Wash. raw milk dairy flips off FDA, says Salmonella isn’t reason for recall:

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Cathy Siegner of Food Dive reports that the owners of Pride & Joy Creamery in Granger, Washington declined to voluntarily recall products produced between September 13-28, despite the Washington State Department of Agriculture finding salmonella bacteria in a raw milk sample from Sept. 18.

On Sept. 28, the department issued a public health notice advising people not to consume the dairy’s products.

The owners wrote in their Facebook post that they had contacted distribution points and asked them to pull any milk with an Oct. 4 date for a full credit. They also said they would be producing their organic, grass-fed milk as usual while continuing to investigate the situation.

Pride and Joy shut down for three months this past spring after issuing a voluntary recall. The state said two people who reported drinking the dairy’s products had contracted salmonellosis, although no definite link was established. The state also reported finding E. coli in samples from the dairy, which the owners disputed. During the shutdown, the owners said remediation measures were implemented at the facility to reduce the chance of contamination.

 

Food Safety Talk 135: This is a podcast

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Don and Ben are on the road, talking to some of the best folks in the food safety world at the NEHA Region 4 conference/FDA Central Region retail food protection seminar in Minneapolis. This recording was an experiment, the first Food Safety Talk recorded in front of a live, non-studio audience. Topics included raw milk, hepatitis A, listener feedback on liquid nitrogen, our favorite Bond movies and least favorite pathogens.

Episode 135 can be found here and on iTunes.

 

Show notes so you can follow along at home:

100 schoolchildren sick with Salmonella in Japan

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The Tokyo Reporter says nearly 100 children at 4 kindergartens in Okazaki City fell ill after eating boxed meals tainted with Salmonella, prepared by a company with a history of providing tainted meals.

A total of 87 kindergartners, aged 3 to 6, reported symptoms like fever and vomiting after consuming the tainted bento meals between 21 and 28 Sep 2017, according to officials of Okazaki, reports TBS News on 29 Sep 2017. Salmonella was detected in many of the affected children, 10 of whom were hospitalized, but none are in life-threatening condition, authorities said.

The tainted bento meals were provided to the kindergartens in the cities of Nagoya, Gamagori, and Nisshin by Tokiwa Shyokuhin foods in Okazaki, city officials said. Officials of Okazaki said Tokiwa Shyokuhin was suspended from business operations amid fears there could be more victims. The food company was also responsible for producing meals that left 71 people with food poisoning in April 2016, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

German police arrest suspect in baby-food poisoning threats

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Associated Press reports that German authorities said Saturday they are confident that a 53-year-old man arrested a day earlier is behind a blackmail attempt that saw jars of poisoned baby food placed on store shelves in southern Germany.

Prosecutors said investigators found the same poison — ethylene glycol, a compound used in antifreeze — when they arrested the man Friday near the southwestern city of Tuebingen.

Chief prosecutor Alexander Boger told a news conference in Konstanz, on Germany’s southern border, that the man hadn’t confessed but the evidence against him was substantial.

DNA found on the baby food jars and pictures taken with a supermarket surveillance camera also pointed to the suspect, who wasn’t identified due to German privacy rules, prosecutors said.

Authorities and companies received an email this month threatening to poison unspecified food at German retailers inside the country and beyond unless more than 10 million euros ($11.8 million) was paid by Saturday.

The blackmailer alerted authorities that five jars of baby food at shops in Friedrichshafen, near Konstanz, had been tampered with. Officials located the jars and found they contained ethylene glycol but said there’s no evidence that anyone was poisoned.

C. perfringens : Over 100 sickened at Minnesota jail

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I’ve been in jail, sometimes for long times, sometimes for short times, but my best measure of a graduate student has always been the one who would bail their prof out of jail.

Mara H. Gottfried of the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports that bacteria in food was probably what sickened 137 inmates at the Ramsey County jail recently, according to testing by the Minnesota Department of Health.

In early Sept. 9, people at the jail in St. Paul began complaining of stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting. Nurses treated inmates at the jail and none had to be hospitalized.

The jail notified the Minnesota Department of Health and St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health. State health officials said they tested sample trays of food served for lunch and dinner Sept. 8 and a bacteria called Clostridium perfringens was found in a sample of tamale pie and in rice.

