‘Human cheese’ from celebrity skin bacteria

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Of course Heston I-didn’t-sicken-550-people-wth-Norovirus Blumenthal would be vain enough to sign up to have cheese made from his skin – his groin area.

I’m a big fan of fermentations but am also a big fan of using knowledge and experience to improve on basic biological phenomena.

Bettina Makalintal of Vice writes that people have been fermenting for at least 9,200 years, and yet, not everyone’s convinced. The process requires bacteria, which can result in funky sights and smells, squicking some people out. Still, it’s safe to say that fermentation advocates have done a good job of turning people on to the magic of microbes: dry-aged beef is on high-end restaurant menus, and more and more people reap the illness flavor rewards of raw-milk cheese.

A new exhibit at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum called “Food: Bigger than the Plate” shows off not only a toilet made of cow manure and an edible water bottle, but also “human cheese.” The latter is made using human bacteria. And not just any human bacteria, but celebrity bacteria

Most cheese is made using starter cultures, bacteria that curdle the milk, and often, those starters come from a packet. For the V&A’s five “human cheeses,” however, that bacteria came from celebrities, who had their skin swabbed in the name of science and truly funky cheese: from baker and food writer Ruby Tandoh to chef Heston Blumenthal to Blur’s Alex James, a cheesemaker himself. (British rapper Professor Green and Suggs of the ska band Madness also contributed.) It’s “like a celebrity selfie in cheese form,” reads V&A’s blog.

The point, the museum says, is to challenge people’s “squeamishness” and to enhance “our appreciation of the microbial world.”

UN world food safety day Friday 7 June

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Today or tomorrow, depending on your time zone, is the first ever celebration of the United Nations World Food Safety Day.

I’ve never been a fan of any particular day, especially birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas and Easter, but I am a fan of changing seasons and the solstices.

Every day, every meal, is food safety for me.

I can be annoying to live with.

According to the World Health Organization, every year, nearly one in ten people in the world (an estimated 600 million people; it used to be 1-in-4, then it was 1-in-6, now I guess it’s 1-in-10) fall ill and 420,000 die after eating food contaminated by bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances. Unsafe food also hinders development in many low- and middle-income economies, which lose around US$ 95 billion in productivity associated with illness, disability, and premature death suffered by workers.

World Food Safety Day 2019’s theme is that food safety is everyone’s business.

Yeah, but my kitchen isn’t a business, it’s a family.

Food safety contributes to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development.

It’s also supposed to be a place of social sharing, empathy and enjoyment.

Not barfing.

The UN has designated two of its agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to lead efforts in promoting food safety around the world.

FAO and WHO are joining forces to assist countries to prevent, manage and respond to risks along the food supply chain, working with food producers and vendors, regulatory authorities and civil society stakeholders, whether the food is domestically produced or imported.

“Whether you are a farmer, farm supplier, food processor, transporter, marketer or consumer, food safety is your business,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said. “There is no food security without food safety,” he said.

“Unsafe food kills an estimated 420,000 people every year. These deaths are entirely preventable,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “World Food Safety Day is a unique opportunity to raise awareness about the dangers of unsafe food with governments, producers, handlers and consumers. From farm to plate, we all have a role to play in making food safe.”

Large shigellosis outbreak at wedding

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My cousin of Barrie’s Asparagus is in the midst of the annual crop in southern Ontario, and I know they have good food safety because my students have checked them out in years past and, I’m his cousin.

Unfortunately not all growers are as diligent and any commodity can get branded as shit.

Specifically, Shigella shit.

Findings presented at the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, or EIS, conference last month found that contaminated asparagus was the likely source of an outbreak of shigellosis at a wedding party in Oregon that sickened 112 people.

The outbreak was caused by Shigella flexneri type 3a, which accounts for less than 3% of S.flexneri isolates in the United States, researchers said.

“This was one of the largest foodborne outbreaks of shigellosis in U.S. history,” Steven I. Rekant, DVM, MPH, an EIS officer with the Oregon Public Health Authority, said in a presentation. “It was the second largest ever attributed to Shigella flexneri and that type of Shigella flexneri, type 3a, is uncommon in Oregon.”

