Tag Archives: Food

Do you feel lucky? Some food good long past expiration date

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A new survey sponsored by ShelfLifeAdvice.com, a food storage reference website that estimates U.S. consumers unnecessarily discard billions of dollars of food a year, found that three in four U.S. consumers believe certain foods are unsafe to eat after the date on the packaging has passed.

But, according to Andy Miller of msnbc.com, experts say that if most foods are stored properly, they can be safe for days after the ‘use by’ date.

Ira Allen, a Food and Drug Administration spokesman, said the food date does not equate to safety, adding,

“If something is past its date, and stored properly, often it’s OK."

Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety, said foods that can last far beyond an expiration date with proper storage include flour, sugar, rice and cake mixes, adding.

“There’s no reason that dry goods wouldn’t be safe except if it becomes wet.’’
 

‘Be the bug’ and beware cross-contamination

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I routinely appropriate lines from popular movies.

When trying to explain the risks of cross-contamination and dangerous microorganisms moving around, I invoke the scene from Caddyshack where Chevy Chase explains to Danny how the universe works and “to be the ball.”

Be the bug.

Produce, pet food, pizza and pot pies — the bugs that make humans barf are showing up in wild and wacky places. And they move around. A lot.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control updated the ongoing outbreak of Salmonella infection, serotype I 4,[5],12:i:- linked to frozen mice fed to reptiles. As of July 29, 2010, 34 were sick from 17 states. Hundreds were sick in the U.K. last year from the same bug from the same supplier.

Pet owners, be the bug, and consider all the opportunities that bug has to move from dead, frozen mouse to counters, dishes, hands, and the environment. CDC says,

* Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water immediately after handling frozen rodents used as food for reptiles, or anything in the area where they are stored, thawed, prepared, and fed to reptiles.

* Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water immediately after handling live rodents and reptiles, or anything in the area where they live and roam.

* Keep frozen rodents away from areas where food and drink are stored, prepared, served, or consumed.

* Avoid using microwave ovens or kitchen utensils used for human food to thaw frozen rodents used for reptile feed. Any kitchen surfaces that come in contact with frozen rodents should be disinfected afterwards.

* Do not let children younger than 5 years of age or people with weakened immune systems handle frozen rodents.

Be the bug.

Florida not inspecting food at hospitals, nursing homes

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In a few weeks we’ll be leaving for a month of seaside (Gulf-side) writing in Florida.

As food safety dude and axman Roy Costa has pointed out, I sure hope I don’t end up in a Florida hospital, because no one is doing food inspections.

The Department of Health told Associated Press yesterday it’s working with other agencies to figure out who will handle inspections at the state’s 286 hospitals and 671 nursing homes. Meanwhile, the Department of Children & Families is temporarily taking over the inspection of day-care centers, which were also part of the cuts.

The health department had been inspecting facilities four times a year until Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill (HB 5311) stopping them. Experts say people at these facilities are the most vulnerable for foodborne illnesses.

DCF Secretary George Sheldon said his agency decided to fill the gap at day cares and will temporarily oversee inspections because “it was the right thing to do.”

DCF employees already inspect day-care facilities for safety issues. Sheldon said the Legislature was trying to consolidate inspections to prevent multiple state agencies from visiting the same facilities to inspect different standards.

The health department inspected more than 15,000 day-care centers last year, finding nearly 12,000 violations, including food from unsafe sources, poor hygiene and contaminated equipment.

I don’t really care who inspects as long as there is accountability in the system through — at a minimum — public availability of results and mandatory training for anyone who handles and prepares food.
 

Are catered meals the biggest source of foodborne illness in America?

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In the wake of several high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illness at catered events – 180 people barfing after 3 events prepared by an unlicensed caterer in North Dakota last year, and 57 people barfing at events at an Illinois catering hall this month – MSNBC reports today catered events make more people sick than outbreaks involving meals at restaurants or prepared at home.

Uh-huh.

The story says that new figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control “show that illnesses from reported outbreaks of food poisoning linked to catering outpace those from restaurants or home cooking. 36 illnesses per catering outbreak; 13 at restaurants or home-prepared meals.

Between 1998 and 2008, there were 833 outbreaks of foodborne illness traced to caterers, incidents that sparked 29,738 illnesses, 345 hospitalizations and 4 deaths, according to Dana Cole, a CDC researcher.

Proportionately, the outbreaks from catering are higher than the 22,600 illnesses from 1,546 reported home cooking outbreaks and the 101,907 illnesses from 7,921 outbreaks in restaurants and delis.

“Partly that’s because at larger banquets and weddings the number of people served tend to be larger,” Cole said.

Uh-huh.

