stuffed, raw chicken breasts produced by Barber Foods in the U.S. and No Name brand in Canada, identified after a cluster of salmonella illnesses cropped up in late June.

  1. Use thermometers. According to Doug Powell, PhD, a former food science professor at Kansas State University who maintains a blog tracking food safety, if consumers want to protect themselves, they should always use a meat thermometer when cooking meat. Noting that the USDA has required raw products to be labeled as raw and to list the proper cooking temperature for safety, he says that most consumers won’t use thermometers. “They just guess,” Dr. Powell says. “Most people just throw (the food) in the microwave to warm it up (and) don’t carry around thermometers like I do.” The target temperature for poultry is 165 F, which the USDA says should be checked at the center of the meat, at the thickest part.
  2. Avoid cross-contamination. “Another risk,” he says, “is how much they’re handling (the meat) before it’s cooked.” Powell says that he urges people “be the bug” and think about the surfaces that meat might touch during handling and keep things clean. “Think about where that bacteria is going to be,” he says. According to the CDC, prevention includes immediately washing with warm soap and water any kitchen work surfaces and utensils that come in contact with raw meats.
  3. Be aware of what could be exposed to salmonella. The bacteria live in the intestines of animals, so anything that could be exposed to intestinal contents can be at risk of salmonella contamination. Powell gives an example: “I’ve got an herb garden in my back yard,” he says, “and I know that birds (poop) on it and that they’re (pooping) salmonella.” Indeed, some outbreaks around the world have not involved meat at all but instead have been associated with plants, including peanuts, spices, and a fruit-based candy. Unpasteurized foods, including unpasteurized milk, are also a risk.raw.chicken.thingies.outbreak
  4. Pets can be a risk … and at risk. Because of the risk of contamination from exposure to fecal matter, pets like turtles, other reptiles, and baby chicks are particularly prone to being sources of salmonella infection. Says Powell about contact with chickens, which were the source of another recent U.S. outbreak: “You see a cute bird, I see a salmonella vector.” Dogs and cats can actually be infected, with sometimes-severe and long-lasting symptoms, and can pass infection to humans.
  5. Other outbreaks have also involved raw, stuffed chicken products. According to Powell’s blog, several other salmonella outbreaks have been traced to chicken products like those in the current recall. Powell thinks that products like these should be cooked for the consumer in the first place. “The consumer is not the critical control point,” he says.
  6. Even the very healthy are not immune to hospitalization. Oakland A’s pitcher Sonny Gray became gravely ill from a recent bout with salmonella and had to be hospitalized. According to reports, his fever reached 103 F, and he required considerable fluid replacement.
  7. Freezing does not kill salmonella. Powell says that freezing does not knock out the microbes, it just shuts them down temporarily. “Once you warm (the food) up,” he says, “they go to town.”
  8. Microwaves and salmonella may not mix. The heat in a microwave isn’t very well controlled, according to Powell. Within the food, microwaves “just give tremendously ridiculous differences in heat,” he says, which can mean uneven temperatures and places for the bacteria to persist.
  9. There’s a reason Minnesota is ground zero for salmonella outbreaks. “Minnesota is particularly good at picking them up,” says Powell, “because they have a well-funded public health system.” So while it might seem like Minnesota has a problem with outbreaks, including another current salmonella outbreak related to frozen raw tuna, the real reason the state appears in so many outbreak stories is because of its strong tracking systems.
  10. Handwashing is an important preventive measure. Wash hands before and after handling raw meat, pets, or outdoor plants, after swimming, and before eating. “Salmonella is natural and it is there,” says Powell. “Be aware.”

Direct video observation of adults and tweens cooking raw frozen chicken thingies 01.nov.09

British Food Journal, Vol 111, Issue 9, p 915-929

Sarah DeDonder, Casey J. Jacob, Brae V. Surgeoner, Benjamin Chapman, Randall Phebus, Douglas A. Powell

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do;jsessionid=6146E6AFABCC349C376B7E55A3866D4A?contentType=Article&contentId=1811820


Purpose – The purpose of the present study was to observe the preparation practices of both adult and young consumers using frozen, uncooked, breaded chicken products, which were previously involved in outbreaks linked to consumer mishandling. The study also sought to observe behaviors of adolescents as home food preparers. Finally, the study aimed to compare food handler behaviors with those prescribed on product labels.
Design/methodology/approach – The study sought, through video observation and self-report surveys, to determine if differences exist between consumers’ intent and actual behavior.

Findings – A survey study of consumer reactions to safe food-handling labels on raw meat and poultry products suggested that instructions for safe handling found on labels had only limited influence on consumer practices. The labels studied by these researchers were found on the packaging of chicken products examined in the current study alongside step-by-step cooking instructions. Observational techniques, as mentioned above, provide a different perception of consumer behaviors. 


