Category Archives: Probe Podcast

Quasi-daily probe E02: A snapshot in time

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My friend and colleague Alyssa Barkley of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association joined me on Episode 2 of the quasi-daily probe. Here’s our conversation in it’s raw, unedited, form.

Today we talked about restaurant inspection, media coverage and posting grades.Quasi-daily-probe

The article that prompted the probe was from the Triangle Business Journal, who put together a list of restaurants in Wake County (where I live) that were cited for five or more  more critical health code violations since the beginning of August. 

Frances Breedlove, who oversees foodservice facility inspections for Wake County, says a critical violation is any rule violation that increases the likelihood of spreading foodborne illnesses. Those can include storing food at the incorrect temperature, employees failing to wash their hands or not keeping cooking areas sufficiently clean.

In all, more than 200 Wake County restaurants were docked for having at least one critical violation. Of those, roughly half were cited for having five or more critical health code violations. Many more were cited for noncritical violations of food safety rules.

The quasi-daily probe E1: The okra of the sea

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My friend Mike Batz of University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogen Institute and I were chatting a while back and thought it would be cool to connect for short podcasts when there was something fun going on. Here’s the first episode (and maybe the last) in it’s raw, unedited, short format.Daily-probe

Today we talked about oysters, raw and steamed, Vibrio, norovirus, burden and risk-based messaging.

The article that prompted the probe was from Lifezette where oysters are referred to as those scary shellfish.

Heads up, raw oyster lovers. New research from China shows the bivalves not only transmit human norovirus, they also serve as a reservoir for the harmful and highly contagious virus.

In an expansive study published recently in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, scientists discovered that more than 80 percent of the known noroviruses matched those found in oysters.

Even common recommendations for reducing the risks of illness, such as avoiding them from warm-water sources, aren’t a guarantee you won’t get sick, food safety expert Ben Chapman told LifeZette.

“Considering where they’re from, and not eating them at a certain time of year, may reduce the risk, though risk is always there,” said Chapman, a researcher at North Carolina State University. Chapman also notes that cooking oysters may lower risk, but that steaming — a popular way to prepare them — isn’t likely to get them above 140 degrees.

Listen to the episode here.