According to Rekant and colleagues, the Oregon Health Authority received reports of gastroenteritis among attendees at a wedding in August 2018 and identified S. flexneri type 3a in stool samples.

A total of 263 people attended the wedding, and 75% responded to the survey. The patients were aged 2 to 93 years, and 55% were female.

“Simply put, this was big outbreak — 112 cases were reported, with an overall attack rate of 55.7%,” Rekant said.

Of 95 patients with onset information, 97% reported illness 12 to 72 hours following the wedding. Additionally, 57 patients presented to a health care facility and 10 were hospitalized, including a 92-year-old woman. No deaths or additional cases were reported.

The investigators found that only asparagus consumption was associated with illness.

They pointed to poor hygiene on the part of the food-handler as the “likely cause of contamination.”

Rekant SI, et al. Shigellosis at a Wedding — Oregon, 2018. Presented at: Epidemic Intelligence Service conference; April 29-May 2, 2019; Atlanta.

After eating raw rodent’s kidney for ‘good health’ Mongolia couple died of bubonic plague

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On May 1, 2019, a couple in Mongolia died from bubonic plague after eating raw marmot meat, sparking a quarantine that trapped tourists for days.

Ariuntuya Ochirpurev, a World Health Organization official, told the BBC.

Ochirpurev told BBC that the couple ate the rodent’s raw meat and kidney, which is believed to be good for health in the area.

“After the quarantine (was announced) not many people, even locals, were in the streets for fear of catching the disease,” Sebastian Pique, an American Peace Corps volunteer in the area, told AFP.

Bubonic plague can be transmitted via infected fleas and animals, like prairie dogs, squirrels, rats and rabbits, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Cryptosporidiosis in Norway associated with self-pressed apple juice

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In the autumn of 2018, an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis affected adult employees from the same company in Western Norway. The organism was Cryptosporidium parvum, GP60 subtype IIaA14G1R1.

All those infected had drunk from the same container of self-pressed apple juice. Incubation period (1 week) and clinical signs were similar among those infected, although some experienced a more prolonged duration of symptoms (up to 2–3 weeks) than others.

The infections resulted after consumption from only one of 40 containers of juice and not from any of the other containers. It seems that although Cryptosporidium oocysts were detected in a sample from another container, the contamination did not affect the whole batch. This is perhaps indicative of a restricted contamination event, either from contaminated ground in the orchard, or during collection of the fruit, or during processing.

Although outbreaks of foodborne cryptosporidiosis have previously been associated with consumption of contaminated apple juice, most of the more recent outbreaks of foodborne cryptosporidiosis have been associated with salad vegetables or herbs. This outbreak, the first outside U.S. reported to be associated with apple juice, is a timely reminder that such juice is a suitable transmission vehicle for Cryptosporidium oocysts, and that appropriate hygienic measures are essential in the production of such juice, including artisanal (non-commercial) production.

Robertson, L. J., Temesgen, T. T., Tysnes, K. R., & Eikås, J. E. (2019). An apple a day: An outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in Norway associated with self-pressed apple juice. Epidemiology and Infection, 147. doi:10.1017/s0950268819000232

http://www.bibme.org/bibliographies/228541420?new=true

Damn you, hedgehogs: 27 now sick from Salmonella

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that since the last update on March 29, 2019, illnesses in an additional 10 people and six states have been added to this investigation.

Twenty-seven people infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 17 states.

Two people were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.

Forty-two percent are children aged 12 or younger.

Epidemiologic and laboratory evidence indicate that contact with pet hedgehogs is the likely source of this outbreak.

Don’t kiss or snuggle hedgehogs, because this can spread Salmonella germs to your face and mouth and make you sick.

Don’t let hedgehogs roam freely in areas where food is prepared or stored, such as kitchens.

Clean habitats, toys, and supplies outside the house when possible. Avoid cleaning these items in the kitchen or any other location where food is prepared, served, or stored.

They are not cute and funny. They are Salmonella factories.

Roadkill a harmless all-you-can-eat buffet or Russian roulette

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Roadkill was an underrated 1989 Canadian film by Bruce McDonald that was called “an increasingly weird mix of Heart of Darkness and The Wizard of Oz.”