“C. perfringens is a common bacteria that lives in the environment and can be a common cause of bacterial intoxication if food is not handled appropriately with respect to time and temperature,” Amy Saupe, a foodborne-disease epidemiologist, wrote in an email.

“Due to the difficulty of this type of food testing, these results are not sufficient on their own to implicate this food,” Saupe said. “However, the identification of C. perfringens in the tamale pie support other investigation findings. Bacterial intoxication, specifically C. perfringens enterotoxin, was the likely cause of the outbreak.”

The Ramsey County sheriff’s office has a contract with Summit Food Service to provide and serve food at the jail. There were no additional cases reported outside of the Ramsey County jail, according to a Health Department spokesman.

“Food safety is our top priority, and we continuously work to ensure our food service operations comply with the standards of our company and our facilities,” Doug Warner, Summit Food Service spokesman, said in a statement. “While food has not been conclusively identified as the source of the symptoms at Ramsey County jail, we take these issues very seriously, and have been working closely with the health department and our client.”

Oh, fuck off.

Shakita Riley said her fiance, Justin Reynolds, called her from the jail during the outbreak and told her he kept having to use the bathroom and had fever, chills and vomiting. Reynolds said his stomach cramping lasted several days.

“He said, ‘I think we got food poisoning,’” Riley said. She said she could hear other inmates in the background talking about how sick they were.

Reynolds, who has been jailed since July and is awaiting trial in a fatal shooting outside a St. Paul bar, has mostly avoided eating the jail-issued food since he became sick in September. But other options are limited — he’s been buying noodles from the vending machine, Riley said.

7 sick: Not just a UK problem: Outbreak of Campylobacter jejuni associated with consuming undercooked chicken liver mousse

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that on July 13, 2016, Clark County (Washington) Public Health (CCPH) received a report of diarrheal illness in four of seven members of a single party who dined at a local restaurant on July 6, 2016. The report was received through an online/telephone system for reporting food service–associated illness complaints. Members of the five households in the party reported that their only shared exposure was the restaurant meal. CCPH ordered closure of the restaurant kitchen on July 13, 2016, and began an investigation to identify the source of diarrheal illness and implement additional control measures.

CCPH defined a probable case of restaurant-associated illness as diarrhea lasting >2 days in any restaurant guest or staff member with illness onset from July 1, 2016, to July 23, 2016. After Campylobacter jejuni was cultured from stool specimens submitted by three ill members of the dining party, a confirmed case was defined as culture evidence of C. jejuni infection in any restaurant guest or staff member with onset of diarrheal illness during the same period. Five cases (three confirmed and two probable) were identified, four in restaurant guests and one in a food worker; patient age ranged from 27–46 years; three patients were female.

CCPH conducted a case-control study involving 28 menu items, using 14 non-ill dining companions and restaurant staff members as controls. Consumption of two menu items, chicken liver mousse (odds ratio [OR] = 36.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.58–828.9), and grilled romaine hearts (OR = 18, 95% CI = 1.19–271.5) were associated with case status. Because of the higher odds ratio of chicken liver mousse and previous Campylobacter outbreaks associated with chicken livers (1,2), the investigation focused on the mousse.

During an inspection on July 15, the sous-chef solely responsible for preparing the chicken liver mousse demonstrated preparation to the CCPH food safety inspector, who observed that the sous-chef used the appearance of the livers alone to determine whether they were fully cooked. Final internal cook temperature of the largest liver measured by the inspector was <130°F (54°C), below the minimum 165°F (74°C) internal temperature deemed necessary by the Food and Drug Administration to eliminate food safety hazards (3). Because raw chicken parts are not required to be free of Campylobacter (4), and the bacteria might be present on the surface of 77% of retail chicken livers (5), CCPH immediately addressed undercooking of the livers.

One patient stool specimen isolate was available for typing by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The PFGE pattern from this isolate was indistinguishable from those obtained from two chicken liver samples collected in a 2014 campylobacteriosis outbreak in Oregon (1). Chicken livers associated with both the 2014 outbreak and with this outbreak were supplied by the same company. Chicken livers from the lot served at the restaurant on the day of the implicated meal were no longer available; therefore, the U.S. Department of Agriculture could not pursue testing of chicken liver samples.

