Tag Archives: Barfblog

Casey Jacob, guest barfblogger: What to do with breast milk?

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Hans Locher of the Storchen restaurant in Switzerland, experienced “excellent results” in creating novel dishes utilizing his wife’s surplus breast milk after the birth of their daughter 35 years ago. Recently, he noticed several new mothers in his neighborhood and told the Swissinfo website, “One evening I thought that they must have a lot of extra breast milk that I could do something with." His recipe for Chantarelle sauce with breast milk and cognac can be found here.

Moms willing to experiment have also found good use for breast milk in cream soup, once its been bottled up for baby, but sat in the fridge to long to be considered “sterile.” The pot of cream of carrot shown here was reportedly sweeter than recipes using other milks.

Last November, the Associated Press reported that a young mom donated much of her breast milk that was pumped and immediately frozen (since her infant daughter refused to drink from a bottle) to the University of Iowa’s Mother’s Milk Bank.

Several human milk banks exist in the US, and benefit newborns whose mothers are unable to produce enough safe breast milk to sufficiently feed them, as well as a few adults who seek it out as a prescribed cancer treatment.

The Iowa mom hit a snag, though, when 100 ounces of the milk pumped before her enrollment in the program was not accepted as a donation. Therefore, she took out a newspaper ad asking $200 (equivalent to $16 per 8 oz. baby bottle, or $2 per each ounce) for its sale, after confirming that the state of Iowa held no laws against the sale of breast milk. A spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Health was also not aware of any laws in Iowa restricting the sale of breast milk, but said that state health officials advised against it.

Mr. Loucher, who offered less than 50 cents per ounce, was threatened with lawsuits by his canton’s food regulatory body if he purchased human breast milk for his restaurant, because the product was not a registered or regulated food.

Of course, regulation does not ensure safety … but it might do more to encourage it.
 

More listeria revelations: CFIA waited (at least) 5 days to issue advisory, policy on going public seems to suck

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Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper reported Saturday that health officials in Ontario ordered hospitals and nursing homes to stop serving Maple Leaf meats five days before the public was told about a deadly source of food poisoning that has so far claimed 19 lives and left another 60 people seriously ill across Canada.

The CFIA launched its investigation on Aug. 6, after officials at the Ontario Ministry of Health informed it that there was an outbreak of listeriosis in the province. Many local health officials were already grappling with a spike in listeriosis cases, but they did not become aware that the outbreak spanned several provinces until July 30, when they received a directive from the ministry, telling them to urgently report any new cases.

On Aug. 14, health officials in Ontario learned during a telephone conference call with the CFIA that the agency had some test results revealing that Maple Leaf deli meats contained the foodborne bacteria known as Listeria monocytogenes.

The CFIA waited until it had the DNA fingerprint evidence establishing a definitive link before it went public – on Aug. 19, 2008.

CFIA spokesman Garfield Balsom said,

“We had lab results indicating that there was positive listeria in a product and we would issue our normal recall based on that.”

So epidemiology doesn’t count? If CFIA really does not issue public advisories unless it has a positive result, that would explain the low number outbreaks linked to fresh fruits in vegetables in Canada. Who knows how many sick people there are, and how many illnesses and deaths could have been prevented in the current listeriosis outbreak.

A positive listeria sample would have triggered an immediate recall in the U.S. So what is the CFIA policy on going public – on issuing advisories that specific foods may pose an imminent danger to the health of Canadians. CFIA won’t say what their policy is, at least not publicly, but a policy that maligns epidemiology and relies excessively on positive test results – especially when those samples appear to be delivered by stagecoach – is restrictive and reckless.

As past of that accountability, I told the Toronto Star on Thursday that Canada does not need an inquiry and does not need more inspectors, rather,

"People need to do their jobs. The CFIA is accountable to Parliament through the minister of agriculture, so either the minister, or the Prime Minister’s Office, should call the head of CFIA on the carpet and say, `You’ve had this internal report since 2005. Issue some clear guidelines on how to communicate during an outbreak of food-borne illness. Give clear instructions to inspectors and the industry on what is expected to ensure a safe food supply … If you can’t do that, I will find someone else who can – and not some political appointment, someone with a food safety background who will do what is necessary to protect the safety of the Canadian food supply and bolster the Canadian brand in international circles.’"