And about a girl who learns to drive.

There are some food safety aspects to roadkill.

According to Manny Alvarez of Fox News, in 2017, Wisconsin saw nearly 20,000 deer-caused vehicle accidents, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. These accidents usually peak in May, June, October and November, when deer mating and birthing seasons occur?

Wisconsin allows people to register their car-killed deer, bear or turkey online or by phone. Once confirmed, the animal can be removed and used as food without even waiting for a police-issued tag.

But Wisconsin isn’t the only state friendly to roadkill cuisine.

According to The Guardian, over 600 moose are killed in Alaska each year, leaving meat on the road that tallies to thousands of pounds. Rather than wasting it, the state gives the roadkill to charities willing to process and use the animals at their own risk.

Other states that allow roadkill pickups are Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Tennessee. According to the NY Daily News, California is also trying to legalize this practice, which may be further spurred on by the cost of disposing of car-killed animals.

One study by the UCDavis Road Ecology Center counted about 6,600 roadkill instances in California during its study period. These accidents led to an estimated $307 million in expenses for the state, and estimates go as high as $600 million when factoring in accidents unreported to police.

By these numbers, the stakes appear high for officials deciding what to do with road-killed animals. Allowing drivers and bystanders to take the roadkill home seems an easy solution. In fact, the practice has many supporters high up in the ranks.

The PETA website states, “If people must eat animal carcasses, roadkill is a superior option to the neatly shrink-wrapped plastic packages of meat in the supermarket.

“Eating roadkill is healthier for the consumer than meat laden with antibiotics, hormones, and growth stimulants, as most meat is today.”

Gawd.

But there are those nasty bacteria to consider, so roadkill, like any raw product, should be handled with care.

Raw is risky: 19 children develop HUS in France from E. coli O26 linked to raw milk cheese

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Gabrielle Jones, Sophie Lefevre, et al report in Eurosurveillance that from 25 March to 27 April 2019, 19 suspected Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) associated paediatric haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) cases were notified by French hospital paediatric departments to Santé publique France, compared with 5–10 cases during the same period in previous years [1].

Thirteen cases were confirmed as serogroup O26, with whole genome sequencing (WGS) underway for strain comparison. Initial epidemiological investigations using a trawling questionnaire identified the consumption of raw cow’s milk soft cheeses (Saint-Félicien and Saint-Marcellin) as the common link for eight of these 13 cases. Trace-back investigations using supermarket loyalty cards identified a common producer (producer A) of these cheeses for three cases and on the basis of this information a recall was initiated by French health authorities on 27 April 2019 [2]. As at 27 May 2019, investigations identified 16 outbreak cases including 14 paediatric HUS cases and two cases with uncomplicated diarrhoea (one child and one adult). Investigations are ongoing for one suspected case. The 16 outbreak cases reside in six administrative regions in France. All paediatric cases are under 5 years of age; the median age is 22 months (overall age range: 6 months–63 years). Eight cases are female. Date of symptom onset was between 31 March (week 13) and 29 April (week 18). All HUS cases were hospitalised. Thirteen cases received blood and/or platelet transfusion and seven underwent haemodialysis. Six cases had neurological complications, all of them received transfusions and three also had haemodialysis.

The families of all 16 outbreak cases and the suspected case were interviewed about their at-risk exposures during the 10 days before symptom onset. Families of 16 cases (15 outbreak cases and one suspected case) reported the consumption of Saint-Félicien or Saint-Marcellin raw cow’s milk cheeses by either the case (n = 12) or household members (n = 4). One outbreak case did not report consumption of these cheeses. For the 16 cases with reported consumption of these cheeses, trace-back investigations using loyalty cards and supply data from the different shops where the caretakers reported purchasing the cheeses identified a link with producer A for 13 (all outbreak cases).

Producer A manufactured only Saint-Félicien and Saint-Marcellin cheeses. To date, no positive STEC O26 cheese or milk samples have been identified. Investigations, including sampling of the cheeses and trace-back of the milk supply chains, are ongoing.