Among published C. jejuni outbreaks associated with undercooked chicken livers, this outbreak report is the second from the Pacific Northwest (1), and the first in the United States initially reported through an illness complaint system. Because CCPH does not actively investigate Campylobacter cases in persons aged >5 years, and because Campylobacter PFGE is not routinely conducted in Washington, this outbreak would have likely gone undetected if not for the illness complaint system, demonstrating the value of illness complaint investigations to identify outbreaks and mitigate public health risks.

2 Detroit restaurants close during Hepatitis A probe

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Two Grosse Pointe restaurants have voluntarily shut while the Wayne County Health Department investigates multiple cases of Hepatitis A suspected of being related to the establishments, WWJ reports.

The restaurants, Uncle Paul’s Pizza, 21215 Mack Ave., Grosse Pointe Woods and the Cabbage Patch Café & Catering, 15110 Kercheval Ave., Grosse Pointe Park, are cooperating.

Anyone who ate there between Aug. 1 and Sept. 29 should watch for abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dark urine, clay colored stool, fever and chills, along with yellow skin and eyes (jaundice). Symptoms occur 15 to 50 days after exposure and can last several weeks or even months.

Hepatitis A is a vaccine-preventable disease.

13 sick: Another Salmonella outbreak linked to frozen raw chicken thingies

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Public health officials in four Canadian provinces are investigating a salmonella outbreak linked to frozen raw breaded chicken products.

Thirteen cases have been reported, including seven in Ontario, two in Quebec, two in New Brunswick and two in Nova Scotia.

All incidents occurred between June and August and four people required hospitalization, but no deaths have been reported. 

Nice timely reporting.

A news release issued by the Public Health Agency of Canada outbreak does not link the outbreak to a particular brand.

The agency said the outbreak is a reminder that frozen raw breaded poultry products such as nuggets, strips and burgers should be handled the same as other raw poultry products.

“Follow cooking instructions carefully and verify the internal cooking temperature after cooking, as recommended, before consuming these products,” the agency said.

An internal temperature of at least 74 C (165°F) should be reached before eating such products.

The agency said frozen raw breaded chicken products may look pre-cooked, but they contain raw poultry and must be cooked correctly.

Been there, done that.

As we found back in 2007, when preparing frozen foods, adolescents are less likely than adults to wash their hands and are more susceptible to cross-contaminating raw foods while cooking.

“While half of the adults we observed washed their hands after touching raw chicken, none of the adolescents did,” said Casey Jacob, a food safety research assistant at Kansaas State. “The non-existent hand washing rate, combined with certain age-specific behaviors like hair flipping and scratching in a variety of areas, could lead directly to instances of cross-contamination compared to the adults.”

Food safety isn’t simple, and instructions for safe handling of frozen chicken entrees or strips are rarely followed by consumers despite their best intentions, said Doug Powell, K-State associate professor of food safety who led the study.

As the number and type of convenience meal solutions increases — check out the frozen food section of a local supermarket — the researchers found a need to understand how both adults and adolescents are preparing these products and what can be done to enhance the safety of frozen foods.

In 2007, K-State researchers developed a novel video capture system to observe the food preparation practices of 41 consumers – 21 primary meal preparers and 20 adolescents – in a mock domestic kitchen using frozen, uncooked, commercially available breaded chicken products. The researchers wanted to determine actual food handling behavior of these two groups in relation to safe food handling practices and instructions provided on product labels. Self-report surveys were used to determine whether differences exist between consumers’ reported food handling practices and observed behavior.

The research appeared in the November 2009 issue of the British Food Journal. In addition to Jacob and Powell, the authors were: Sarah DeDonder, K-State doctoral student in pathobiology; Brae Surgeoner, Powell’s former graduate student; Benjamin Chapman, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University and Powell’s former graduate student; and Randall Phebus, K-State professor of animal science and industry.

Beyond the discrepancy between adult and adolescent food safety practices, the researchers also found that even when provided with instructions, food preparers don’t follow them. They may not have even seen them or they assume they know what to do.

“Our results suggest that while labels might contain correct risk-reduction steps, food manufacturers have to make that information as compelling as possible or it will be ignored,” Chapman said.

They also found that observational research using discreet video recording is far more accurate than self-reported surveys. For example, while almost all of the primary meal preparers reported washing hands after every instance in which they touched raw poultry, only half were observed washing hands correctly after handling chicken products in the study.