Such straight talk, especially when it comes to informing the public about health risks, is largely missing in Canada, experts agree.

So while the politicians and unionists pontificate, a columnist at the University of Calgary student paper got the most rightest:

"Canadians have entrusted one single agency, the CFIA, to protect the entire Canadian food supply– we have placed all food security in one basket.

"If the CFIA did not exist, perhaps Canadians would be better off. … The current food inspection system has failed Canadians. Maybe it is time for a change."

As an aside, a columnist with the Ottawa Citizen who fancies himself as some sort of risk guru wrote Saturday that,

“Another clue lies in the number of listeriosis deaths in past years. According to Statistics Canada, there were five in 2000. In 2001, four. In 2002, seven. In 2003, three. In 2004, one. (Data for subsequent years were unavailable.) …

“The Globe also noted the Canadian regulatory standard is weaker than that of the United States, which allows no listeria content at all in ready-to-eat foods. But the Globe did not report that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, roughly 2,500 Americans become seriously ill with listeriosis each year and 500 die.

“Thus the listeriosis fatality rate is far smaller in Canada than the U.S. That, too, does not suggest a crisis.”

The columnist is comparing actual listeria cases in Canada with estimated cases in the U.S. And why no alarm that the most recent numbers in Canada are from 2004?

 

Casey Jacob, guest barfblogger: Swiss restaurant barred from serving human breast milk

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The Swiss restaurant hailed as the inspiration for PETA’s plea to Ben and Jerry’s to replace the cow’s milk in their ice cream with human breast milk is facing legal action if it continues with its plan to use breast milk purchased from new mothers in its soups and sauces.

The public was startled by Hans Loucher’s newspaper advertisements to new mothers to purchase their excess breast milk for $14.50/liter (or about $3.50 per 8oz. baby bottle) for use in his restaurant, the Storchen, whose name ironically refers to a stork in English.

“The mother’s milk is the most natural thing in the world – how can anyone be against it?” Mr. Loucher asked the Times Online. “I served the meals to my friends without telling them about the new ingredient and the feedback was excellent.”

Of course, being a “natural” food does not make it free of disease-causing microorganisms. It would be very difficult to regulate how the milk was handled before purchase by the restaurateur, and it is not likely he possesses the equipment necessary to pasteurize it before use.

Last week, as reported by the Times Online, the canton’s food regulatory body ruled that Mr. Locher would not be able to store the human milk properly nor guarantee that it was fresh and safe for consumption, since the product was not a registered or regulated food. Along with the Association of Swiss Milk Producers, Zurich’s food regulator has threatened lawsuits against Mr. Locher and anyone who provides human milk for his cause.


 

Trendspotting: Shopping cart sanitation

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Some of you may remember the 2004 International Association for Food Protection meting in Phoenix. At a local supermarket I found this sanitizing system for shopping carts displayed prominently. That’s when I started to think, maybe food safety can be marketed.

A few months later and I was in the Gold Coast, Australia, for a food safety meeting. I told one journalist about this new trend I’d observed –always gotta be trendspotting – of more prominent use of sanitizers in grocery stores.

That turned into,

“Doug Powell, a food safety expert from Canada, says a decision to put hand wipes in supermarkets and provide sanitising towels for shopping trollies has been successful in reducing the number of food poisoning cases in the US and Canada.”

And it ran all over Australia.

So I wrote a letter which was published in the Sydney Morning Herald and read in part,

“The use of hand wipes in supermarkets and sanitizing towels for shopping carts has been experimental at best in the U.S., and has not and cannot be correlated with any reduction in foodborne illness (Shoppers urged to clean hands to wipe out food-borne diseases, October 11/04, Sydney Morning Herald).

“However, as the Food Safety Information Council correctly noted, and as I stressed during the interview, any measure — whether on the farm, in processing, at food service, in the home, and yes, at retail — that can enhance food safety awareness should be explored and encouraged.”

Now it appears some such work has been done.

USA Today reports today that supermarkets and other retailers that provide shopping carts are increasingly looking to limit germ exposure for customers and their families.