Food safety memories: Inside Out

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Food should be about joy.

food.safety.mememories.inside.outInstead it too often involves anger, fear, disgust and sadness.

That’s the plot of the new Pixar movie, Inside Out.

Not the food bit, but the emotions humans use to remember things (and why Lewis Black’s angry man character in the film is so compelling).

The movie tells the story of 11-year-old Riley, a hockey player from Minnesota, and her difficulty dealing with a family move to San Francisco.

They had me at girl hockey player, since all five of my daughters play(ed).

My most compelling food memory is this: when my first child was born at home, 28 years ago, I remember walking in Guelph with her 12 hours after birth, and then a couple of friends came over.

I cooked a stuffed trout.

I still remember that stuffed trout as the best ever, but that was probably fuelled by the emotions of the first kid.

Inside Out plays on similar emotions, as did Ratatouille, another Pixar film, in 2007.

Carole Peterson, a professor of psychology at Memorial University in Newfoundland, says that, “Children have a very good memory system. But whether or not something hangs around long-term depends on several other factors” such as whether the memory “has emotion infused in it,” and whether the memory is coherent.

Inside Out gets this right.

sorenne.doug.hockey.jun.15Research from Eric Kandel’s lab at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) has uncovered further evidence of a system in the brain that persistently maintains memories for long periods of time. Paradoxically, it works in the same way as mechanisms that cause mad cow disease, kuru, and other degenerative brain diseases.

In four papers published in Neuron and Cell Reports, Dr. Kandel’s laboratory show how prion-like proteins – similar to the prions behind mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans – are critical for maintaining long-term memories in mice, and probably in other mammals.

When long-term memories are created in the brain, new connections are made between neurons to store the memory. But those physical connections must be maintained for a memory to persist, or else they will disintegrate and the memory will disappear within days. Many researchers have searched for molecules that maintain long-term memory, but their identity has remained elusive.

People learn through and retain stories. Technology is just a tool to deliver the story

Chapman and I figured that out in the early 2000s, going to the bathroom in the restaurant after playing hockey and seeing sports pages above urinals, and ultimately convincing the manager to post food safety stories.

As part of his PhD research, Chapman partnered with a food service company in Canada and placed small video cameras in unobtrusive spots around eight food-service kitchens that volunteered to participate in the study. There were as many as eight cameras in each kitchen, which recorded directly to computer files and later reviewed by Chapman and others.

braun.sorenne.hockeyFood safety inforsheets, highlighting the importance of handwashing or preventing cross-contamination, for example, were then introduced into the kitchens, and video was again collected. We found that cross-contamination events decreased by 20 per cent, and handwashing attempts increased by 7 per cent.

Tell a food safety story, make it compelling.

And involve female hockey players.

Dr. Douglas Powell is a former professor of food safety who shops, cooks and ferments from his home in Brisbane, Australia.

Who can control cats? Visual audit of food safety hazards present in homes in an urban environment

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Research utilizing both survey and observational techniques has found that consumers do not accurately report their own food handling behaviors.

braunwynn.kittens.03The goal of this study was to objectively observe conditions related to food safety risks and sanitation in domestic kitchens in an urban environment. Subjects (n = 100) were recruited from Philadelphia, PA. Homes were visited over a one-year period by two trained researchers using a previously developed audit tool to document conditions related to sanitation, refrigeration, and food storage.

Potential food safety risks identified included evidence of pest infestation (65%), perishable food stored at room temperature (16%), storage of raw meat above ready-to-eat foods (97% of homes where raw meat was present), and a lack of hot running water in the kitchen (3%). Compliance with correct refrigeration practices was also low, with 43% of refrigerator temperatures ≥ 41°F, and only 4% of refrigerators containing a thermometer.

Consumers of minority race/ethnicity were more likely to have evidence of pest infestation in the home, lack a dishwasher and lack a cutting board in the kitchen, while Caucasian consumers were more likely to have an animal present in the kitchen during the audit visit.

 

Salmonella cases in Minn linked to contaminated raw tuna, part of national outbreak

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Still don’t like raw seafood – too many microbiological risks.

tuna1According to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, two Minnesota residents sickened recently with salmonellosis are linked to frozen raw tuna, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) said today.

The ill Minnesotans are adults in their 30s from the metro area who became ill on June 21 and June 30. Neither was hospitalized. These cases, which are part of a larger national outbreak (See CDC: Multistate Outbreak of Salmonella), were linked to spicy tuna rolls purchased at a grocery store and a workplace cafeteria. The outbreak strain of Salmonella bacteria was found in sealed bags of frozen raw tuna from the lot used to make the spicy tuna rolls eaten by one of the cases.

