School holidays, the equivalent of summer holidays for our friends in the Northern Hemisphere, end Monday and the kids go back to school.
The four days before the end of summer holidays are devoted to the Melt-the-Ice tournament in neighbouring Boondall.
We were there for 6 a.m.today, and came home with a win and a loss. More games over the weekend.
This is assistant coach Bec and I going over strategies before the second game while the players waited to get on the ice. That’s Sorenne on the far right (Bec was showing me pictures of her newly almost completed deck; photo credit to assistant coach Zoe).
It’s about the same amount of effort the boffins at Public Health Agency of Canada put into announcing an outbreak of E. coli O121 that has sickened at least 12 people from B.C. to Newfoundland.
There have been 12 cases of E. coli O121 with a matching genetic fingerprint reported in three provinces: British Columbia (4), Saskatchewan (4), and Newfoundland and Labrador (4). The illness onset dates range from November to December 2016. Four individuals have been hospitalized. These individuals have recovered or are recovering. The investigation into the source of the outbreak is ongoing.
Ben and Don talk about stuff they are watching, good kid movies and some food safety stuff. The pathogen conversation moves from listener feedback about oysters and couscous; to raw meat for pets; hazelnuts and Salmonella; and, sucking pathogens out of Chipotle air.
I’ve stepped aside for two weeks and this has become painfully apparent: Most of everything I did in my 20-year academic career don’t mean shit.
It’s the food safety version of the liberal bubble.
I’ve been praised and criticized along the way for using new messages, new media and new ways of gauging food safety behaviour.
But it don’t mean shit.
We microbiologially-inclined folks look on with dismay as mere plebes engage in all kinds of risky food stuff, and then lament amongst ourselves at the uneducated public (I don’t, but many others do).
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), long considered the holy tome for all things food safety, has just published its 10 Most Talked About MMWR Reports of 2016:
I watched from the diner counter as my server bare handedly took bread from the storage drawer, toasted it, cut it, and put it on a plate. The manager who had been answering phones and rubbing his face while adjusting his glasses also made toast and wiped his hands on a kitchen towel that then disappeared to wipe something else down.
No imagination needed to see how something like E. coli or Norovirus could be spread as I watched each bit of contact affect all the bread, knives and surfaces.
Am I neurotic? I tried not to have a stomachache.
I just want toast.
Rebecca Fischer (laughingkat2@gmail.com) says she’s in the middle of a career change, following my passion for food by studying nutrition. Food handling has become a fascination, another excuse for people-watching, to see how experience and education affect awareness in kitchen behavior.
And I may be on hiatus but I’m a sucker for helping students who want to learn and kids –little or big — who want to play hockey.
Served gratis and according to your host’s selection alone, we offer up this post-holiday treat for your listening pleasure. Don and Ben talk about Carrie Fisher, barfblog, eating off of iPads, raw milk in vending machines and Vibrio performance standards in molluscan shellfish.
France’s Contrôle Sanitaire writes the publication of the results of health checks in the food sector (restaurants, canteens, slaughterhouses, etc.) is a legitimate expectation of citizens that contributes to the improvement of consumer confidence. Foreseen in the Future for Agriculture, Food and Forest Act of 13 October 2014, this measure is part of a move towards greater transparency of State action.
To which a Brit tweeted @foodgov have been doing this for years, France is now copying the successful “Food Hygiene Rating” scheme.
Oh fuck it.
This is a good point to pause.
Restaurant inspection disclosure goes back to 1924, at which time letter grades were introduced to classify milk in the United States.
Toronto has been doing it since 2000.
So for a Brit to brag to a French about stuff that happened decades ago seems a bit silly, and time for barfblog.com to take a pause.
We don’t want to become recall.net and most of you 100K+ subscribers can figure out how to aggregate news on your own.
Chapman and I started barfblog on a plane trip to Prince George, B.C, where Chapman thought he would be eaten by bears and we saw advertisements for a college student jello thing, but decided we were too old to go.
We went to Vancouver to see our hockey goon friend Kevin Allen, and then to Seattle to see Marler.
Eventually we made our way to Manhattan, Kansas, where I was running away from an ex-wife, a stalking girlfriend and a whole lot of history.
I met a girl and Kansas State University hired me.
This is all the messy stuff in how science gets done but not really reported.
After 45 years of working continuously – I started as a golf caddy at nine-years-old, and the movie Caddyshack is historically accurate — I’m going to give it a break
No retirement, no pension, just want to see what else is out there, and see what other ideas I can come up with for others to claim as their own.
Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.
The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.
The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from contaminated food or water each year, and up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food service facilities. The aim of restaurant inspections is to reduce foodborne outbreaks and enhance consumer confidence in food service. Inspection disclosure systems have been developed as tools for consumers and incentives for food service operators. Disclosure systems are common in developed countries but are inconsistently used, possibly because previous research has not determined the best format for disclosing inspection results. This study was conducted to develop a consistent, compelling, and trusted inspection disclosure system for New Zealand. Existing international and national disclosure systems were evaluated. Two cards, a letter grade (A, B, C, or F) and a gauge (speedometer style), were designed to represent a restaurant’s inspection result and were provided to 371 premises in six districts for 3 months. Operators (n = 269) and consumers (n = 991) were interviewed to determine which card design best communicated inspection results. Less than half of the consumers noticed cards before entering the premises; these data indicated that the letter attracted more initial attention (78%) than the gauge (45%). Fifty-eight percent (38) of the operators with the gauge preferred the letter; and 79% (47) of the operators with letter preferred the letter. Eighty-eight percent (133) of the consumers in gauge districts preferred the letter, and 72% (161) of those in letter districts preferring the letter. Based on these data, the letter method was recommended for a national disclosure system for New Zealand.
Sophie Smith of the Herald Sun reports two videos showing rodents flitting freely around a busy McDonald’s restaurant in Melbourne’s inner-north have emerged.
A disgusted customer, Firoozeh, claims she and friends saw several mice around a McCafe service area of the Collingwood restaurant at midnight on Boxing Day.
Footage uploaded to social media appears to show at least two vermin scampering along the floor between a service counter and a back bench with sink. Another shows one ducking in and out near a stool.
In another video, uploaded to Facebook by Todd Gilbey on December 2, mice scatter along the floor — and one even grabs a chip.
Firoozeh said there were “lots” of mice.
“It wasn’t like three or four mice,” Firoozeh said.
“We watched them for a while; they were coming in and out.
“There were so many and the guy was just coming and scaring them and telling us that, ‘You cannot take video’, because I asked to see the duty manager.”
Firoozeh, who asked the Herald Sun not to publish her surname, said the duty manager at the 24-hour eatery on the corner of Smith St and Victoria Parade became angered when she and her friends raised their concerns.
“He was aggressively stopping me from taking pictures and photos,” she said.
“I’ve never seen such a dirty McDonald’s.
“No-one is cleaning it and it’s supposed to be open for 24 hours. What’s going on?
“I don’t think it’s healthy at all. They were running around and no-one was doing anything.
The four days before the end of summer holidays are devoted to the Melt-the-Ice tournament in neighbouring Boondall.