“A ShopRite supermarket in Passaic, N.J., installed a push-through cleaning machine on Tuesday that sprays each shopping cart between uses with a misty peroxide solution to kill bacteria, according to Jim Kratowicz, president of PureCart Systems, the manufacturer of the machine. …

“Studies conducted in 2006 and 2007 by FoodNet found riding in a shopping cart beside meat and poultry is risky for infants under six months.

“Doing so triples the chance they may contract salmonella and quadruples it for campylobacter, a diarrhea illness, according to Olga Henao, an epidemiologist for the CDC.

“Infants can become ill when they transfer bacteria from the packaging into their mouths, Henao said. Also, if raw juices leak out onto the cart, it can create a bacteria risk for the next infant in the cart, she said.”

Trendspotting is just so hip. Here’s Demetri Martin with his own trendspotting.
 

Barfblog: fart and vomit edition

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A West Virginia man who police said passed gas and fanned it toward a patrolman has been charged with battery on a police officer.

Jose A. Cruz, 34, of Clarksburg, was pulled over early Tuesday for driving without headlights, police said. According to the criminal complaint, Cruz smelled of alcohol, had slurred speech and failed three field sobriety tests before he was handcuffed and taken to a police station for a breathalyzer test.

As Patrolman T.E. Parsons prepared the machine, Cruz scooted his chair toward Parsons, lifted his leg and "passed gas loudly," the complaint said.

"The gas was very odorous and created contact of an insulting or provoking nature with Patrolman Parsons," the complaint alleged.

Meanwhile in Tempe, eight to 10 members of an Arizona State University fraternity are believed to have caused a car accident by vomiting milk onto traffic below an ASU footbridge on University Drive Tuesday night.

The prank caused a woman to rear-end another vehicle at about 6 p.m. after that vehicle stopped to avoid the vomit.

It is unknown why the men were drinking and vomiting the milk.
 

Listeria has been my worst nightmare for the past 9 months

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I’m a self-described food safety nerd. I don’t hide from this obsession, I embrace it.  But my fixation on everything food safety has led to much stress lately — for the past 9 months my food safety spidey-sense has been heightened more than normal as Dani and I have been expecting a baby.

And he finally arrived last week.

Our little dude, Jack Neil Chapman, showed up Friday morning at 4:11am (Yes, the Neil part is named after the greatest Canadian singer/songwriter, Neil Young — I’ll fight anyone who disagrees, Ari Gold style, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGVoLsDS3t8&e)

Throughout Dani’s pregnancy I became the food police in our house — no soft cheeses or cold deli meats made it to Dani’s plate, most didn’t even make it in the house. Everything (and I mean everything) has been temped during cooking. I read pretty well every paper I could on listeria, and Doug and I discussed the merits of broad food surveys and listeria growth in blue-veined cheese. It was a bit ridiculous, but I hear that first time parents sometimes can be obsessive.

During the recent Canadian listeria outbreaks I selfishly felt vindicated for keeping the products out of our house — our view was that no matter what type of food safety system food processors had, we weren’t taking the risk. Maple Leaf is a huge company that can afford lots of food safety controls, spoke about their commitment to food safety, and even used the food safety culture term Doug and I are so fond of. But 18 people have so far died from listeria in their products.

When I held Jack for the first time, about 30 seconds after he was born, I first thought "Wow, you’re tiny and light, and you don’t smell as manky as I had thought you would" and soon after I thought about the parents, people just like us, who have been recently affected by listeria.  The victims include at least one miscarriage and  six babies born prematurely in Quebec resulting from the consumption of soft cheeses. A 6-week old Manitoba infant born with a listeria, not linked to either Maple Leaf or Quebec soft cheeses outbreak, also died last week. Those are the ones we know about.

And then I realized that, although I thought I did a great job managing risks in our house, I and the rest of the food safety world have probably failed many out there who haven’t reduced risks.  Not the individuals who made the choice to eat risky foods, but the parents who have never heard about listeria, the ones who ate risky foods without knowing that listeria is 20 times more likely to infect pregnant women or that listeria infections during preganancy are likely to cause miscarriages or stillbirth.   Who knows what effect our risk-reduction practices had on Dani’s pregnancy. Maybe things would have been fine without being so strict, but we weren’t interested in taking the chance.