Four outbreak cases had not consumed the cheeses themselves but a household member had. This suggests the affected child may have been infected via cross contamination (knives, cutting board, hands, etc.). None of the household members reported symptoms of illness, indicating that the cases were unlikely to have been infected by person-to-person transmission. Investigations are ongoing in an attempt to further document the exposures of these cases (consumption of cheeses or other food items cut by the knives or on the same cutting board as the suspected cheeses). Only one in 16 outbreak cases reported a family member with self-limiting diarrhoea (no stool analysis).

Note: If that many people developed HUS, hundreds could have potentially been sickened.

Just cook it doesn’t cut it: 196 sick from E. coli O103 linked to ground beef

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The U.S Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports several states, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service are investigating a multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O103 infections linked to ground beef.

Ill people in this outbreak ate ground beef from many sources. Some ground beef has been recalled, but more product contaminated with E. coli O103 may still be on the market or in freezers.

Restaurants, retailers, and institutions should not sell or serve the following recalled ground beef products because they may be contaminated with E. coli O103 and could make people sick:

Grant Park Packing in Franklin Park, Ill., recalled 53,200 pounds of raw ground beef products on April 24, 2019.

Recalled products were sold in 40-lb. bulk cardboard boxes of “North Star Imports & Sales, LLC. 100% GROUND BEEF BULK 80% LEAN/ 20% FAT” marked “FOR INSTITUTIONAL USE ONLY” with lot code GP.1051.18 and pack dates 10/30/2018, 10/31/2018, and 11/01/2018.

Recalled products are labeled with establishment number “EST. 21781” inside the USDA mark of inspection on the boxes.

K2D Foods, doing business as Colorado Premium Foods, in Carrollton, Ga., recalledexternal icon approximately 113,424 pounds of raw ground beef products on April 23, 2019.

Recalled products were sold in two 24-lb. vacuum-packed packages in cardboard boxes containing raw “GROUND BEEF PUCK” with “Use Thru” dates of 4/14/19, 4/17/19, 4/20/19, 4/23/19, 4/28/19, and 4/30/19.

Recalled products are labeled with establishment number “EST. 51308” inside the USDA mark of inspection.

Investigators continue to trace other sources for ground beef eaten by ill people in this outbreak, and more product contaminated with E. coli O103 may be recalled.

Cook ground beef hamburgers and mixtures such as meatloaf to an internal temperature of 160°F. Use a food thermometer to make sure the meat has reached a safe internal temperature. You can’t tell whether meat is safely cooked by looking at it.

For hamburgers, insert thermometer through the side of the patty until it reaches the middle.

(Piping hot doesn’t cut it, UK).

Young girls in Finland are pretending to ride horses — inside the prancing phenomenon

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As I’m about to watch game 4 of the Stanley Cup final between St. Louis and Boston (that’s ice hockey for my Australian friends, and it’s on in background) I think of the Finnish trend of young girls prancing – pretending to ride horses.

According to a story in People, many young girls in the country have taken up the craft of “hobbyhorsing,” which sees them use a stick equipped with a toy horse’s head to dance and show off their riding skills at events.

While it may seem like the girls are simply pretending to ride their horses, it becomes as genuine as it can get at competitions, where they’ll learn how to care for their hobbyhorse just as if it were a real animal. They even pick its breed and gender.

Becoming a part of the country’s growing hobbyhorse community reportedly allows the girls to express themselves without fear of ridicule in something they may not find in school or in their neighborhood.

“The normal things, that normal girls like, they don’t feel like my things,” 11-year-old hobbyhorse enthusiast Fanny Oikarinen told the N.Y. Times.

 “Some are sports girls,” added Fanny’s friend, Maisa Wallius. “Some are really lonely girls. And some can be the coolest girl at school.”

Enthusiast Alisa Aarniomaki found online stardom thanks to her hobbyhorsing, but despite her popular videos, she was unsure about revealing her skills to kids at school.

Hobbyhorsing got the attention of filmmaker Selma Vilhunen, who released a documentary in 2017 about the craft.

“Little girls are allowed to be strong and wild,” Vilhunen said of hobbyhorsing. “I think the society starts to shape them into a certain kind of quietness when they reach puberty.

If it works for these girls, great. My five daughters all played or play (ice) hockey – the real kind.