I hadn’t heard about this new data, and can’t comment on its validity because it hasn’t, as far as I can tell, been published anywhere. One, Dana Cole, and a couple of others from CDC are scheduled to present results next Tuesday at the annual meeting of the International Association for Food Protection in a talk entitled, Sources and settings: contaminated food vehicles and the settings of foodborne disease outbreaks.

Usually the media stuff happens after the data is at least presented, and preferably after the paper is peer-reviewed and published. I look forward to reading the scoring system the researchers uses: if spinach is contaminated on a farm with E. coli O157:H7 and makes people barf after eating at a catered event, a restaurant, or a home, how is that scored? And does it matter?

Jacob, C.J. and Powell, D.A. 2009. Where does foodborne illness happen—in the home, at foodservice, or elsewhere—and does it matter? Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, 6(9): 1121-1123.
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/fpd.2008.0256

??Foodservice professionals, politicians, and the media are often cited making claims as to which locations most often expose consumers to foodborne pathogens. Many times, it is implied that most foodborne illnesses originate from food consumed where dishes are prepared to order, such as restaurants or in private homes. The manner in which the question is posed and answered frequently reveals a speculative bias that either favors homemade or foodservice meals as the most common source of foodborne pathogens. Many answers have little or no scientific grounding, while others use data compiled by passive surveillance systems. Current surveillance systems focus on the place where food is consumed rather than the point where food is contaminated. Rather than focusing on the location of consumption—and blaming consumers and others—analysis of the steps leading to foodborne illness should center on the causes of contamination in a complex farm-to-fork food safety system.

Ringo says, yum yum hospital food; hospital kitchen inspections in Philadelphia region yield range of results

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Don Sapatkin of the Philadelphia Inquirer has been writing for at least a year about deficiencies in the antiquated Philly system and that even with improvements in inspections, most food establishments don’t publicize even their most positive inspection reports, and no government in the Philadelphia region requires that they be tacked up for easy viewing like a menu.

Last week, Sapatkin turned his investigative focus to Philadelphia’s hospital kitchens, and found they were far more likely than food establishments as a whole to be out of compliance with food-safety regulations, averaging six violations apiece in their most recent quarterly inspections by the city health department.

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, routinely named among the nation’s best medical centers, was cited 14 times. The largely organic kitchen at Cancer Treatment Centers of America’s Eastern Regional Medical Center in the Northeast had eight violations.

And in New Jersey, Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mount Holly was rated "conditional satisfactory" after inspections in November and last month found several violations.

"Many live German cockroaches observed on or at base of wall in dish-washing room, dead roaches observed under shelving in paper storage, next to ice machine, and behind refrigerator in vegetable prep area," a Burlington County health department inspector wrote June 28.

All three hospitals said the violations had been quickly corrected.

Food generally isn’t considered when patients choose a hospital. Yet a review of inspection reports from around the region found scores of violations, as well as wide variations in what was cited from county to county. Some evidence suggests that the scrutiny is more rigorous in the city.

Inspections are a far-from-perfect measure of risk: Inspectors found nothing amiss before or after an outbreak sickened 54 people and killed three patients at a Louisiana state hospital in May. And experts say most hospital kitchens go overboard with food safety, cooking so thoroughly to kill microbes that flavors may be lost.

Sheri Morris, food program manager at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, which regulates restaurants and stores but not hospitals, said,

"Anybody who has a compromised immune system is going to be more susceptible to food-borne illness. And hospitals are full of people with compromised immune systems.”

Since inspections are a snapshot of a constantly changing kitchen, they have limited ability to predict either safety or danger. "Just because you went in there and the place had no violations doesn’t mean that 15 minutes later the place didn’t go to pot," said Dennis J. Bauer, food-safety coordinator for the Bucks County Health Department.

Has ‘food safety culture’ jumped the shark?

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The first thing Bob Dudley, the new chief executive of embattled oil giant BP, vowed to do was "change the culture" of how the company tackles safety issues after the Gulf of Mexico disaster and promised to "make sure this does not happen again."

Same thing after Bhopal and the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

Me and Chapman and Frank Yiannas and Chris Griffith have been pushing the concept of food safety culture for years as an enhancement to inspection, regulation and training.

Culture encompasses the shared values, mores, customary practices, inherited traditions, and prevailing habits of communities. It’s when one food service or farm or retail employee says to another, dude, wash your hands, without being told by the boss or the inspector.

But now that safety culture is being touted by BP, the concept may have jumped the shark.

Jumping the shark is an idiom used to describe the moment of downturn for a previously successful enterprise. The phrase was originally used to denote the point in a television program’s history where the plot spins off into absurd story lines or unlikely characterizations. These changes were often the result of efforts to revive interest in a show whose audience had begun to decline, usually through the employment of different actors, writers or producers.