Powell said that future work will examine the effectiveness of different food safety labels, messages and delivery mechanisms on consumer behavior in their home kitchens.

 Self-reported and observed behavior of primary meal preparers and adolescents during preparation of frozen, uncooked, breaded chicken products

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

Abstract:

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.

Originality/value – This paper finds areas that have not been studied in previous observational research and is an excellent addition to existing literature.

Michelin star chef perturbed at health inspectors

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The autumn season in Manitoba (Canada) can be tricky, some days are sunny and warm and others bitter cold. Today is one of those rare warm days so my family and I are planning to cook some chicken on the BBQ. I use a probe thermometer to ensure the poultry is cooked to 74C (165F) so I’m not concerned with microbial safety, it’s the heterocyclic amines that bug me.

A Michelin star chef in the UK is upset that health inspectors questioned his cooking of chicken livers for pate resulting in a poor restaurant health rating.

Jane de Graaff reports

Earlier this week we clocked a story at 9Honey Kitchen that involved internationally acclaimed restaurant Rocksalt in the UK’s Folkestone losing its 5-star health rating over its treatment of chicken. The story goes that the time and temperatures for cooking the chicken livers used in a pâté dish allowed them to retain a blushing pink colour along with a silky texture. When questioned by health and safety inspectors, some of the technique specified was a little confused, and despite the restaurants stellar reputation, resulted in their 5-star health rating being dropped down to 2-star. The restaurant was—not unexpectedly—a little perturbed as the misunderstanding could have been cleared up and the restaurant’s health practices have otherwise been exemplary.
Chef Mark Sargeant—who trained under Gordon Ramsay, has a Michelin star and runs several restaurants—knows full well the implications of dishes being served in a less that regulatory way. Sargent was clearly unimpressed and requested a reassessment of the restaurant’s standards sooner than the usual 3-month period, as the chef feels it’s a misrepresentation of what his team delivers.
“[It’s] the skill of a very good kitchen, you get a beautiful set chicken liver pâté with a beautiful flush going through it which obviously comes about from cooking it at a certain temperature. But it’s cooked, it’s completely safe,” the Telegraph UK reports Sargeant commenting.
He went on to note that it was such overly strict guidelines in the UK that lead to medium-rare burgers being off the menu, as well as the classic dish of steak tartare (raw beef) required to be seared on the outside before scraping out the centre to use in the dish.
As that debate rages on, we thought it might be time to check in with our friends at the CSIRO to find out what the recommendations on chicken actually are. Having seen recent (and reoccurring) stories about chicken sashimi, we wanted to set the record straight, because there seems to be some confusing trends on the rise.

So, can you ever eat chicken raw? Cathy Moir, Senior Food Microbiologist at the CSIRO, say unequivocally no.
“Chicken should not be eaten raw because it may carry harmful bacteria such as Salmonella and Campylobacter that can result in foodborne infection and gastroenteritis,” she says, adding that chicken livers are no different.
“There have been outbreaks of Campylobacter food poisoning linked to dishes such as pâté, where poultry liver has been undercooked. Like other poultry meat, livers need to be cooked all the way through to kill bacteria that may be present. Lightly frying the surface is not enough. Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) recommends that cooked whole livers may still be slightly pink in the centre, but they should never be bloody or look raw.”
Why Moir advises that long, slow, low temperature cooking can be used to cook chicken and still retain a nice blush, but it’s a method best left to professionals of have the training and means to know when they are getting this just right. For Moir the best way to know with certainty that a food like chicken is cooked through is to use an internal thermometer and make sure that the interior temperature is 75°C for chicken.
“Different meats require different cooking temperatures to destroy harmful bacteria. Not only should we cook chicken right through until it reaches an internal temperature of 75°C, the same goes for minced or boned meats, hamburger, stuffed meats, mechanically tenderised meat and sausages. This is because food poisoning bacteria can be present all the way through these types of meat products as well as on the surface and only thorough cooking will kill them. Use a meat thermometer to check temperatures in the thickest part of the meat and always follow cooking instructions on packaged foods.”
Simply put, there is no such thing as chicken sashimi, rare chicken or translucent chicken. These should be avoided at all costs.
So perhaps the health and safety officers in the UK were right to judge harshly on the pink pâté issue after all.