The tuna was distributed by Osamu Corporation (Gardena, CA). Retail stores should not sell and consumers should not eat tuna from this lot.

Grocery stores and other retail outlets should check their raw tuna supply for bags or boxes labeled with Lot 68568 from Indonesia (check with your supplier or shipping receipts/invoices if individual bags are not labeled). Tuna from this lot may be contaminated and should be discarded and not sold or served.

Consumers concerned that they may have purchased sushi made with this tuna should contact the place where it was purchased. The investigation in Minnesota and nationally is ongoing.

 

Two outbreaks of Salmonella Enteritidis linked to raw, frozen, chicken thingies

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Now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control gets into things:

Several states, CDC, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) are investigating two outbreaks of Salmonella Enteritidis infections linked to raw, frozen, breaded and pre-browned stuffed chicken entrees.

barfblog.Stick It InIn one outbreak, six people infected with a strain of Salmonella Enteritidis have been reported from Minnesota (5) and Wisconsin (1). Two of these ill people have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

In the second outbreak, three people infected with a different strain of Salmonella Enteritidis have been reported from Minnesota. Two of these ill people have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

On July 1, 2015, USDA-FSIS issued a public health alert due to concerns about illnesses caused by Salmonella that may be associated with raw, frozen, breaded and pre-browned, stuffed chicken products.

Barber Foods issued an expanded recall of approximately 1.7 million pounds of frozen, raw stuffed chicken products that may be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis on July 12, 2015. This recall expanded the initial Barber Foods recall of Chicken Kiev on July 2, 2015, and resulted from the investigation of the first outbreak.

Products were sold under many different brand names.

Products subject to recall bear the establishment number “P-276” inside the USDA mark of inspection.

Products were shipped to retail locations nationwide and Canada (and there’s a bunch of people sick in Canada, but apparently a different frozen chicken thingie).

Since the last update on July 8, 2015, two more ill people have been reported from Minnesota and Wisconsin. A total of six people infected with a strain of Salmonella Enteritidis have been reported from Minnesota (5) and Wisconsin (1). Illness onset dates range from April 5, 2015 to June 23, 2015. Two people were hospitalized.

Outbreak 2

No new illnesses have been identified since the last update on July 8, 2015. The Minnesota Department of Health identified three people infected with a different strain of Salmonella Enteritidis with illness onset dates ranging from May 9, 2015 to June 8, 2015. Two people were hospitalized.

On July 12, 2015, Barber Foods expanded its recall to include 1.7 million pounds of frozen, raw stuffed chicken products that may be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis. The recall included Chicken Kiev as well as other types of frozen chicken products. The chicken products were produced between February 17, 2015 and May 20, 2015. The products subject to recall bear the establishment number “P-276” inside the USDA mark of inspection. The products were shipped to retail locations nationwide and Canada and sold under many different brand names. A list of recalled products is available. This recall expanded the initial Barber Foods recall of Chicken Kiev on July 2, 2015 and resulted from investigation of the first outbreak.

 

Restaurants required to freeze raw fish before serving

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Once again, the New York Times has show how really little it knows, declaring that fish mush be frozen before serving raw.

Ceviche_mixto_890They’ve been frozen at sea for decades, to control parasites.

And I don’t eat raw fish.

New regulations, published this week by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, require that fish served raw, undercooked or marinated raw in dishes like ceviche must first be frozen, to guard against parasites. In March, the Board of Health approved the regulations, which now align with Food and Drug Administration recommendations and are set to take effect in August.

That means that by the end of summer all fish used in sushi, sashimi, tartare and other popular raw dishes will make a pit stop in the freezer before they end up on diners’ plates.

Though some customers might blanch at the idea that their coveted crudo and sashimi — sometimes costing hundreds of dollars — emerged from a deep freeze, the truth is that many chefs in the city’s top restaurants have long used frozen fish to prevent serving their raw fare with a side of pathogens.

“We purposely deep-freeze at negative 83 degrees, and we use one of those medical cryogenic freezers,” said Yuta Suzuki, vice president of Sushi Zen, a popular Times Square restaurant. “This way, it’s kind of like cooking, but instead of using heat we use freezing to remove parasites or bacteria on the outer surface.”

Even the New York City chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association, which had complained about the regulations at a health department hearing in January, has reversed course. Now that the regulations have been stripped of certain record-keeping requirements that the association considered onerous, establishments serving raw fish should be able to handle the change, James W. Versocki, a legal counselor for the group, said.