The phrase jump the shark refers to the climactic scene in "Hollywood," a three-part episode opening the fifth season of the American TV series Happy Days in September 1977. In this story, the central characters visit Los Angeles, where Fonzie (Henry Winkler), wearing swim trunks and his leather jacket, jumps over a confined shark on water skis, answering a challenge to demonstrate his bravery. The series continued for nearly seven years after that, with a number of changes in cast and situations.
 

A day in the life of an airline meal

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AOL Travel reported on how those airplane flights that still serve food actually go about preparing the food (especially after the lousy inspection reviews compiled by USA Today).

AOL decided to track a single airline meal, from the time it is planned and placed on an airline’s menu to the moment it arrives at the passenger’s seat.

Or, given the bad press for Gate Gourmet and their bad food safety inspections, the story was a standard PR placement. But some elements of interest:

6 p.m. The passenger confirms her seat assignment – 31A – for tomorrow’s flight from Chicago to London. She doesn’t know it, but her meal choice is getting ready for takeoff, too.

She’s going to select grilled chicken breast with orange sesame ginger sauce, served with jasmine white rice and a side of broccoli and carrots. It’s taken a year of development for this dish to make it to the United menu, with three teams of 35 people considering menu items, procuring ingredients, testing and tasting food, and monitoring the quality of the product to the passenger.

Dishes for United’s Flight 958, which departs in 18 hours, are getting washed at Gate Gourmet catering, right on O’Hare property. In a green effort to conserve resources and reduce waste, United doesn’t have a lot of disposable products, according to Stuart Benzal, United’s managing director of onboard global product. Instead, bowls, plates, cups and other utensils are hauled off the aircraft after each flight and sent to one of the 52 kitchens that United uses around the world.

Most kitchens operate 24 hours. "After 10 at night, it goes into equipment processing (mode)" says Benzal, which means cleaning hundreds of plates, bowls, cups, saucers, trays and utensils for the next day.

2 a.m. Alison Hough, director of product planning, planned and ordered chicken for this meal months ago. She knows, based on customer preferences and numbers, how many chickens to order and send to the caterers. Her team ensures that there is fresh, quality product for all the major components of the meal, while smaller detail items like seasonings are covered by the catering kitchen.

5:30 a.m. Chef Danielle Nahal and her team of eight to 12 cooks and food handlers, arrive at Gate Gourmet to begin the day’s preparations. The kitchen will be making lots of meals today for flights to London, Asia, Amsterdam and Paris, so the prep work covers 250-300 servings of each entrée. Though the kitchen is very large, it is also very busy and crowded. Nearly 300 people work on a shift, and the kitchen runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It’s very cold in the kitchens to ensure food safety and food integrity. "You can’t just walk into a kitchen," Benzal says. "You fill out a health form, go to a wash station and wash your hands, use disinfectant, wear a lab coat; your hair and head are covered. There’s even a face mask," he says. "You look more like a surgeon than someone preparing to chop salads." This chilled environment is maintained throughout the production.

6.00 a.m. Twelve hours before flight time, United delivers the final counts and order for meals, including the chicken with orange sesame glaze. Gate Gourmet accepts the order and begins processing to the count specifications. "We’re producing in very large batches," says Chef Nahal. "Sauces are made by the gallon. Vegetables are done by the pound – about 500 pounds [for one day’s meal preparation]."

Executive Chef Gerry Gulli started testing the flavors and sauces for his mandarin chicken nearly a year ago. Since United likes to change out the menus every three months, and needs to have at least two economy meal choices per flight, Chef Gulli is a busy guy. The chefs must also adjust recipes for the diminished taste buds people experience while in flight. "We compensate for that with cooking techniques, using bold flavors and marinades," says Chef Nahal.

9:00 a.m. The grilled chicken breast with orange sesame ginger glaze is being prepared according to recipe instructions. Color photos guide the preparers, so they know exactly how the plate should appear before it arrives at seat 31A.

11.00 a.m. The plated meal for the passenger in 31A, along with nearly 250 other entrées, gets loaded onto trays. Trays are inserted into trolleys, where they sit in a blast chiller until called for delivery to the aircraft.

2:30 p.m. The truck for Flight 958 delivers the meals for the flight, including the chicken with orange sesame glaze destined for seat 31A today. Each high-loader truck takes a trolley of trays, and the driver puts them onto the aircraft. The meals fit into a refrigerated compartment. It will take the driver about 30 minutes to get to the aircraft, then another 45 minutes to an hour to load the meals onto the plane.