I’m all about informed decisions around risk. I even think there is a place for raw milk consumption for adults.  But we had the info to make the decisions.  Info that came from a variety of places (for us it was primary resources, outbreak reports and review papers). Other parents rely on food safety professionals, like the health authorities, for info.

Last weekend was all about Jack, and I didn’t get back into reading FSNet until yesterday morning (I’m getting quite good at holding him and reading emails at the same time) and I came across Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones’ advice concerning listeria, including the below:
*Wash your hands. This will help avoid many kinds of infections. Wash your hands in warm soapy water before preparing food, afterwards, and again before eating.
*Read labels and follow cooking and storage instructions for all foods. Make sure to check the “best before” date.
*Freeze or consume leftovers within four days of cooking. Always reheat leftovers until steaming hot before eating.
*Keep refrigerators clean and at a temperature below 4 C, or 40 F. Listeria can grow in the fridge, but the colder it is, the slower it grows. Install a thermometer in your fridge to be sure.
Those tips apply to all of us, all the time, and not just during an outbreak.

There are so many holes in his list of advice, many have nothing to do with listeria, and I don’t think there is evidence that supports many of his statements. Following the list of consumer blames, Butler-Jones did get into listeria with feel-good language: "For seniors, pregnant women, and those with weakened immune systems, or for those serving or caring for anyone in these groups, some extra precautions are very important as [various] foods pose some risk."  He ended his advice with "these steps form a simple approach to food safety."

The most important message missing from his list was: Don’t eat this stuff unless you are cool with the risks.

I sent an email to Doug (the subject line was "what a f*ing joke"), saying where was Dr. Butler-Jones when the outbreak was announced a month ago.  Did it really take a month for his staff to wake up and get some info out there?  A question echoed in the upcoming Canadian Medical Association Journal which says that the Public Health Agency of Canada should be the primary source of information for the public during a crisis and that Canada’s chief public health officer has not been the lead voice to inform the public.

So I guess my preachy message is along the lines of don’t eat poop (especially baby poop, though Jack’s hasn’t started to smell yet).We need to do a better job of creating a dialogue around food safety risks with specific target audiences — especially those at higher risk for foodborne illnesses.  And though the bureaucrats talk a lot, they need to be the real leaders in information — and forget about the fuzzy language that will make the minister happy.  Tell people to stay away from the risky stuff.
 

Casey Jacob, guest barfblogger: PETA wants human breast milk in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream

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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow’s milk used in their ice cream products with human breast milk.

"The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn’t make sense," said PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman in a press release. "Everyone knows that ‘the breast is best,’ so Ben & Jerry’s could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk."

Whatever floats your boat, I guess… as long as it’s pasteurized for the kiddos. And, yes, evidence suggests that Ben and Jerry are fans of pasteurization.

A blog post in The PETA Files explains the inspiration behind their request. “Storchen, a (very innovative) restaurant in Switzerland, has just announced that they will be unveiling a new menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent human breast milk,” blogged Carrie Ann Harris. “Some folks might think that drinking human breast milk is strange … but really, what’s even stranger is that humans are the only species on the planet that drinks the milk of another species.”

Ben and Jerry’s responded by saying, “We applaud PETA’s novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother’s milk is best used for her child.”
 

Canadian food safety bureaucrats still aren’t that into you

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If Canadian cattle or chickens get sick, the public is told all about it.

If Canadian people get sick, not so much.

That’s what I wrote in Dec. 2006 in a piece called, Sorry, bureaucrats just aren’t that into you.

I’ve said the same thing for the past month as the listeria in Canadian cold-cuts outbreak became public. The latest figures show at least 18 dead and 60 confirmed or suspected ill.

The several-week delay in telling Canadians about listeria in Maple Leaf cold-cuts, coupled with the self-congratulatory and exceedingly false statements about the superiority of Canadian disease surveillance is just another episode in the arrogant and dysfunctional father-knows-best approach to providing health advice practiced by various Canadian authorities.

Dr. Phil would say the relationship between officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Canadian public is like a couple headed for divorce: they don’t speak unless forced to, and when asked, it’s denial, deceit and deception.

Rob Cribb of the Toronto Star reports today that a major review of Canada’s food recall system three years ago identified serious problems that experts say continue to threaten public safety.