6:00 p.m. Flight 958 takes off, bound for London. Flight attendants take economy class meal orders from the three selections: mandarin chicken, a pasta dish, and a beef meal. The passenger in seat 31A chooses the chicken with orange sesame sauce.

7:00 p.m. Flight attendants are busy heating the fully cooked but cold meals in a convection oven. The convection oven circulates the hot air and ensures meals are heated evenly and at the same temperature. It takes about 20 minutes to bring them to dining temperature, and then they are loaded onto carts to head down the aisle.

8:00 p.m. The orange chicken with sesame ginger glaze arrives at seat 31A, hot, colorful, and prepared to Chef Gulli’s specifications.

New IFT report reviews the role of food science and technology in providing, uh, food

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The world’s food system provides food for nearly seven billion people each day. But according to a new report from the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), more advances are critical for an adequate food supply, which must nearly double during the next several decades, for the future world population.

The first-of-its-kind scientific review, to be published in the September 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, takes a historical look at the food system, the many challenges ahead, and the crucial role of food science and technology in meeting the needs of the growing population.

The report summarizes the historical developments of agriculture and food technology, details various food manufacturing methods, and explains why food is processed. The report also describes and stresses why further advancements in food science and technology are needed — to more equitably meet growing world population food needs with enhanced food security in developing countries and solutions to complex diet-and-health challenges in industrialized countries.
Impact of Modern Food Manufacturing Methods

John Floros, PhD, of the Pennsylvania State University Department of Food Science said,

"Thanks to food science and technology and modern food manufacturing methods, nutritional deficiencies and inconsistent food availability can be addressed, harvests can be protected, and various commodities can be transformed into new products having specific nutrients for better health and wellness. However, this success has distanced consumers from the agricultural origins of today’s food products and understanding of why processing is important. As a result, there are concerns and misconceptions regarding food safety, and the food system’s effect on health and the environment.”

Uh-oh. That sounds condescending.
 

Hundreds of Texas food makers unlicensed, avoided inspections

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Hundreds of businesses across Texas have been manufacturing and selling food without a state license and, in some cases, have escaped health inspections intended to ensure the safety of those products.

The Dallas Morning News reports this morning the businesses were flushed out in a statewide crackdown on unlicensed food manufacturers, begun last year by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the health department, said,

"Many of the companies we have discovered are small operations that were simply unaware they needed a state license. For the most part, they have been more than willing to get into compliance with us. … Some of them did have safety issues. Most were corrected on the spot or we’re working with them to get them into compliance."

The state has identified 355 companies that appear to be producing and selling a wide variety of eatable products – from barbecue sauce in Fort Worth to pepper jelly in Dallas to ice cream in Houston – all without obtaining a manufacturing license from the state.

The state went searching for unlicensed food manufacturers in the embarrassing aftermath of last year’s discovery of an unlicensed peanut-processing plant in West Texas.

The Plainview plant, owned by a subsidiary of Peanut Corporation of America, had operated for four years without any state-required safety inspections.

None of these new cases investigated so far rise to the level of the peanut plant, which closed in February 2009 after salmonella was detected in the plant. A subsequent state inspection found rodent parts and feathers in a crawl space above the peanut production line.
 

Salmonella at Illinois golf course continues to grow; 29 confirmed sick; 50 additional cases suspected

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I rarely golf anymore. Same thing happened when I had young kids before. Although Amy insists it’s no problem for me to disappear for 6 hours to hit a little white ball, it just doesn’t seem cool. And it’s boring. I miss hockey.

But me and Chapman have witnessed some terrible food safety at golf courses over the years.

In August, 2005, during the halfway point of the annual International Association for Food Protection golf tournament in Baltimore, a burley, 50-ish goateed he-man requested his hamburger be cooked, "Bloody … with cheese."

His sidekick piped up, "Me too."

Our golf foursome of food safety types were alternately alarmed and amazed, but ultimately resigned to conclude that much of what passes for food safety advice falls on deaf ears.

I asked the kid flipping burgers if he had a meat thermometer.

He replied, snickering, "Yeah, this is a pretty high-tech operation."

The young woman taking orders glanced about, and then confided that she didn’t think there was a meat thermometer anywhere in the kitchen; this, at a fancy golf course catering to weddings and other swanky functions along with grunts on the golf course.

The Cook County Department of Public Health continues to investigate an outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis at the Skokie Country Club in Glencoe, IL. Currently, there are 29 laboratory-confirmed cases including seven hospitalizations associated with this outbreak.

CCDPH officials continue to follow-up on more than 50 additional reports of gastrointestinal illness from individuals who ate at the country club.