“Spotty inspections across the country, delays in warning the public about tainted food and a lack of follow-up to prevent repeat outbreaks are documented in the government report, obtained through access to information legislation.

The 2005 Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) review predicts concerns that have emerged from the current Maple Leaf listeria outbreak that has claimed 18 lives.

"There is no clear policy on when a recall requires public warning," the report states.

Timely public disclosure of food risks re-emerged as an issue last month when it took three weeks for officials to warn the public of tainted Maple Leaf meat. …

In the aftermath of the outbreak, public health officials and politicians were quick to reassure Canadians that the country has one of the best food safety systems in the world. But behind the scenes, the review documents a history of serious internal concerns: "Most findings in this report have previously been identified by the various parties involved in food recalls."

The CFIA audit paints a picture of a sometimes-chaotic system where turf wars can impact the public’s need to know about food warnings. …

Doug Powell, a Canadian food safety expert working at Kansas State University, said any warnings officials received from the review appear to have been ignored. "It’s contentment with mediocrity. The bureaucrats don’t seem to care very much. They all talk a good game, but they never think it will happen to them, so they just go on."

I can imagine Dr. Phil asking in his Texas drawl "How’s that working out for ya’ll?"

The most frustrating part is that CFIA is staffed with individuals who are excellent public advocates and spokespeople. On issues relating to mad cow disease or avian influenza, CFIA goes out of its way to communicate with Canadians, perhaps fearing that any crisis of confidence will reduce sales and impact Canadian farms.???

Yet when it comes to the 11 to 13 million foodborne illnesses in Canada each and every year, CFIA has adopted a policy of don’t ask, don’t tell. ???Maybe Dr. Phil can get the public and CFIA into a relationship based on open communication, trust, and respect, but I doubt it. Time to move on.
 

Don Schaffner, guest barfblogger: Looking for ugly in the food industry

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One of my favorite books of all time is "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelley.  It’s a non-fiction book that deals with understanding complex  systems.  Kelley is a bit of a polymath.  He was a hippie, who edited the hippie bible, the whole earth catalog.  He was there at the beginning of the internet with the creation of the Whole Earth ‘Lectric Linkup.  I’ve starting reading his blog recently, and he  always has something interesting to say… like how to build foam robots.

Anyway, he recently blogged about "Looking For Ugly" where he writes "Preventing errors within extremely complicated technological systems is often elusive. The more complex the system, the more complex the pattern of error".  He’s writing generally, but I immediately thought about the food system.

Kelley goes on to write specifically about the airline industry, saying "The safety of aircraft is so essential it is regulated in hopes that regulation can decrease errors. Error prevention enforced by  legal penalties presents a problem, though: severe penalties discourages disclosure of problems early
enough to be remedied.  To counter that human tendency, the US FAA has generally allowed airlines to admit errors they find without punishing them."

Hmmm.  "severe penalties discourages disclosure of problems early enough to be remedied".  Sounds to me like he’s talking about a "zero tolerance" vs. regulatory limit for Listeria.

Of course the counter argument (for the airline industry) also maps well to the food industry, as Kelley writes "The general agreement in the industry is that a policy of unpunished infractions encourages quicker repairs and reduces the chances of major failures. Of course not punishing companies for
safety violations rubs some people the wrong way."

Yup.  He’s nailed it.  This idea dovetails nicely with Doug’s call to "make all data of Listeria testing in plants public so others in the industry can improve and consumer confidence can be enhanced with data not just words."

Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body

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That’s the name of an exhibit set to open yesterday at the South Florida Science Museum and expected to topple previous attendance records.

The Palm Beach Post reports The exhibition is based on a series of books by science teacher Sylvia Branzei whose research found that the average person swallows a quart of snot per day.

Other features of the exhibit include:

• guess the correct sequence of events that sets off barfing at the Vomit Center;

• match horrible odors to their correct source at Y U Stink;

• learn how vibrations of skin around the anus create a fart sound at Toot Toot; and,

• scale a 12-foot wall of pimples, warts and other skin blemishes.

Jennifer Cooper, a science educator at the museum, said,

"This is kind of a learning-in-disguise exhibit. They’re learning without feeling like they’re learning."

And you wonder why we call it barfblog.